Category: Stoicism

New Year, New Expectations

One of the things I’ve definitely learned in life up to this point, is that the only person you can truly have expectations for is yourself. Expectations for the person with BPD can lead to many explosions and disappointments.
I’ve learned that to expect someone to behave in a way that is pleasing to you, well it’s just not realistic.
Having expectations for any other individual (one exception maybe being your children) can often leave you feeling gutted (empty) and miserable(depressed). Almost a quarter of a century ago I remember making some smart-ass comment to my mother… “Don’t have expectations and you won’t be let down.” Quite a feisty comment coming from the mouth of her teenage daughter.

I think she said something about cleaning up a mess her pup had made after the pup had torn up an entire roll of paper towels. My mom had been at work that day, and when she walked through the door, she said “I expected that you would see this mess, and take care of it!” She was right to say that, as she is my mom… but I also saw this particular situation as not my responsibility because it wasn’t my dog.

This back & forth of vocalizing our expectations actually led to me being thrown out of her house. I was 16. Thankfully, It didn’t leave me homeless, I lived with my dad & I was only there that Friday to visit for the weekend. Long story short, we eventually got over it and had a proper discussion about it.

Now I see the ways I could have handled myself more appropriately. However many, many lessons had to be learned in order for me to see the error in my ways and change my bitter & spiteful attitude. I really should have cleaned up the mess, not because it was her expectation, but because it was the right thing to do.

After all of those lessons, I have learned that I don’t try to teach my children to meet MY expectations. I show them the expectations I have for myself that will hopefully lead to me becoming a better human being, and I openly talk to them about choosing appropriate expectations for themselves as well.

You can always communicate your expectations for the people in your life, but it is still up to that individual to accept those expectations as their own or up to you to find out what expectations they may have already established as their own.

I’m starting this year off by being intentional and realistic with my personal expectations. I will not look to others to meet my expectations because they have their own. If I find myself expecting something from someone I will pull back and readjust my perspective to seek understanding rather than to be let down by unmet expectations. Happy New Year to my beautiful BPD warriors! Let’s expect it to be great!

“6 Things To Help Manage BPD”

(Last episode for season 1)

Link to Podcast! https://s-ssl.wordpress.com/i/spotify-badge.svg

Season 1 Episode 9:

Intro: Hello and welcome to “The World in Black and White” My name is Michelle and I am the narrator and creator of this podcast.

Vision: My vision for this podcast is that it will bring hope to all individuals that may be overwhelmed by the challenges mental illness can create as a person attempts to navigate life in a positive and successful way.  

Crisis Helpline: I want to also make listeners aware of help that is available. Call 988 to speak to a crisis operator or text “helpline” that is H E L P L I N E to 62640 .

Stoicism says not to worry about the elements of your life outside of your control, that the only thing you can ever really control is yourself, or rather your reaction to those outside elements that you “feel” are affecting your outlook on life. I posed the question a couple years back, “can a person with BPD be a stoic?” It was interesting for me to consider that the rule was so simple, yet so foreign for someone at the mercy of overly reactive chemicals to external stimuli. To even consider that someone could have this type of control over their responses to the world intrigued me… and so I researched stoicism for a bit. It was super difficult for me to resist the urge not to react to everything outside of my control. 

I’m still working on some level of a more controlled response to the world. I am still wondering if someone suffering from this brain disorder has the capability to become a stoic? 

This next portion I will be sharing is a blog post I made about Stoicism and BPD in March of 2020. 

Here is a previous blog I wrote about stoicism and BPD Can An Individual With BPD Become A Stoic?

  So I came up with these 6 things after responding to a comment someone posted on Reddit.   I will omit their comment, as it was the response that triggered this episode anyway.  Sometimes we don’t know what we have learned until someone else needs to know what you know in order to get through something troublesome.

MY RESPONSE:   “I’m going to sound like a b-word when I say what is required of you to “feel” better. I just need you to know, nothing will ever change If we aren’t honest about what is required to get out of your own way. BPD is a brain disorder, chemicals have hijacked YOU. Every BPD person has unknowingly given these chemicals an all-access pass to control emotional responses.  We have always been at the mercy of these chemicals. 1st and foremost – stop making excuses 2. Stop justifying your avoidance to seek understanding of BPD. We must relocate from victimhood. 3. Claim your autonomy, and immediately start working on self-awareness. 4. Embrace the emptiness until it’s gone. 5. Decide that being present is more important than anything contrived in a fantasy. 6. Get active. These are not fail-proof instructions, but it’s been effective enough for me to stay present a lot more than before and focus on things that mean something to me.”

After responding to this person, I noticed that I may have some more things to share with listeners about managing their borderline personality disorder. With no real answers or cure to Borderline we must all  focus on managing ourselves, until we figure out the issues causing the symptoms. 

#1)  If we are at the mercy of chemicals responding to our environment reactively and without permission, how likely is it that a person with BPD can control their emotional responses?  Don’t chemicals just have a way of doing their thing without asking permission?

(Definitions found on newharbinger.com)

Cortisol- a chemical released during stress that helps to break down carbohydrates and proteins in order to increase the supply of glucose and oxygen in the muscles, heart, and brain. But high levels of cortisol over a prolonged periods of time lead to an increase in blood pressure and an increase in sugar levels, both of which lead to unhealthy fat build-up in the abdomen, thinning of bones, and prevention of collagen formation. High cortisol levels also suppress the immune-system response and cause the body to age faster.

Serotonin- plays an important role in the regulation of mood, sleep, and learning. It is found throughout the brain and the digestive system, and has been implicated in depression, suicide, anxiety, and appetite regulation

Opiates- are released (under ordinary circumstances) by the brain to dull pain in response to body-tissue damage

Just knowing cortisol can affect in a negative way… traumatic events and high stress situations…  you can control your actions to help alleviate some of those environmental triggers. 

#2)  Avoiding responsibility or competency of your disorder?  Are you a “manager” or are you a “victim”?

I still catch myself saying “If you would just be nice to me, I wouldn’t have these episodes.”  while this may be true.  It is no one else’s responsibility to make me behave appropriately.  It is my responsibility.  Understanding my weaknesses, helps me manage this brain disorder.  When I am feeling unloved, invisible or misunderstood, I should seek to understand the reasons this is occurring and not just try to “feel” better by any means necessary.  I know that even our defense mechanisms tend to happen automatically, but if you work at maintaining a mindful existence, you will see the unhealthy ones and realize they aren’t truly helping you “feel” better, they are only interested in making the pain go away and to survive.  Living a good life is much more than just surviving.  




#3) You are an autonomous being with unique characteristics and specific attributes that make you, YOU.  Awaken to who you are.

I am a work in progress.  Honestly, I am still getting acquainted with who I am. This introspection has been motivated by a series of events that had to happen in order for me to understand I was “surviving on autopilot” and not really living the life I would want to live. Since arriving at that understanding of self I embrace that I am a strong person that has already accomplished many things, even with a disorder that creates more self-inflicted pain than living without BPD. Embrace this strength. 

#4) Healing is feeling, and sometimes that means embracing the emptiness until you have squeezed every bit of it from those special compartments you like to hoard painful & unpleasant moments.  

Imagine running water from your kitchen faucet,  take a rag and soak it with water, then ring it out.  Does it feel dry, after ringing it out once? Probably not, because no matter how much you ring it, the rag will remain damp, until you lay it out flat in the sun.  Our pain is similar to a damp rag, if we wad it up and stuff it deep down inside of us it doesn’t ever go away.  Especially when we just keep it under a running faucet.  If you want to get rid of the pain, you will need to lay it all out and with time let the light (personal insight and acknowledgement) dry it up.  You may need to do this process several times.  It is worthwhile work. 

#5) Being present, and not caught up in some fantasy, is the only way in which you directly affect your overall mental health.  There is no escaping this fact!

There are several moments throughout my day that I see people using technology to escape reality.  I am wearing headphones right now listening to the Top Hits on Spotify and I am doing this to block out distractions, to help me focus on creating my podcast notes.  Well, my family escapes reality by playing video games and watching youtube videos or any social media platform currently available.  It is ok to escape for a little while, but if you are constantly seeking the escape, maybe you need to take inventory of what is happening around you that is inspiring this desire to escape and do what you need to do to make your reality more comfortable for you to exist in peace.

#6)  MOVE your body and be physical.  It helps battle the negative chemicals by releasing the good chemicals that your brain is desperate for, and the physical benefits of being active aren’t so bad either. 

I can tell you since starting kickboxing and pushing to do this multiple times a week has helped my mental state in a big way.  You don’t need a gym, take a walk, or buy a jump rope.  Do some pushups or sit-ups and log your workouts.  This activity will help you “feel” better. 

BYTE OF INSIGHT: 

It is so easy for me to describe to people the ways in which they don’t show their appreciation for me, and this usually looks like some sort of adolescent tantrum.  The reason this expression looks like some sort of teenager not getting their way, is due to my lack of self-awareness.

In the past, I expected everyone to understand that my unloading was the only path for me to find any level of peace again.  I would only offer this “explosion” as the necessary path they deserved to take with me after they so selfishly and consistently offered me their inconsiderate behaviors. Instead of halting the inappropriate talk or behaviors as they occurred, I would expect them to choose not to do those things, out of some sort of expression of love and commitment to me.  I would then by way of silence, allow them to continue their behaviors towards me that I did not approve of,  and this would then create an ugly pattern of  behaviors and treatment that weren’t  acceptable, but allowed. 

I now know that this “explosion” can be avoided by establishing timely & appropriate boundaries, however this awareness took me a very long time to establish boundaries for myself and my family members and friends.
I have found the closer you are to someone the harder it will be to set necessary boundaries.  I think it might also be relevant to state that this realization means that the person dealing with BPD has the hardest time setting boundaries for themself.  I am able to justify just about any type of treatment I “feel” like justifying.  Instead of letting my “feelings” tell me what is appropriate. I have now designed boundaries that say “Will this behavior/communication express how I feel about this person honestly?”  If the answer is no, I would only be trampling all over myself and my authenticity. Which is the last thing I want to occur. I have been working hard at understanding myself and all the things that make me, ME. Beyond that… I want those that I love, to feel that love and trust my love.  I want the people that I care about, to know that I hold their future and their feelings as a personal priority.  This has helped me quite a bit on my journey to healing the relationships I have thoughtlessly injured in the past.


So even though I have in the past unloaded whatever it was I had been “containing” directly on to my loved ones, I was doing this to somehow attack their behaviors.  But what I was actually doing, was informing them that it was ok to communicate in this way.  I had just demonstrated what I accept as appropriate behavior & an appropriate method to communicate.  Even though it is not how I want to communicate.  It helped to create an ugly and emotionally abusive cycle. I now choose to show love and patience and seek understanding, all while hoping that I will also receive the same.  


I was showing people with my own actions and expressions that this response was normal or “appropriate”.   So Instead of burying the hurt or dismissing the moments I felt disrespected, I should discuss these things or events in a healthy way. Knowing that  I would not treat them this way, and would like the same consideration from them, and that if they can’t show this type of consideration for my feelings, then maybe they do not hold one of the places I have reserved for my closest relationships.  I should not rely on my ability to bury things, in order to keep a relationship. 



Challenge:Stoicism and controlling yourself! Change your responses to the people close to you.  This has been trying for me at times.  When I dish out honesty it is served alongside an attitude that says “I’m right about this, you are just too ignorant to see it from my personal perspective.”  I despise trying to appear like a “know it all”, because well… I know I don’t know everything. Before when I would start speaking my truth or opinions about something, I would expect everyone to just accept it as their truth as well.  That will not always be the case.  I have been working very hard at accepting that the rest of the world, especially those closest to me, do not experience or see the world as I do.  I must first try to see their perspective then express that I understand their point of view before offering my own, and there may even be times where the other person doesn’t even want to hear it.  This has been challenging for me most of my life, but since opting to try this method of communication out I have already seen positive responses when communicating my wants and needs, or when I am expressing my raw feelings about certain things, to my friends and family. 

Closing: Thanks so much for tuning in we have come to the end of the podcast. What did you learn? Who can you share this podcast with? If this resonates with your spirit or makes you think of a certain someone that has experienced similar issues in their life, please share this with them. I believe mental health is something that we are overlooking on a massive scale and in order for people to heal we need to be able to speak about this openly and honestly.I believe this will also be the last episode of season 1. I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and wish you all a very Happy New Year! Until next time choose truth, goodness, and love.

A N G E R

Responding like a stoic…

Is anger a good thing or a bad thing? Anger, when first recognized, is actually just simply a warning. A signal from your amygdala blasting throughout your brain, sounding an alarm via chemicals, that warns your body that something is not right. Message received as, “there is a present threat and there is a possibility to fight, flight, or freeze.” Anger can therefore be seen as a natural response to external stimuli. It is a response that was designed in humans to help protect us in perceived dangerous situations. After reading what Seneca wrote on Anger, I concluded that he deduced that anger wasn’t natural, that reasoning was natural. The truth is, it requires more brain function to engage the logical areas of the brain. Leaving me to believe, emotion is more natural than thought.

The emotional response happens automatically. This emotional part of our brains (amygdala) is so much more developed than the logical part of our brain, which is known as the prefrontal cortex. The emotional part of our brain has kept us alive, reacting to the world without much thought to consequences, other than one that is primal, “Stay alive!” While this much developed area of my brain has kept me alive, it has also assumed for far too long that it is in charge. I have now learned that the prefrontal cortex can be trained/stimulated so that it can show the amygdala whose boss. Seneca was then saying that allowing our emotional brain to just run rampant in our lives wouldn’t be natural. The natural thing, the “good thing” is to have what we call In DBT, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, your wise mind always aware of what your amygdala and prefrontal cortex are doing. After studying stoicism and understanding that Cognitive Behavior Therapy was designed using stoicism. I can see how it’s philosophy is also helpful in The therapy I am currently receiving now. That this higher order thinking, being cognitively aware is the practice of stoicism. “through Stoic training, Aurelius was able to master his perceptions and see each obstacle as an opportunity to improve”(dailystoic.com) mastering our perceptions, added with the knowledge of how our minds naturally respond will help most manage anger.

You can find some exercises for the prefrontal cortex below…

https://heartmindonline.org/resources/10-exercises-for-your-prefrontal-cortex

If you have read any of my previous posts or know anything of Borderline Personality Disorder, becoming a stoic is changing the natural way in which my BPD brain will more than likely over respond to the difficult to digest external stimuli. Like black is to white, BPD is to stoicism. The way in which one chooses to respond to this automatic alarm system is what I believe answers our question today. When anger is triggered inside the mind, it is neither good nor bad. It is not decided until we respond.

Anger, shows duality, with the possibility of being both good and bad. Stoics believe that there is no good with anger. They were told to see that there is no good, because of all the “evil” it created. They want every stoic to believe that there is no good to be found in anger. I see the justifications of their message. A calm and sound mind, not writhing with “passions” can be controlled. One drowning in anger or other “passions” cannot. So then, if looking at it from this perspective, serenity isn’t the final goal, but rather control. Or does control get us to the place of serenity? I have had moments, in which I have given into passions of anger and it has kept me alive. So isn’t it necessary to be alive in order to be serene? Can we have one without the other?

I absolutely want to be a stoic sage someday, using this higher-order thinking to get through the most complicated of situations with clarity and peace of mind… I’m left perplexed at this particular question. While I understand what the stoic philosophers were trying to convey to their followers in those times, teaching people to seek serenity. Being calm and collected leads to logical thinking and sound decisions. I have also experienced anger on several levels. Ultimately, anger has ensured my existence during some pretty tough times. More recently, I find that I am just angry at myself and my mistakes and this anger has propelled me to find better ways to manage myself, my disorder, and my life. Has it been pretty? No, fighting my way to this point hasn’t been pretty. I feel that’s why we are all built in this way. There is no way to determine which human will be placed in prime conditions and which will be placed in tough conditions. The emotional tools we are equipped with may not be dispersed equally, but we were all equipped with the ability to learn. I choose now as I am on the verge of entering my forties, to learn this higher order thinking. Working a portion of the brain more and more, so that my logical mind becomes stronger every day. My ultimate goal being serenity in this deeply maddening world.

I had a discussion with my students the other day about anger. One student said, “as a kid, my counselor told me not to show my anger, but to keep my anger to myself.” I felt that wasn’t a very healthy way to teach a young person to deal with such an intense emotion. I asked him, “How has that advice worked out for you?” My student responded with, “I’m still trying to find a useful method to control my anger.”

I then asked, “what if we started looking at anger differently?” A lot of puzzled stares looking back at me. I then said, “what if we started looking at the positive ways in which anger can be of use to us? Can anger be of use to us? Can we manage it? Or do we let that emotion manage us?”

What if we started looking at the positive ways in which anger can be of use to us?

What are positive ways anger has helped you?

Can anger be of use to us?

Can we manage anger, or do we let anger manage us?

Emotions indicate so many things for an individual, learning to understand our emotions and why we choose to respond in certain ways, increases not only our emotional intelligence but the control we possess over ourselves. Why then should anyone just ignore this emotion, anger? Especially, when anger is often the first emotion we go to when life gets confusing, or when we are afraid, when we feel threatened or rejected.

“Anger is temporary madness: the Stoics knew how to curb it” By: Massimo Pigliucci, here he states 10 ways to curb anger! Maybe one of these can help…

  • Engage in preemptive meditation: think about what situations trigger your anger, and decide ahead of time how to deal with them.
  • Check anger as soon as you feel its symptoms. Don’t wait, or it will get out of control.
  • Associate with serene people, as much as possible; avoid irritable or angry ones. Moods are infective.
  • Play a musical instrument, or purposefully engage in whatever activity relaxes your mind. A relaxed mind does not get angry.
  • Seek environments with pleasing, not irritating, colours. Manipulating external circumstances actually has an effect on our moods.
  • Don’t engage in discussions when you are tired, you will be more prone to irritation, which can then escalate into anger.
  • Don’t start discussions when you are thirsty or hungry, for the same reason.
  • Deploy self-deprecating humour, our main weapon against the unpredictability of the Universe, and the predictable nastiness of some of our fellow human beings.
  • Practice cognitive distancing – what Seneca calls ‘delaying’ your response – by going for a walk, or retire to the bathroom, anything that will allow you a breather from a tense situation.
  • Change your body to change your mind: deliberately slow down your steps, lower the tone of your voice, impose on your body the demeanour of a calm person.

My Conclusion: I thought about anger for an entire week. Oddly enough it kept me from getting angry. While I may not have answered the question for everyone here, my answer is… Anger, like all other emotions is necessary. It is neither a good or bad thing. To let it get out of control is bad. To see what it can do for us when we need it to survive, is good.

Have a great day! The end! 🙂

A game that could help improve logic… Chess

**Wanted to include a huge thanks to @dailystoic and @stoiccoffeebreak for wonderful podcasts! Thanks for stirring good thoughts and inspiring and motivating me to change the things I can control. Check out their podcasts if you are learning on the stoic philosophy.

Can An Individual With BPD Become A Stoic?

Emotional dis-regulation might be the opposite term one could use for Stoicism. I’ve lived most of my life without acknowledgement to my dis-regulated emotional state. In my teen years, emotional dis-regulation could be seen on most days. This dis-regulation often misinterpreted as just being a teenager. As teens are often moody, impulsive, and emotional. It was a convenient front being a teenager, as everyone assumed I was behaving normally. As a child, I can remember being so upset at times that I required a paper bag to breathe into just to help with hyperventilating. Many, many memories of breathing into a paper bag. This happened many times. Again, the excuses were she just needs to calm down, she is just sensitive. Being a shy little girl, I was unable to communicate properly about the things I was feeling. Today as an adult, I have only become slightly better at this. This lack of communication made it easy for others to believe that I was fine. I still at times get almost to the point of hyperventilating when I experience an event that I have perceived as negative & emotionally-charged, or I perceive I am being blamed. (I have moments where I feel my entire person has been hijacked and is now under someone else’s control.)This is the danger of being highly emotional and highly reactive to your situation/s. You become subject to reacting without logic, thus leaving the person feeling like a puppet being manipulated by someone else. If I am not in control, then who is? Is it the chemicals?

The stoic philosophy says that one shouldn’t react but rather look at the situation as something that you can not control. The only thing that you do control is your thoughts and your reaction in that moment. The stoic philosophy reminds one to stay mindful, in the present moment. Not to worry about the future, but educate yourself that tragedies and challenges are sure to be expected. That one shouldn’t take this personally as each of us are being challenged.

Understanding this philosophy has helped create some control for myself. I have been able to halt an impulse, as I consider the way in which I can be better received. It is my way of having some control in every situation. It alleviates the constant push and pull that we often feel when dealing with difficult situations. It’s understanding that you do hold some power, but that this power is limited to just your own actions and responses. Once you try to push your power onto something or someone else it is no longer a power, but a wasted effort or wasted breath. You then push everything out of balance and something may fall apart. In my experience the thing left falling apart would be me.

If you think about yourself as a lightbulb, it might better explain my understanding of this philosophy a little better. A lightbulb’s main function and purpose is to produce light, to lift darkness. Some may say that your light isn’t bright enough, others may say it’s too bright. Stoicism says, it doesn’t matter what others say, as long as YOU are shining as brightly as YOU can. That is all you can control. You don’t control where you are placed. You don’t control when your power is cut off, or how long you should last before your light burns out, but you can do your best knowing that you did your best at what you could control, and be happy that you were able to shine your light. This thought is so soothing to me, I honestly feel it has helped my anxiety more than my anti-anxiety meds.

I have several roles I fulfill on the daily, who doesn’t? My life is not so different from most. I am a daughter, I am a sister, I am a wife, I am a mother of two, I am a teacher, I am a friend, etc. we could list the roles for a little bit longer I am sure of this. The beauty with stoicism isn’t to compare your role to that of another, it’s to ask yourself while on a said task, fulfilling specific roles, are you genuinely focused and completing the task to the best of your ability? This has changed my daily life in a huge way. When I find myself doing something I don’t particularly care to do, the complaints cease and I am left repeating the question, is this the best I can do? Which leaves me doing a much better job and feeling the intrinsic reward of completing something at my best.

I am just starting this journey, practicing and learning stoicism. Hopefully the question is answered in my progress. I do hope someone with BPD can become a stoic. Have an empowered day, knowing that you can only do your best and that is more than enough.

* if you are on a similar journey please share your thoughts/feedback on stoicism in the comment section. Have a mindful day!

**Wanted to include a huge thanks to @dailystoic and @stoiccoffeebreak for wonderful podcasts! Thanks for stirring good thoughts and inspiring and motivating me to change the things I can control. Check out their podcasts if you are learning the stoic philosophy.