Psychiatric Interview: BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) | Part 1 | Dr. Karen Jacob

first and foremost what would be helpful for me is what you hope to get out of our conversation today right i'm not really sure i've thought about that i was like i really don't know um like robbie asked me to do this and i like i told her yes but it wasn't like i really had an agenda you know what i mean so um and then robbie was like well well why why are you doing this i was like because you asked me to like before i don't i mean i don't know i don't really have like anything that i would hope to get out of it other than um i want people to be able to feel like they can relate to me when they watch this and then maybe they can feel like there's you know that there's other people out there like them so what i thought might be helpful is for me to get a picture from your perspective about how life has sort of developed for you over time starting back from as far back as as you think is relevant and i might pop in a little question you know a couple of questions here and there just so i get a picture not only of what's happened in your life but um where it's led you right now and then what's actively going on right now okay um maybe ask me like a few more questions because that's going to be like it's a very big question yeah it's a huge question yeah so let's just say you were to um start with a new therapist right if i were to see you for the first time what would you tell me about your problems about what you're right i feel like that's how they always start off like tell me what's going on yeah you know what i mean i was on and i thought about that too and i really don't have anything to tell you about what's going on um i i feel like if we're i mean if we're going to go in the direction of like a personality disorder like i feel like things are a lot better than they used to be in new york i was a com like not that i'm not a disaster but i was i was just like an overt disaster like you just had to look at me to know there was something wrong um whereas now i um i'm not trying to kill myself every other day or like pretending to try to kill myself or talking about killing myself or cutting myself open or any of those things i think um you know i think i'm much more capable now you know before i would describe myself as a turtle without a shell so that's how i felt like very raw and now i would say that i have a shell so i would say that that's it's nice to know that there's an improvement there um because you know it doesn't feel like that's going to happen and for a long time it didn't feel like that was going to happen for a long time i just wanted to die and i don't have that anymore so that's nice i'm sure yeah it's probably very relieving i don't know it's not that it's like one thing or the other it's just like it just is it just is yeah so you've been you said before what what was before when are you referring to um so my think um like okay so my dad died in 2010 at the end of 2010 and then um in 2011 i was just sort of like um she's like um there's this book the year magical thinking by joan didion and she talks about how she doesn't dream and she doesn't feel anything and just sort of like that's sort of how that was and then by the holidays of 2011 i just i i'm not gonna say i had like a psychotic break but like it seemed like it was it was in that direction like my handwriting got really sloppy and like i wrote down in my journal like i'm afraid that if i had a baby i would kill it like that's pretty dramatic and then i told my boss that i did that so like it was just like there was no like rational functioning there you know what i mean can you imagine what my boss thought like to tell him something like that i was like cutting my wrist open and like i had my own office at the i was working in finance as an um i had my own office there and so i would i would sit at my desk and i would just like cut my wrists it was it was dramatic to say the least and um yeah so and that went on for probably 2012 i was hospitalized like no less than six times like no less than that and it was like every month for like at least two weeks and then um 2013 i think i was a little bit more chill but super depressed and then 2014 a little bit i don't i mean honestly when i got to la things got a little bit better i don't know why so maybe because it's like less people you know in new york it's just like people on top of people on top of people and then you know i had you know friends that you know we were all drinking a lot so that probably didn't help and when i got to l.a like i had so many other things that i had to focus on like that i i guess i just got out of my head it was like really the first time that i wasn't always just thinking about how like um i just like i i guess i just got out of my head it was like the first time i really wasn't thinking about what an awful you know just all that stuff and that was in 2015. uh i got to l.a in 2000 and yeah 2015 yeah 2015. okay to rewind a second um you were feeling psychotic depressed cutting how do you understand that what do you mean um do you have any theories about why that was happening i mean we've read about it so i guess it when you're cutting it releases um endorphins am i wrong i mean for some people it it does yeah people have all sorts of reasons why they might um might be cutting why they might feel depressed why they might have what you're describing is whether it's psychotic or not but thinking that feels really um not in line yeah with your typical cognitions right do you have any theories about for you what forget about what you've read yeah about why that was happening at that point um i it was like this it was the only thing that made me feel better and like i would it took a long time for me to just stop fantasizing about cutting myself and the only reason i did stop initially if you were to look at my arms like it's it's like this it's just cuts everywhere and that's hard to hide so i could only wear like long sleeve shirts and to this day i pretty much still only wear long sleeve shirts um sometimes people hide their cuts yeah you know by cutting on their upper thigh right or other places it's i think i just wanted it's i know i know that when i would think about stuff like that like well why don't i just try to hide this butter it was a way of like punishing myself too so and i this is a like conscious the conscious like decision where it was sort of like it makes me feel better and i'm doing it on my arms because i it's like it's just this way of like punishing myself but at the same time it just felt better i felt so much better when i would cut myself sometimes when people cut their arms there's also a way in which they can relay information to other people that i know right say right and i'm not sure if that matches your experience at all there might have been yeah there might have been because i would do like sick things and i would just like yeah it was yeah there's probably and when i say probably definitely an element of that but that's like embarrassing to think about and i hate that i that i would do that and i wouldn't do that now but i definitely it was sort of like look what you've done to me like what you've made me do to myself you know and then look what you made me do to myself would be geared towards boyfriends things like that you know so were were boyfriends at that point in and out of your life or a boy yeah i would say so i don't the guy that i started dating right after my dad died like i feel terrible for him because he had to go through that whole situation and um that's when i was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and nobody really knew what it was i mean people know it but like i wasn't aware of what it was too much and he definitely wasn't and um it was just a lot for him to have to go through and i i think that's because my father died i sort of like latched on to him a little bit and then and he was so so so so so great about like everything but it's just sick like the whole thing was just so sick so like sick like and there's like in a like i was like mentally ill not like sick in a good way i guess people say that you know what i mean like i don't mean it that way i mean like i mentally totally understand yes what's this guy's name thomas okay yeah when did you meet him um 2011. yeah so your dad passed in 2010 at the end of 2010 right okay and were you dating anyone at that point no no so was thomas the first serious boyfriend no i've had no there's probably like five or six serious boyfriends i don't know prior to that point or um let's have to think for a second definitely the first serious boyfriend in new york oh no you know the like the serious boyfriend before that was bj but like um he was like my best friend afterward for like quite a while in fact i like talked about him in like the last session so um we dated for a long long long time like we knew each other in high school and then um we started dating when i lived in austin and then we went to japan and we were living in japan together and then um i moved to new york while he was still in japan and then we broke up so when did you break up what year 2009. so right before your dad passed i wouldn't say right before wednesday right before i like i was still in new york and he was in japan and i don't think he really gave enough credit to the like the time difference it's like 12 hours 13 hours and then depending on like where you are with um um daily daylight savings time so um but he was he was super special to me so um he was there for me like when my when my dad died to a certain extent so i don't know that's i don't know what to say about that yeah before 2010 when your dad passed away were you having any other um yeah every holiday this is weird like those kind of things right where like i want to hurt myself or like i'm acting out like every holiday you did a great job of finishing my sentence sorry i did a great job of doing well i mean i figured you were going there i didn't think you were going to ask me if i went shopping you know it's helpful to get a picture of how life has sort of gone for you and the trajectory of how things have gone so it sounds like there's a long history of self-harm or cutting during the holidays yeah definitely during the holidays do you remember when it started um yeah actually it was it was my mom used to um be pretty pretty aggressive with me and so um yeah she was like she would she would like hit me and stuff and then um i wrote about it in this thing that i believe your predecessor actually published so um john gunderson yeah yeah yeah so um she would she would like scream it she would you know just like typical like you know not you know not just not healthy stuff and so i would be in my room and i would like grab my um my arms and then like after she was done screaming and she would leave like i would like look at my arms and like i would hope that there would be like a deep enough um indention from my nails that i could have made myself bleed so that's definitely how it started and then after that like when i was in my 20s like the holidays were always really hard and i would just um that's when i that's when it really started so um do you know what prompted the initial that transition from scratching yourself to cutting i just remember it was like the holidays it was always the holidays aren't my what's hard about the holidays well because people have families and um i feel like i it's kind of like self-piteous of me to like go into this whole thing or whatever but i guess i've always wanted to have like a family like a real family you know like the kind that people don't actually have but like you envision you know like the kind that's like in the tv shows and stuff like i've always wanted that and um never had it obviously and then so and then people i mean it's a generalization here but most people aren't like super happy around the holidays anyway you know what i mean it's stressful and there's all this other stuff that's going on and people you know with their own family stuff but like in my mind like it's just this time where i'm being reminded that i don't have those things like i don't have um yeah i just don't have those things and it's hard for me um i've gotten better about it but i mean like even with like my boyfriend now i was like you need to know that i'm turning into a raging [ __ ] for the next month so maybe we should break up maybe we should just do this right now and get back together on january 2nd that's actually literally something i said to him what happens now on the holidays for you i i mean it's not so bad right now i don't know why um maybe because i'm not quite as crazy as i used to be but it's so bad i feel so bad i wish we had like honey for her or something um so bad she probably is going to like beat herself up about this too no she'll be it should be also just okay two seconds yeah sorry it's like the little things right outside you said you're not so crazy you by the way you're very judgmental about yourself i'm sure i'm not the first i feel like i was just i feel like that's just yeah it's like a dbt thing like don't judge like don't judge yourself right um yeah but i i mean i'm just being i mean it was a little some of the things i did were a little out there so i wouldn't do those things now so i can look back and be like i'm not going to say that it was crazy because that's a derogatory term and it doesn't really help any of us that have been diagnosed with this because there is this stigma i'm sorry if you guys heard my stomach i'm so sorry um there's a stigma attached to it and i i don't like it when people use the word crazy so i shouldn't use it with myself i'm just being casual right now but yeah um if if we back up just a second though i'm to get a picture of your family you said i wanted that you know family you see on i don't know if it's necessarily the brady bunch since that was a merged feeling right right but the concept right um who was in your family growing up it was my dad and my mother and myself my dad was married before my mom and he had three children with that marriage but like they were older than my mother so and they didn't like each other at all that means my dad had cheated on his first wife with my mom and then his first wife had died and then he married my mom so i was like not only was there like that involved but then like of course this like initial three children were kind of like oh great like and then they had me and that wasn't um you know like my dad was 55 i think when i was born and my mom was 26 so there was like an age difference there and um i don't think she should have had children honestly i don't because well because like she's she wasn't a good mother for first of all i don't she didn't want to have a child she wanted to have like this advocate or this ally she was his best friend or something she definitely didn't know that having a child is like i don't know about nurturing something you know what i mean like these things that some people just sort of like take for granted she doesn't know how to do and she still doesn't know how to do it and my dad probably just gave her a child just like as a consolation prize or something i don't know but like i can tell you this that i am concerned about myself having a child if that ever were to happen because i would hate to pass like what i went through onto a living creature because there were times where like i would i would like just scream out loud and just like scream out loud just like why was i born you know what i mean like why like why why this is not this is not okay like they shouldn't have done that nobody should do that to another human being um yeah so were you close with your dad mm-hmm what was he like he was nice yeah he was nice i think um in retrospect he should have probably protected me a little bit more from what my mom was doing but he was just sort of um i don't know why he didn't honestly but that's something that i've only come to realize like in the past like two or three years you know so you were how old when he passed away 29 was it sudden well he was older so i i got that yeah i mean it was sudden in so much that i he had gotten sick and he had gone in first surgery and i was um in new york and my mom and i hadn't been talking honestly and then i get this like email saying that like my dad's gonna die or whatever and i was like okay so i get like on the first flight to texas and um thank god he got through that one and i thought because he was able to get through that surgery that he would live for like at least another five years and i told that to one of my friends i was like oh no he's gonna be live for another five years two months later he's dead and that was like that sucked because after that last second to last surgery do you mind if i grab the tissues no it's okay it's okay i have like so much eye makeup on i'm never gonna allow this to like just like spider down my face well you know it's always helpful to have one yeah okay thank you um yeah after i did it he he couldn't all after that with the anesthesia and he was older so he um he wasn't even supposed to live through it so the fact that he bounced it didn't bounce back but sort of bounced back but was able to live so he um he couldn't really hear and he couldn't like walk and he couldn't like it was just sort of like this and i would call him and this is the part where like i really started to beat myself up this is actually probably like i didn't i wanted to die for a lot of reasons but the main reason i wanted to die was because i wanted to see my dad again and i wanted to apologize like i had told him i would call him and when i was in the back of a taxi and i was like i was just like i just told him i would call him and i was like i'll call you next tuesday and i didn't call him that next tuesday and i didn't call him the tuesday after that i didn't call him the tuesday after that and then he died um so like when i say like when i got to l.a like that's what i stopped beating myself up about because i had other things i had to think about um so that was that was like that was hard but that's my own fault like i did that like i shouldn't have done that i should have called him but i just didn't i didn't know like i'd never really lost anybody before i mean i had like i lost people but i didn't give a [ __ ] about them honestly like my half-sister had died i don't care like my grandmother had died i don't care like i don't like but like i did care about my dad and i should have treated him better and i didn't because i didn't know like i just didn't know and now i know now i know so like i'm a lot more careful now when i tell people i'm gonna call them i definitely call them or i'm more careful about like saying like i love you a lot or just being more appreciative of like the experiences that i'm having i think it's really hard to confront emotional situations especially given how important your dad was for you um and avoidance is pretty powerful yeah how am i avoiding it though no no tell me tell me because i need to know like i don't no i'm not i'm not suggesting you're avoiding now but i think there's a way our minds allow us not to address painful things so if you found yourself not calling him and you're sort of kicking your own ass for that for whatever reason avoidance is one of these ways to protect ourselves from dealing with painful things like the fact that your dad was really sick it was i mean you couldn't hear me when i would call and so i was it was just hard you're right i mean it's not that i didn't think about calling like i did i thought about it all the time but it just he couldn't hear me he'd be like what what what so i had bought these postcards and i was just gonna send him postcards every week but and so i was in my office and like they were just like new york postcards and i sent one and then i had another one ready to get sent and i think i sent that one but he wouldn't have gotten it on time he probably he wouldn't half um i don't know i just wish i'd been a better daughter like i really really wish i'd been a better daughter it sounds like you did the best that you could at that time right and i know that that's um i know that's something that we all say to each other and especially in therapy but like i should have been better and i don't that's a judgment right but like it should happen aren't we all doing the best that we can do at any potential time like aren't we if are very honest like aren't we like i would hope so yeah um but regardless of whether it's a therapy thing or not um it sounds like you actually did do the best that you could do you were trying to communicate with with him with postcards in a way that you could tolerate and that he could um connect with you around yeah i mean again i should have done better but yeah you're right you're really um hellbound on self-condemnation uh maybe yeah i guess right i don't know maybe you don't let yourself off that easily um yeah i guess that's what i was told in the last one of these but what do you make of that i mean it's interesting i wonder what other people are like with themselves like honestly like what is it like to be other people like i feel like i'm not like being like super hard on myself i'm just being honest you know like i don't know what it's like for other people like do they just like pat themselves on the back when they like get out of bed in the morning sorry well although yesterday then i was patting myself on the back the number of possibilities that might exist in between the two are remarkable but i'm not sure you even allow yourself to think about them i hope that i learned to then i don't mean to be i don't need to be like sarcastic i do hope that no i don't i take it as sarcastic but you know there's it feels like there are sort of segments of your life your you know early life where you had this um disruptive challenging family dynamic um where you felt very i think closer certainly to your dad than your mom but then lost your dad at a pretty critical developmental stage you know it's usually when people start developing their own identity in their late teens in their early 20s and that loss was pretty significant it doesn't mark the the first time that you were self-harming or suicidal but it sounds like it just escalated everything that was pre-existing and he felt pretty out of control definitely definitely yeah so if he passed in 2010 you moved to la in 2015 and what you keep saying is in the last few years i've been a lot better what do you what do you mean by a lot better i was i mean not being in new york probably helped because there was just sort of this chaotic situation and um but when i moved to l.a like everything was everything was a mess like i i didn't have the ability to to regurgitate in my brain everything that i had done wrong i just had to like move forward um and so and probably like the new environment as well the new studying and just not knowing anybody and um just having to get back on my feet again and literally and figuratively and just sort of like trying to you know just trying to get ahead against i guess um i didn't have the opportunity to feel sorry for myself or to think about everything that had happened or i would fantasize i said this before like i would fantasize about things that i would do differently like that was something that i would just like it made me feel better like i would be in bed at night and it but it wouldn't have been with like my father it would have been like like early on like i would be if i could be who i am right now and just be like a baby you know what i mean it just be like this adult in like this baby's body and i just would have like just gotten through everything when i was a kid and i just would have done as well as i possibly could have in school and i just would have gotten the [ __ ] away from my mom as soon as i possibly could and i would have like i would have known to like communicate with my father better and all of these things so that would like i would fantasize about that but again i've stopped doing that so that's good that's progress i agree with you why do you think it's progress um well this is so silly that i read this but it was basically like if you keep not you but if a person doesn't forgive themselves which up until i read that i would have been like forgive yourself you know what i mean it's just like so hoiky hoity wait especially when you like to condemn yourself i guess yeah yeah and absolutely it's a very awkward thing to do is to forgive yourself yeah and i felt like it was just like whatever but then i was like but the idea of like dooming myself to repeat the same you know make the same mistakes i was like oh god no like i'll forgive myself like we'll do this like i'm gonna make a little shrine to myself like a little thing a little cathedral and i'll forgive myself and i like mentally said that to myself like it's okay you know what i mean i just thought it was okay like it's okay and magically i've stopped fantasizing about how i'm going to do everything over again so you know if i was purely thinking in dbt that would be called acceptance oh yeah we could do this we could talk in dvt we could talk in that language i'm sure you could yeah no we could talk in dbt um dbt was helpful actually like the um um self-soothing like that kind of stuff like that really helped like getting that into my brain you know what i mean like like touching like comfy thing like you have that blanket out there i was like oh my gosh like that's it's like soft and cuddly yeah exactly like i can pet it yeah like taking baths lighting candles the whole thing which was like you know a novel concept to me at those points it's called being kind to yourself that's part of dvd yeah i mean that's nice right it's a thing it's a thing it's a thing it's a thing apparently it works so you did do dbt mm-hmm and it did help yes okay um what about the last several years um no i no no and you know my friend the other night um was like you should see a therapist and i was like i'm sorry but like i've had so much therapy i've had so much you can talk the talk that's for sure yeah it's so much therapy and it's not to say that i wouldn't like appreciate it but like i mean i was like what what am i sorry i was he i used to tell him i used to advocate for therapy i'd be like eric you should do this you should have a therapist like it's going to help you so much and so he's like like giving me that whole thing the other night at dinner like you know you should do i was like what are they going to tell me that i don't already know like seriously okay sorry i don't mean to be like you know well what made him suggested in the first place i don't know i cause we were talking about how he doesn't have like he has an online therapist or something like that and so i hear people do that i was like wow what's that like is it like talking to siri and telling her what your problems are like hi siri this is what's going on today um but he said i mean he said he likes it it seems kind of i don't know it seems kind of weird but so he's talking about his therapy why would he make that suggestion for you because i had just like been so 100 like you need to get a therapist eric like and now i mean so he was i don't know why he made that maybe is he just suggesting that to everybody he has no idea i don't know what maybe something at dinner like that maybe he thought that i was like unhinged i'm not sure maybe the fact that i went and got super drunk i don't know what happened um i got super drunk i guess was that drugs you just got super drunk and went home super drunk to sleep yeah super super drunk we were um we were at this place called upstate which i like and i used to go there a lot when i was living in new york and then i was just like downing the wine and he said like i have a problem with blacking out it's a pretty big problem okay and um he was like he said something about how it's like directly correlational to how fast i drink you know something like that and i was like yeah i know but like i had a hard day and don't really remember too much after like we left upstate and then we ended up at a strip club which i don't frequent so it was kind of like i don't even know how we got there and then um i like i came to not today i came to like i was in a blackout right so i don't really know what's going on and then all of a sudden like i'm like i realized that i'm in a changing room you know like in the back somewhere and i don't have my wallet and i don't have my phone i don't have my purse and i have no idea how i got there and um i was like this is why i shouldn't drink i remember having that that moment like you know what i was like thinking that like this is why i shouldn't drink this is why people tell people not to drink and then two bouncers came up and they were like are you charlotte and i was like yes and then they took me out of that area and i saw eric and he was like sitting there at the bar with like my purse and everything and i was like oh yay probably drank more i don't know and then got back to the apartment that i'm staying at and um don't really remember too much of that either so so as you're telling me this story lots of smiles because it's awful it's awful so we should laugh about it yeah exactly it's awful and i'm just thinking about like how terrible yesterday was like first i i woke up like for reby like banging on the door because i accidentally locked it like padlocked it and then like i had to call my boyfriend to make sure he wasn't mad at me because like blacking out is not what boyfriends like from their girlfriend you know what i mean like i had to call him and be like hey are you mad at me he's like no you handled yourself really well last night and i was like oh thank god and then um threw up couldn't like i was like there's no way makeup was going on like basically like didn't even wash my face it was just horrific it was a truly horrific day yesterday and reppy had to put up with it and like i was like oh so awful it was so awful it was like young like like i'm 18 and i've never had anything to drink before like that's basically what it was like now you said your friend may have suggested a therapist because of that i mean i don't know i was just baby maybe yeah but what do you think i think he was just trying to be helpful i don't know i mean do you see this as a problem the drinking i think it depends on white i'm not saying i have a problem i'm saying there is a problem um i'm just kidding that's something that i don't know well what's the difference fruit no it's a joke it's a joke trust me it's like i said that to someone once and he was like i'm not saying i have a problem i'm saying there is a problem i honestly don't know if i would um i think you know when i'm just like with my with my boyfriend now like when we're drinking like at his apartment like i don't black out or i don't like drink excessively and i don't i don't have a problem stopping but like when i'm with um when i'm out and i'm with people that i don't necessarily know very well or haven't seen in a while or like i um i drink a lot to make myself feel more comfortable so and it is fun like i have fun until i don't and then um so i don't know what you would call that i've been to a lot of aaa meetings and stuff because um you know i just try to figure it out like where am i in this like am i an alcoholic like some of my stories are not out of line with the stories that you hear in there you know like they're not but i also have no problem at all not drinking for a long period of time so i mean so why not continue with that trend well i have fun when i'm drinking most of the time it sounds like it was a lot of fun it i mean i don't it's just do you know like it's who knows i know right how's that working out for me well no no but who knows if it was fun or not because i i don't know how much you actually yeah can be a member of the night which might sometimes scares people yeah i know it's it should be scary it should be scary is it scary for you it was definitely scary when i was in that room and i didn't know how i got there yeah i'm sure yeah i would have probably felt exactly the same way it was horrifying i was just like this is a re i didn't know i couldn't even tell you what city i was in i was just like this is really really bad your theory is that when you see new people i definitely hear out yeah i have social anxiety so like it helps me like that's from day one with alcohol it's never been like i like the taste or i like to just like get like a buzz it's like i like i definitely don't drink by myself like there's nothing and i don't like how it has calories and i don't like i definitely don't like the hangover but like when i'm around other people i get so nervous and it's like um especially if it's a lot of people and so it helps me feel better and i think that's a lot of people's experience with alcohol especially if they have social anxiety but they probably don't [ __ ] out all the time how much do you think you know i mentioned avoidance earlier on how much do you think about avoiding this how much do you think avoidance is a problem for you i think it would depend on like the situation do tell me i mean if it's like avoidance like like reading a book or something something completely benign like if it's like homework or something i don't really avoid it um but yeah maybe like i my mom and i don't really like we don't really have a relationship right but like the other day i reached out and i was like because my dad was in a.a and i was like so was he like what was it that like prefaced the whole 880 thing like was he really an alcoholic because i mean for what i've heard from other people he wasn't and she basically agreed with me and said that the only reason my dad went into aaa was because he liked to have the social aspect of it and because my mom made him stop drinking because he was cheating on my mom all the time so um that was just like his way of you know like okay if i'm gonna stop drinking i'm gonna and my mom never let she's very controlling she never let my dad have like a life outside of her so just like she never let me have a life outside of her so like and she eventually made him stop going to a.a because god forbid he have a life outside of her and she's still alive mm-hmm and she's she's much better now but like still i mean we never really had that ability to connect with each other because we never had that bond to begin with but anyway so she sent me this email and i was like and then i had been like well did he have like anger issues you know like just like like no like i was like did he black out no that'd be scary do you would it matter to you either way if he was an alcoholic or not i would feel like there might be something like biological there where it's like making me like i would probably be like okay you know what maybe there's something there but like i i mean my mom's dad was an alcoholic and i guess maybe but like my mom's not an alcoholic and if my dad wasn't an alcoholic then i don't know where i would have and i mean is blacking out like is that indicative of alcoholism like this is a real question um it's part of the criteria so i don't know if you've looked at substance use disorder criteria you have i mean this isn't the first time i've had this conversation with people yeah and what have you learned well my therapist that i really appreciated a lot diane she told me like okay there's two situations like one you're drinking all the time and you can't stop and i was like oh that's not me and she's like two when you do drink you have a hard time stopping and i was like that might be me sometimes but sometimes not all the time so i'm definitely if i'm like in a social situation definitely so if you were cutting some of the time but not all of the time would you consider yourself self-harming that's a really that was a really nice way to put that yes i would okay yeah so the difference for you there seems to be a difference i feel like i'm gonna have to think about that for a little while okay give it some but that was very that was a very astute observation and thank you for making that analogy for me well one other question for you about this um if you don't have any biological strain of alcoholism like for sure in your family um would that mean that you would um eliminate that as a possibility in terms of a problem for you no i mean my i never i only had one grandparent that i met but i mean if my mom's dad like literally killed himself with alcohol like literally literally i wouldn't i can't say that i don't have that that it's not in there somewhere like if that so i mean that's a fact that that happened yeah it sounds like there's something pretty powerful about learning about your father's alcoholism specifically what do you mean in thinking more about whether you might struggle with the same kinds of things i mean i thought i wanted to know if there's a connection there you know like because i know my mother doesn't really drink and so i was like well maybe maybe that's what was going on with my dad like maybe that's i mean i was pretty sure that it wasn't what was going on but i mean if that was the case then i would feel like a little bit more confident and being like maybe i belong in aaa you know something like that or maybe i should just go to europe where aa doesn't really it's just like life it's just like life no i'm just kidding i know it exists everywhere but i mean um maybe it's not maybe the labels are a little bit more blurred do you want to stop drinking not right now now he'll come i mean i have fun with it when i do have i mean i know that some i just it's i mean i definitely um i mean it's it's i don't know how i would have relationships with people honestly like i don't know like i sorry but i cannot stand being around people because i have so much anxiety so like even if it's like a friend like a really good friend i'm like i get so nervous i'm like i feel like i need to make them feel better or i need to make them like more comfortable or just and if i'm drinking i don't have to feel that way it sounds like you don't have to overthink yeah you don't have to feel yeah exactly yeah so you remember at the beginning of when we sat down to talk and i asked you about avoidance you're like a master avoider i don't even know if you realize how good you are at this i guess not because i never thought of myself as that that's amazing you know um what you're doing which is actually really impressive is you're stepping back and thinking about some of the functions of why you do things um like drinking i asked you about drinking you said well i'm really socially anxious and you don't want to stop i get it because if you stopped you'd feel a lot of anxiety a lot i'm sure yeah a ton it's a in your mind i think a lot easier to drink it facilitates connection socialization makes you feel more comfortable except there's like a big price that you're paying right the least of which which may sound a little bit backwards are these longer term effects of the alcohol although they obviously can be very serious is what happened with your grandfather people die from alcoholism but you have a long history with borderline and interpersonal relationships actually are like the backbone of borderline problems um so you have learned to forgive yourself to some degree and you've learned to like move forward maybe not perfectly no one's perfect though but underlying all of this you have some real challenges with the relationship still which my guess are you sort of scratch the surface as to how you want to address them and it's probably really scary to open pandora's box especially if you're really good at talking the talk being in therapy my guess is there's a lot underneath that you haven't necessarily looked at especially if substances are still functioning to enable you to connect with people right yeah i mean with interpersonal stuff it's not nearly as bad as it used to be but it's still i mean with all borderlines it's a problem right it's like this crippling issue where like i can have like a really great relationship with anybody right it doesn't like any kind of interpersonal relationship and then it just like falls apart how do you understand that um i think for me personally like i think um it's not as bad as it used to be it's definitely not as bad as it used to be that i got yeah i get it i'm sorry it's just like so much better i like i mean i know that you're saying like i'm hard on myself but like seriously like it used to be so bad like so so bad like um like i really couldn't even feel like i could get attached to someone because i would just be like well they're gonna be gone at some point so and now um i mean i don't know i'm also like more when i went to when i got to la i was like i'm not gonna have any friends i don't want to have any friends anymore like i don't ever want to have friends again and then i kind of got over that so but now i'm much more cautious about like who i live into my life and would you get married i think so would you have kids i don't know remember i don't know i don't know like last night like my boyfriend was being super sweet and he was like i want to like have the life with you and have a family and da da da da um and that was really sweet and that made me smile but at the same time i'm like i don't want to bring a demon child into this world and i know that that's a mean thing to say about like borderlands or myself but like i i know how much pain i used to have to go through and i know how much i blamed my mother and it's not like it's not her fault for wanting to have a child but if she knew i mean i'm assuming she i mean she's just knowing her from like how i knew her when i was you know living with her like just i mean maybe she didn't think she could pass it on i don't know i don't know but i would never want to put like a child into that situation are you worried you're like her sometimes yeah have you ever talked about that i don't think i'm like her but i um my boyfriend the other day was like when i get really drunk he was like you get really mean he's like that's probably what your mom is like and i was like [ __ ] i'm sorry i was like that's all you need to say and like basically i'll i'll be the nicest person ever you know i don't want to be like her you'll be the nicest person ever but you won't stop drinking honestly that would make me stop drinking but it's not it hasn't well because i don't think it's i mean i don't really remember being that mean but like yeah yeah i know it's a real con i mean maybe it's even i'm not sure it's quite a conflict yet because it has been i don't want to be mean i don't ever want to be mean like ever and i don't ever want to be mad i don't want to be that way i don't want to be what's wrong with being mad because i i think for other people like they can get mad and they can do that emotional regulation thing but when i get mad it's not like that at all it's not like that and i really have like i will i will do like gymnastics to keep myself from getting mad because once i get mad like it's some it's almost impossible to put anything back together so it's kind of like um you can't be like a normal human being who gets angry because we all get angry for fear that you might be rachel i don't want to be that way what i don't want to be that way it's like it's just it's not it's so impossible to put something back together once i've been mad like you know one of the things i said to my father and it wasn't even like it's just like he made this innocent mistake and i was like i'm gonna let you rot i'm gonna let you die and this is like right before that that last second to last surgery that was where the last words i said to him before he had the second to last surgery so of course i was on the first plane back to texas like and i was praying like on the in the back of the plane like praying like please god let me get there before he dies so i don't have to have those in my last words can you imagine like i mean like the last words i have with him right now are like i love you i'm gonna call you and i didn't call but like i'm gonna let you rot i'm gonna let you die and then he like goes into surgery like that was awful that was so awful or like god like once like my mom like did something and i just i broke everything in the house everything everything everything that was on the walls all the clocks like all the antiques like i threw them on the ground like did it feel good it did for a second and then it felt awful and my dad was just like he was i could feel it in his voice he was just like this is after it moved out like you know like it just it was like i've never seen anything like that before so do you think the anger just went away no i think it's still there i think i'm just better at like but um it's not as bad as it used to be um you're better at controlling it shoving it down i think i know with the repercussions art to such an extent that i can um i'll i i will pretty much do anything to keep myself from getting mad like pretty much anything so i i mean i know we have a timing thing but this is the reason i'm i kind of hold therapy is because if lois can pick up somewhere near this this would be really helpful because is a normal emotion i know it is i know i know you know yeah it's clear you understand that um and your solution to having a normal emotion is to control the heck out of it um the problem is is that trying to control our over control just makes it actually get worse over time i think so too i will say this slowly before um like my knee jerk response was just like that really really visceral anger but now somehow like you know anger's pain right like that's what it is like it's like sadness or some sort of pain like that's how it is and it just sort of like um manifests itself as anger or like or just materializes his anger and so now i mean at least now like i can feel sadness before it was like anger and then like after i've like killed everything then it was sadness whereas now like i can feel the sadness first so i do think that that's an improvement but yeah you're right like there's no way and how i will ever allow myself to feel anger because that's like it's terrifying to me terrifying terrifying i'm sure yeah and for i'm sure just the beginnings of the reasons that you shared um but as i said these mass you know i'm simplifying i think a very complicated situation when i talk about avoidance because when you avoid you avoid any emotion that's not aligned with what you think you can tolerate which means about 90 of emotions probably don't even register maybe yeah probably and yet you have them yeah but i just don't feel them well you maybe feel them but you do a really good job of i won't allow myself a lot of mental gymnastics and a lot of other things substances being one of probably many to not address um issues that are that that cause these emotions to emerge um and i think the thing that your friend may be picking up is that without confronting them yeah not avoiding them through some avenue therapy being one of them those little demons have a way of continuing to grow it's like you're inadvertently feeding them yeah it makes sense but you understand where i'm coming from right like you can understand why i would want to avoid those things absolutely yeah and while on the one hand i don't blame you on the other hand you have all these things that you want in life right and it's like metastasizing inside of me and like not helping me be like who i used to be i can imagine if you even are considering motherhood it's going to be really hard to want to embrace that if you're so scared that you're going to be your mom yeah that's true i don't want to be that way yeah um so i i want to just in case you because you wanted to do some deeper you wanted to debrief yeah okay but how do you exit charlie how are you good thank you oh yeah are you holding up okay yeah thank you okay let's just record a little room tone so everybody just stay silent for 10 20 seconds here this room tone great thank you very much charlie thank you thank you i'll come and say goodbye you

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Id: MpMHl4Hby0I

Length: 52min 5sec (3125 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 23 2021