I should be working right now but I just can't. This morning I couldn't get myself out of bed, a regular occurrence for me these days. But this goes deeper than my hatred of mornings. I just have no desire to live life anymore. I'm at the bottom of a well of despair and there is no way to the top. I'm stuck, I'm trapped and it is dark as hell down here.
This didn't just happen overnight; like a good sauce, it has been simmering for quite awhile now.
Some days I wake up and feel normal, things are fine.
I will always tell you things are fine.
Until they are not, and it is right back to the bottom of the well I go.
Sometimes the darkness stays at bay for a day or two. Sometimes it rears it's ugly head hourly.
Recently I stumbled across an article while obsessively saving INFJ shit on Pinterest:
INFJ Stress: Caging Mr. Hyde.
The title alone spoke to me, because all too often lately I feel like I am living this double life of decent versus demon.
Before I really delved into the whole Meyers Briggs thing, I was so convinced I was a borderline.
Deep, relentless feelings. Ridiculous highs and tragic lows. This unbridled need for connection, yet this deep aching to just be left completely alone. The extremes, the black and white, the all or nothing. Being impulsive, reckless. Feeling empty. Never truly trusting anyone. Seeing through people's motives. Needing to find some escape and release from all of the damn head to toe, all consuming emotions.
When the darkness inevitably finds me, every time it comes with the thought, "my inner borderline is back."
She is such a bitch.
My first real therapist was just not convinced my self-diagnosis was accurate. Laughable now, but I was so upset by that.
Most people would run like hell from a borderline diagnosis. Why in the world was I so dead-set on claiming it?
At the time, learning about BPD (something I had never been exposed to before my Abnormal Psychology class) was validating.
Even if it was a diagnosis that carried a lot of stigma, it was an explanation for all of these aspects of myself that needed a birthplace.
Many years have gone by since that time and I think I hold more solid answers now than a "cookbook" diagnosis for myself (thanks Dr. Spaid, I will never forget your DSM class).
INFJ.
Less letters than it takes to spell borderline, and yet much more of an explanation for myself than I've ever experienced before.
The perfectionism, the idealism, the trouble trusting people. The walking contradictions, the depth. The conflicted extremes. The intense emotions. The "gift" of soaking everything and everyone up like a sponge and never knowing where the line is that separates other people from me.
I'm not a borderline, I'm an INFJ. I'm a "rare" personality, not a disorder.
The article above lists how INFJs can keep our inner Hyde (aka borderline) at bay and hints about the reasons that make him show his ugly face:
-We are too busy helping others to help ourselves.
-We have "too many irons in the fire" and are basically overachievers.
-We have too many stress-triggers.
-Our lives are physically cluttered which doesn't help our inner mental clutter.
-We don't ask for help.
-We don't take time to be alone because we feel guilty.
Wow.
If all the above aren't absolutely true right now for me, then Dr. Pepper is not the nectar of the gods (and we all know that it is.)
In my personal "journals" (if you can call them that, more like collection of loose thoughts that go floating through my head), you could find several snippets about this raging borderline that I keep locked in a cage.
I usually start to get into trouble when she starts rattling so loud I can't keep her quiet.
New epiphany: Borderline me = INFJ Grip Stress. It's practically textbook.
No wonder I can feel like a normal human being for years at a time and then turn into this raging demon.
Fast forward to last year.
Almost exactly this time of year, my inner borerline (newly re-framed Mr. Hyde) was causing such a big fuss I almost quit my job and walked out on my life completely.
I can be a really cynical person sometimes, but that day at work I was especially negative. Everything felt like someone taking my knuckles to a cheese grater and I just snapped a little.
Luckily I kept things in check enough to not lose my job, and didn't drive into oncoming traffic on the way home (though I may have considered it).
Since that time I have been riding this roller coaster of insanity, again with the highest of highs and lowest of lows. I have yet to find a way to jump off.
Last year I got so low I went back to therapy. It helped, it really did. But I got well enough to do it on my own again (with a little help from my empty pocketbook).
But now I've circled back to this preoccupation with existential dread. There have been so many things percolating, swimming and simmering beneath the surface.
I recently stumbled across another article that really struck me:
Here's What INFJs Absolutely Must Have in Order to Be Happy
I may or may not have sobbed a little while reading it.
For the last two years I have felt so trapped. I've been in the throes of a never-ending existential crisis. In this dark night of my soul I often find myself asking, what is the point of all this?
As an INFJ, I have to know the reason behind everything.
When it got to the point that I couldn't even find a reason behind my own life, I just kind of lost it.
A life devoid of meaning and purpose is not a life worth living.
As I read through the list of things needed by INFJs to feel happy, I felt almost numb.
-A creative outlet
-Space
-Meaningful relationships
-Helping others
-Being understood
-Staying true to their passions
-Reflection and self-care
All of these are so absent from my life right now.
It is no one's fault but my own.
For as long as I can remember I have put others' needs first.
I never take time alone for myself.
I am too busy doing, accomplishing, hustling for that damn worthiness.
As astute as I might be at noticing and understanding other people's feelings, I sure am shitty at understanding and dealing with my own.
The one thing I do have on the list above is an amazing friend. I really should pay her for all the free therapy she gives me. ;)
She sent me a beautiful Marco Polo last week that really socked me straight in the gut.
In a good way.
She went on about how I have this need to create that isn't being realized and that I am so caught up in trying to control for uncertainty that I'm not dealing with feelings of loss or sadness. That I am allowing the pressure and weight of the world to rest on my shoulders because I have shitty emotional boundaries and take on other people's stories which just leaves me drained when I lack the self-care to compensate. That I need to let go of the things that are "too much."
I don't know what scared me more. The fact that she was so spot on in her assessment, or the fact that I was vulnerable enough to let someone see me start to self destruct. Or maybe even that she cared enough to call me on my shit.
It took a few days to digest.
I still feel on the verge of vomiting at any given moment.
Like all this garbage I have been trying to suppress for so long is gurgling its way back up and I can't avoid it anymore.
And I don't just mean metaphorically.
It never ceases to fascinate me how interconnected our bodies are to our minds.
Can I just say how awesome it is to be not just mentally sick, but physically sick also? *Insert sarcasm*
I have toyed with the idea of making financial sacrifices to go back to therapy again, but ultimately I now feel that what I need isn't going to be found in another person.
I "know" the textbook answers. I need the soul answers. And as much as I love my therapist, those are just not going to manifest on a chair in an office.
I need my own time, my own space, my own permission to create my own healing.
And maybe a little more yoga.
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