*Disclaimer: This post contains some discussion on eating disorders and mental health struggles. If you need help or support, there are links following this post to resources available to you.

I was going to wait a little bit to make this particular post, but with the events of the week, it seems to me that it has become necessary to put this out sooner rather than later. 

As discussed in earlier blog posts, I have some medical diagnoses that make my life very interesting from time to time and have required no small amount of humor and play to deal with. Also, as disclosed in “From Plans to Possibilities: A Personal Transformation Story”, I have several college degrees, one of which is a Master of Science in Childhood and Developmental Psychology. I can and have written many an educational essay in my time, and have spent a lot of time looking at medical diagnostic criteria in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5), to discuss many disorders in my day. 

I bring this up to show that, aside from simply having the medical challenges I am about to discuss, I also have some small level of academic expertise backing me in my discussion on a couple of these diagnosis that give me a little bit more authority and a little more insight outside of just having been diagnosed. I do, on an academic level, know what I am talking about. 

With this in mind, I shall now get to my bigger point. 

Mental health paired with physical, emotional, and mental fatigue is a real pain in the butt and makes posting blogs and streaming on a schedule interesting if not impossible. 

I had every intention of posting Monday through Friday. My mom warned me not to put too much pressure on myself to make that happen, and I am glad that I have listened to her and allowed myself days to say “Nope, it is not happening today.” 

As a teenager/young adult, I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), something I mentioned in my previous post, “Finding Joy and Support in Animal Companionship”. This, according to the DSM-5, is a disability characterized by unstable interpersonal relationships, impulsivity, identity disturbances, high reactivity in moods, intense inappropriate reactions to anger, stress-related paranoia, and dissociative episodes. I have known a lot of other people who have this disorder and were diagnosed young, like I was, who have allowed the disorder to control their lives. Often, people with this disorder have difficulties holding a job, have unstable relationships that can include emotional manipulation to avoid abandonment, if not outright abuse, and may have spent time in facilities for suicidal ideation or self-harm. 

While I have had my struggles with this disorder, I had parents who were fantastic at helping me navigate the waters and taught me that I could manage the way I felt and work around the challenges I had to be able to function in a society that wasn’t going to make allowances for me based on my disability. I give them and their parenting the praise for helping me be as put together and stable as I have been, with the ability to hold stressful jobs, be functional, and recognize when I may need to reach out for more help. I can go unmedicated for a long amount of time and pass as almost “normal,” but choose at the moment to be medicated to help manage my anxiety and depression associated with BPD for ease, rather than because I need it to function. 

Despite their best efforts, I do still struggle a lot with impulsivity associated with BDP when it comes to money, and I have an unhealthy relationship with food, particularly when stressed. This can lead to a lot of negative feelings about myself, especially when I allow myself to give in to the impulsivity and then perceive myself to fail, which then leads to splitting (common in BPD). Splitting is the idea that something or someone is either all good or all bad; there is no middle ground. When I mess up and spend money, I tend to split to all bad and think of myself as an absolute failure of an adult. 

I am NOT a failure. I have a challenge to work around, but it is a vicious cycle at times, and I still struggle now and again to find the off-ramp.  

On top of this, in the last year (Refer back to “From Plans to Possibilities: A Personal Transformation Story” and “Finding Joy Amidst Life’s Challenges”), I have been diagnosed with Balo’s Consentric Sclerosis with Tumfactive Demylination. It is a really rare form of Multiple Sclerosis. In many cases with Multiple Sclerosis, lesions that appear on the brain and spine caused by ones immune system attacking the protective coating of the nerves called myline are somewhat small and while they have a large impact on the individual and can often lead to loose of motor skills, challenges with memory, challenges with speech, tremors, and other issues depending on where in the brain and spine the lesions form, the lesions don’t typically look line mine. I had two lesions, one in the left frontal lobe that was about the size of a quarter and has healed but left some scar tissue and then the one in my left parietal and occipital lobe (In the back of my head more or less) with a large swatch of damaged and dead brain tissue due to intense attack from my immune system. Aside from the look of my lesion, many of the symptoms I have are characteristic of Multiple Sclerosis, which include fatigue, memory challenges, speech challenges, loss of motor skills at times (both fine and large motor skills), and insatiable emotions and irritability. This is made worse when I don’t take care of myself well, such as when I don’t sleep well and when I don’t eat well. 

Which brings me to this post and what I want to say today.

I have the perfect storm going on with all my diagnoses creating such a fun challenge to keep a schedule and be productive, even as a housewife in the making. This week, both of those diagnoses worked together to say, “How can we mess with Dare the most?”

Currently, I am trying to move, which is stressful, said goodbye to the job I loved (See “Lessons from a Hard Day: Embracing Community Support”), which is also stressful, and have been a little more tired than usual, which doesn’t help the stress. I went grocery shopping while in a good mood on a good day and I have hated all the food I bought to eat this last week so much that I decided I’d rather not eat than have to cook. This was made worse with fatigue and a desire to avoid dishes. To be clear, I did put food in my body, it wasn’t good, nutritious food needed for healthy functioning, and I’m not sure if it was the amount of calories necessary for daily function. Eventually, I got hungry enough to impulsively DoorDash and spend money I didn’t have to spend because I am trying to move, which stressed me and the people who care about me, out,  which led to me not sleeping well as I mentally beat myself up, which caused more fatigue, etc.

Now, some people are going to say I was just being lazy and should have forced myself to cook and just not spent the money. You are entitled to your opinion on that, and I will tell you it is not that simple, it is not that easy. You can say just force yourself to eat the food you don’t want to eat and I will tell you that I had such strong emotions against the food and such inappropriate negative feelings about the food that if I had to even look at the food I’d have puked and the food would have ended up on the floor or against the wall. It makes no rational sense, but there it is. BPD and extreme reactions to negative feelings on full display. 

The lack of healthy food led to fatigue, which led to Doordash, which led to more unhealthy food and guilt over Doordash, which led to more lack of appetite, which led to more hunger, which led to more impulsive spending to get food I’d actually eat, etc. 

I finally found the off-ramp of the vicious cycle with the help of my community and am back to eating food somewhat reliably again and not wanting to hurl or throw it against the wall, as well as not spending money. I got good sleep, finally,  and am functional and able to type today, and look back on these last couple of days with a smile and the ability to laugh at myself and my ridiculous brain. 

I, however, felt compelled to share that if you are looking for a blogger who is going to post every day reliably, my blog is not for you. 

I will post when I can, and I will have a fun time doing it. But some days I just have to say, “Nope, it is not happening today.” 

-Dare

P.S. If you struggle with mental health or an eating disorder, you are not alone. There are resources out there to help you. You deserve and are worthy of that help without judgment and with unconditional positive regard. Linked below are just some of the resources available to you. 

Suicide Hotline: 988 Lifeline

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration- SAMHSA

Center for Chronic Illnesses Support Group: Hey Peers

Support for Eating Disorders: Equip