Living with Borderline Personality Disorder

My Trauma Took Katie Away

During my first session with my current therapist, I decided enough was enough and I needed to be honest with this woman about the hell I was living. First impressions left me feeling safe and like I could trust her, so I told her upfront that something was seriously wrong with me and that she was probably going to think I am crazy, even to a therapist. She assured me that I was not crazy and that she remembered my intake mentioning  significant trauma. She began to explain that trauma has the ability to completely rewire the brain. When someone goes through something that it too much to handle, the brain comes up with very creative ways to protect itself. While these behaviors may have protected me initially, they were no longer serving a purpose, now that I was out of harms way and were continuing to try to protect me, even though I may not need to be shielded from emotional harm in the present moment. When she explained this to me, I felt relieved that what was happening to me was a normal human reaction to trauma, and that I wasn't actually insane.
  Well...what now? How do I get rid of this? She gently reminded me that healing from trauma takes time and we would need to meet weekly to consistently address my traumas, and get down to the root causes of why I am experiencing such chaos in my life. I continued to meet with my therapist weekly, each time we got to know each other a little better, and a trusting relationship was born. I shared with her about growing up with an alcoholic mother, whom I took care of and became the parent of, instead of the other way around. I shared about my mentally abusive  relationship with a paranoid schizophrenic covert narcissist. I opened up about a sexual assault I had endured. I was honest about my addiction to drugs that progressed over the years due to being in a romantic relationship with a drug dealing gang banger, who introduced me to a lifestyle that frequently put me in danger. I admitted that I couldn't go very long without using drugs because I felt that I needed to mask or change how I was feeling.
  Once my therapist was aware of what I had been through, we began connecting dots and discovering thinking and behavior patterns related to my traumas, and how I was still living day to day, as if I was experiencing those horrific events in the here and now.  As we made these connections, it then became possible to acknowledge when I was having a trauma response and discover new ways to approach life and situations in a healthier manner. Now, THIS TOOK TIME, and I still am working on these things today, but I can honestly say that it has become almost second nature to address BPD or other behavioral traits with a more positive and successful approach.
  My teenhood and early adulthood years were like living as a shell of a person. Katie was gone for awhile. My trauma pushed Katie so far down in my human shell, as a way of preserving the parts of me that were left after experiencing such stressful traumas. I forgot who I was and what it was like to be Katie, and I feel so blessed to have reached my hand out to her to give her that opportunity to live again.