Borderline Personality Disorder Dysphoria and Treatment
Q. How do I tell when what I am going through is Dysphoria?
I have emotional storms that are extremely painful, and seem to be a
combinations of depression, some anger, fear and despair, all at once,
along with racing thoughts I can’t follow; I just feel like being
alive is a mistake when I get like that. I also feel a lot of stress, I feel like something inside of me
is about to snap… Is this *anything* like Dysphoria? Or is this just
“feeling bad”?
These “episodes” vary in strength and quality, the emotion that
dominate can change. There are times when I go into states that are
more slow, depressive but not exactly. It’s like things slow down
inside me; it takes me longer to respond to what happens around me, I
feel a little disconnected from the rest of the world (just a little).
this feeling is like floating around in a bubble, seeing everything but
through a thin layer. And if someone insists on talking to me and I
have to be responsive, I kind of “snap out of it” and after about a
minute, it can go away… I didn’t notice how much my behavior/perception
were affected by some of these episodes until one day, when I was
taking the subway to somewhere while feeling disconnected (after a bad
therapy session), someone tried to explain to me how to use the
turnstile — I guess I looked a little disoriented and like I didn’t
know what to do, because I was doing everything slower, and thinking
about what to do next took more time… and this is just one kind of
“episode.”
While there are those times when I slow down, other times I get
incredibly tense. I remember having “attacks” of terrible distress when
I was going through depression a few years ago, and they were so
unbearable that they drove me to self-mutilate to get rid of the pain.
They were different from the feeling of depression. The ones I have now
are not as bad; so I am not sure if this is even Dysphoria. I often
don’t even know what causes me to feel this way. It’s like a build-up of
despair that just erupts all of the sudden; other times, it happens
because I feel rejected, self-loathing, hated or guilty. Is this
treatable?
One thing I should probably mention is that, unlike most BPDs,
although I grew up in a very problematic family, I did not have a
traumatic childhood and I was not abused.
I guess the disconnecting thing is when my feelings reach a state of
overload. Another reaction I get when it’s too much is feeling nothing
— being numb, functioning well but being “dead” inside. I must admit
that there are times when I find it useful and count on it when I have
to go through something painful; I don’t know how to “turn it on”, but
somehow it happens. Sometimes the numbness turns into euphoria. I am
completely confused about this.
Sometimes I take mild sedatives when I can’t stand the tension, but
they rarely do anything. I just lay in a dark room or stare at the
wall. Sometimes these feelings–esp. the stress– are triggered by things
like someone saying they’ll come over and being late; not being able
to get someone on the phone; expecting something that I know should
happen — even if nothing goes wrong, the expectation alone makes me go
crazy. I try to remind myself of the reality, that I am not being
rejected, but it does not help at all. Once my mind starts this kind of
a cycle it’s like it doesn’t know how to stop.
I’m in therapy, and it’s helped me control my anger and violent
outbursts (for which I will feel guilty for the rest of my life, as I
should), but we have not found a solution for this emotional
vulnerability yet. Other than the “episodes” I was talking about, I
generally suffer from tension (to the degree that I get extremely
annoyed by sounds; I go ballistic when a neighbor plays his radio a
little too loud, or the TV in the other room is on, while other people
in the house get angry for a minute, then shrug it off), and, on the
other hand, a complete lack of energy, concentration and interest in
anything.
