The problem with a mental illness being derived by a set of certain symptoms, is that divergence from the norm is defined subjectively.
How I Became The Broken Woman
Illegitimacy was in my blood, and it had tainted me. By the circumstances of my birth my honour was smirched, I was already a broken woman.
How I learned that Mental Illness was not a Personal Failure
Achievement and failure exist only as a construct, a way to judge others and my sickness, my health and my worth has nothing to do with either.
TBINAA | Why I’m Grateful I Have a Borderline Personality Disorder Diagnosis
I googled ‘famous people who have borderline’ but I shouldn’t have. Amy Winehouse, Marilyn Monroe, Britney Spears. All touted as hysterical, unstable women.
“But I Can Still Cook!”
This world built me without boundaries, brought me up to accept authority, to obey and to work in the system. I was preprogrammed to play my docile part.
The Gift of Amorality and Alcohol in Dark Times
But the loss of religion, shame and guilt left me without morals. Quite by chance, I found that I was amoral by choice.
Reflections on Losing My Mind
Memory loss is one of the symptoms of living with high anxiety, which in itself is one of the symptoms of complex trauma..
No, It’s Not Your Parents’ Fault
Similarly if you experience insecure attachment as a child, all other things being equal, your mind will default to attach insecurely as an adult.
The Hovel (Building a Self after Maternal Narcissism)
What is here? Neglect is here. Overgrown plants are here. This hovel has never been occupied, never lived in, loved or cared for. It is dirty and lonely. It is private. It is the core of all things.
Why saying ‘Fuck Yes’ Is Impossible for the Emotionally Blind
Some people will rarely experience that hopping up and down to have sex. Some people will never feel a ‘fuck yes’ about anything. They will make their decisions based on past experience and educated guesses more than a soul-thrilling desire to go for it. They are the emotionally blind.
The Surprising Upsides of an Atrocious Memory
At twelve years old, I experienced a car accident which must have had more of an impact than the months I don’t recall and I drank my way through my twenties, actively trying to forget many things, which I’m pretty sure had an even larger impact.
When the Abused, Become the Abuser
Yet emotional abuse is incredibly damaging, perhaps in part because it cannot be recognised and dealt with in the same way. Emotional abuse gets swept under the carpet because it is supported and perpetuated by society as a whole.
Like The Poppy
When my self esteem was low, my relationships were abusive. Yet I always assumed that when my self-esteem was higher that my relationships would be healthy.
How Our Disgust for Abuse Erases the Abused
We are programmed as human beings with a biological reaction called ‘disgust’ and as a society, have reinforced this through any number of mechanisms to be able to live together. It’s part of the reason why so many stories of abuse remain untold and why many abusers can go on abusing, sometimes over decades. Abusees become disgusting by their association to abuse. Their stories are often doubted, shunned or dismissed as inconsequential.
Why Compassion for Abusers is Necessary For Healing
I write not to vilify her. I write because I own my story. I write to assert my existence. I write because silence around abuse, even emotional abuse, gives it the authority and space to continue.
Being A Shapeshifter
The desire to change beckons. The voice tickles and taunts as it invites me out to play and it says… time to change, time to have fun, why so serious?
Beware of Feeding Sharks
Addiction might be called a curse, but that’s only one way to look at it. Alcohol addiction used to be a way of tapping into a power I didn’t have, a release of pain I had trapped inside me.
Child Knows Best
Agency was conspicuous by its absence in my upbringing. My adoptive mother neither trusted in me, nor in my agency and this might be regarded by many as wise. After all what can a child know about the consequences of their decisions?
Otherwise Known As The Human Condition
Twenty years later those two people are now strangers and our story is one of the human condition, of love and tragedy. It was inevitable. And so I simply sigh, close the book and move on.
The Beautiful Cracks
I built an armour called ‘fuck you’. It shielded me from the pain. But also from the joy. I built it from a place of indifference and it became me.
Can You Keep Your Head When All Around Are Losing Theirs?
My thumbs are hurting and my past me is whispering in my ear. She’s saying to me, watch out, danger is coming. Rejection is coming. Conflict is coming.
Are We Only Truly Free After Our Parents Die?
But although I drifted aimlessly on the open seas, buffeted by the storms I conjured myself from my grief, I also found that had the tools to fashion an oar.
The Battle to Lose Weight vs. Accepting Yourself As You Are
Every few hours we must stop and refuel. Seeking high calorie food conveys a clear evolutionary advantage as does immediate consumption (in case that wildebeest eats it first).
Hollywood, The Unlikely Therapist
Those films which make you cry tap into your deepest longings. To be loved, to be the rescued child, to be the winner. We’ve all of us gone through trauma.
Can We Trust Self-Help?
We are all vulnerable with our own individual life circumstances. And with the increased accessibility of information we are also more likely to seek out the quick fix solution because quite simply it is in our nature.
The Theory behind the Drama Triangle
The way that less emotionally mature people try to get love is by playing the drama triangle, which is what I did (and sometimes still do).
How my Therapist Helped Me Love After Maternal Narcissism
Take responsibility for your feelings. You are in charge of them. But that’s difficult. Because we need to feel angry. We’re allowed to feel angry.
So You Think You’re Enlightened. You’re Not.
I learn as much as I can about the possible consequences of my actions given the games we play. So I can reduce the drama.
Family Is What You Make It
My family was not one I was born to, it was one I made and continue to make on a daily basis. My family is a group of people who I trust and whose support I use to empower myself to grow in this world. I have relatives of course, but they are not who I consider my family.
Is Loving Without Attachment An Enlightened Disorder?
Lack of object constancy occurs in adults when there is a failure to form normal attachments to primary care giving figures in early childhood.
Being Myself in Public
If I enable a lie, it will take away a piece of me. Sometimes I think I am driven by sensationalism – a hangover of my desire for attention. That’s a part of it (and that’s the truth). But my experimentation with life, my experience, is my own way of determining what makes me happy outside of what society tells me makes me happy, and what makes me, me.
Who’s Behind the Mask?
I know fear. I have felt it. What happens if you let go of the mask and there is nothing behind it? What if you are nothing good?
Not Giving a Shit is a Good Thing (Part 3)
The most useful tool I’ve discovered on our life journey is compassionate honesty. It heals so many wounds. This month has given me the chance to compassionately and honestly re-examine the relationship between my adopted Mother and I, to see whether the wound has healed between us. But my mother continues to want to play the game of ‘who-is-right-and-wrong’, and … Read More
Another Day, Another Suicide
Discover the truth about your own motivations. Then discover that even your truth is not constant and be able to accept this. Truth changes, which means that to be a seeker is not a destination, but a never ending path (and then you die).
Becoming Aware of the Codependency Matrix
It is always a matter of self-protection, or indeed what we believe to be self-protection… which is why stopping playing it seems counter intuitive.
Have You Consented to Your Life?
If consent cannot happen without the ability to make a free and informed choice, then chances are we do not give our consent freely about anything at all.
How You Manifest Your (Painful) Reality
Once upon a time someone you loved told you that you were not perfect. You internalized it and it became your belief. And so you acted accordingly.
Trying to Heal After Maternal Narcissism
I want to forgive. I don’t want to be the victim. But I don’t know how not to be…
The Magnificence of Me
I cannot admit I am magnificent in public, or even in private, because doing so would turn me into a person I myself dislike. Someone big headed and cocky. Someone society would hate.
Winning Through Enlightenment by Ron Smothermon
But then I read this book. And I can safely say it surpasses every expectation you’ve ever had of a guidebook to life. Whereas others like Illusions by Richard Bach speak in parables and enigma (beautiful though it is), this book is more practical. It’s also brutally honest; shockingly so.
Love Yourself First
There’s a rumour going round that goes something like this. You won’t truly be loved by another until you love yourself. It’s been repeated in various guises by many over the years and notably several Hollywood actresses. They seem – unsurprisingly – to be the most in need for a little self love. Love yourself first and everything else falls … Read More
Why I Don’t Regret Being Sober in Dublin
I’m no longer sorry I didn’t get drunk in Dublin all those years ago. I’m only sorry I didn’t realise earlier that my sorrow, was a waste of time.