The Invisible Death

I was about to do something out of emotion that I would have regretted later. I would have regretted it because I was doing it for the wrong reasons. I mean I have stuff that I need to write and get off my chest, but I was about to do it very publicly on my blog. For that alone I feel terrible.

I am proud now though that I am able to see how my actions might have hurt others, whereas before I wouldn't have been so aware. I lived in my BPD world of black and white, with my blinders on. Many people got hurt along the way because of it. For that I will always be sorry, for that I have asked for forgiveness and I have forgiven myself. All I can do now is continue my journey forward.

I think that the tie between mental illness and forgiveness in an interesting one. Everyone needs forgiveness from others and everyone needs to also forgive themselves. However, when you add a mental illness, you wonder if you are forgiving the person or the illness. Where do the two separate? Too often people blame their illnesses for their actions; claiming the actions to be out of control. I have been there too. The only thing is that the illness is an explanation, not excuse. The mind is often very dark, very confused, and often split during realms of deep depression or BPD, but we are still breathing, thinking, feeling and acting humans; it is for that reason that we must take ownership and responsibilities for things that are said or done in those moments. Could they be controlled? I have to believe that yes. To what level? I don't know.

Perhaps it is my own experiences, or the realization that life is a journey, about growth, but I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. I see the good before the bad - a weakness or so I've been told.

Yet as I write this, I think of so many moments in my life when things did feel so out of my own control. Where I felt like an observer screaming for everything that I was saying and doing on the outside to stop. My actions for an unfortunate symptom of my own suffering. The dissociation was my own defence mechanisms used to protect myself from the pain, the fear. Can the validity of this pain and fear be questioned? Of course. Real or unreal, it was true in the moment and that truth cannot be taken away. For me dissociation was a detachment from the reality of the situational; it was often followed by a loss of the memory and the relief of pain for the situation. Overtime, it become one of my many possible conditioned response to stress. Add to that the depersonalization and the derealisation and you get one foggy situation.

As I type this, I realize that I've been the one seeking forgiveness, but what I should be doing is forgiving. I need to release all the negative emotions associated with the person. Let go of the pain; otherwise I am choosing to allow her actions to continue to hurting me. As hard as it is I have to choose to stop letting her hurt me.

This is where I say good bye to the invisible death of a loved one. While you still roam the earth freely, in my mind you are no longer here. You have gone to a place where hopefully you have found your own ability to heal. I take comfort in knowing that you were able to forgive me in your own way - I hope that now that you have made the final separation you can move past all the pain. I also hope that you know the pain exists within and that if seeing me brings you so much than you have yet to heal and yet to forgive.

I have also come to realize that my boys must also let go of a connection that I was trying to force upon them. For that I am also sorry.