PODCAST LINK: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0bCrBZ25jGURp36yykT0ut?si=rlLOoiMxRjSEIf-q5O1Xcw

    We have been dealing with a lot over in our neck of the woods, my absence is mostly related to my brief summer break from teaching and well that just translates into a break from routine.  During this break from “root-ine”, I started to realize just how frequently my mind is busy generating thoughts and how those thoughts quickly blossom into feelings. Those feelings then ultimately direct my actions. This realization made me aware of the negative thoughts I was allowing to grow, and well that is where "A Borderline's Garden" originated from. 
    Well, here we go, I am glad you are here to listen. Let me know what you think & please comment if you are inspired to share your thoughts with this Ol' gardener. 

It always starts out so small, a tiny seed that gets planted in my grandiose garden of thoughts. The place where all thoughts are nurtured before blooming into actual real feelings & behaviors. My negative thoughts are the most durable of seeds. They also grow into the most stubborn of weeds. Each durable seed collected during childhood. Nurtured by every crisis event of my youth. Now as an adult, I can spot the full-grown mess of stubborn weeds. Monsters really, glaring at me from time to time. Taunting me with their incessant noises, consistently spewing reminders of my past failures and only encouraging my insecurities to blossom. Even though I can identify the root of my problems now, I’m often feel too vulnerable or too emotionally immature to handle the task, the job of removing the stubborn weeds that had been planted before I became aware of the delicate state of my overgrown thought garden.

I drifted off to sleep after working on this post. I’ve been working on this one post over the last few months. For whatever reason, this work let my pre-slumber positive mindset fall directly into a nightmare. I woke quickly around 4am, clammy, bothered & unable to fall back to sleep. This nightmare made me question a lot of things about myself. I laid there in silence, heart & mind racing, eyes unable to focus, mouth dry, covered by the cool darkness, my mind tossing about several conflicting thought seeds. Normally, I would have started crying and rolled over to ask my husband to provide some sort of comfort for me. This morning though, my reaction was a little different, I was able to calm myself without his help just by eliminating the terrible thoughts and focusing on the actual situation.

First, I began to question the origin of each feeling. I knew that everything I was feeling had just sprouted up from this bad dream. Could these thoughts have originated from my subconscious or were they from some darker place within my vast thought garden, a place I tend to visit too often, that place called paranoia? I knew I could test the validity of each thought. What are the test standards? – If it lowers my frequency or lessens my energy, the seed should not be planted. If it leads to truth and love, the seed can remain in my garden. I knew that a few specific bad seeds had already been planted, based solely on the developing insecurities the nightmare had encouraged. My insecurities are not founded in reality, rather based solely on my feelings. I can be in a loving relationship and still feel unloved and undesirable. I compare myself to other females nearly every day. If I am not as physically strong as them, then I feel weak. If I am not as pretty as them, then I feel disgusting. There is no middle ground for the mind of a borderline. It either is or isn’t. This black and white thinking is destructive and leaves very little room for grace. The battle of sticking to the truths of who I am remains most of where my struggles lie, and why this is such a serious disorder. Nothing is certain, and when everything is based on how I feel my entire concept of reality shifts from moment to moment. I should have thrown those seeds out long ago, but I didn’t know what I was doing. A novice thought gardener back then, those negative seeds grew into stubborn weeds, nothing good.

How could these small little thought seeds grow into such enormous monsters? They do at times confuse and scare me, but I don’t want them completely taking over my thought garden. The bad seeds feed on my fear like it’s some type of miracle grow. This fertilizer or “insecurity shit” it transforms the smallest of negative thoughts into these full-blown nightmares, only the type experienced in real life.

I know I’ve not been the best kind of thought gardener; I just toss out every kind of seed without identifying whether I want it planted in my garden or not. I am guilty of thinking too much! My thought garden now vast & just like in real gardens, there is a ton of work to do. The weeds (my negative thoughts) show up in my garden randomly and frequently. They require no help to go from destructive thoughts to insecure feelings, they just suddenly appear and then I suddenly feel “less than”. The moment I notice these monsters in my garden, they begin extracting unusual powers from my insecurities, As the weeds settle in and begin to establish roots, they also simultaneously begin to construct catastrophic stories that my negative thoughts affirm will be my future reality. This experience must happen for all bad thought gardeners… Giving into the weeds, because we didn’t know how to nurture the proper seeds.

I’ve been trying a peculiar method these days. Be the gardener with a green thumb, protect and nurture the good seeds the ones you are responsible for and throw the rest away. Armed now with the knowledge that you must only tend to the garden you decide to plant, have planted, and will plant. Be a wise gardener. Identify your seed, provide an environment where it will grow best, be aware of what you have already planted so you learn what you should plant each season. * Tip: If good things can’t grow in your environment, change what you can control of that environment.

This will not be some quick and easy fix for managing “The Borderline’s Garden” and each may still get caught up in the weeds. I know this fact personally, as I still have terribly low days, like the one I experienced just a few days ago… but being armed with this truth helps me dig my way back up towards the sunshine. I welcome the warmth of the sunshine and the embrace it brings to my soul.

For the individuals that live with BPD, we know the intensity of sorting through our numerous thoughts. Our minds busy generating various types of thought seeds all day! Our mind’s motivation for this overproduction of thoughts is our never-ending desire to satisfy our constant yearning of one thing, to “feel” loved. The mind offering only the familiar sad justifications, listing reasons why you will never be good enough & that you should never believe that anyone will stay. The stubborn weeds you have left unmanaged for so long, now great at reminding your psyche that everyone eventually abandons you. Remove those monsters, they will never produce anything good.

Listening to the utterances of these monsters repeatedly, leads to a certain type of thinking, “I am not good enough, I’m not fun enough, I’m not witty enough to maintain the attention I crave from anyone anymore… if I don’t have this desired attention, then I do not have love. If I do not have love then I will be left alone. Unloved & abandoned, two of my greatest fears married together to successfully tackle one objective… Destroy any & all joy.

The truth is each person ultimately gets to decide what will grow best in their grandiose gardens. You can either ignore the weeds until they take over or you can address each thought seed upon arrival, be diligent in protecting your precious garden of thoughts.

Announcements!!!! (Next Episode Info!)

All I have been seeking lately is some reassurance that I am enough.

Someone without knowledge of how BPD affects the individuals that battle it, would never know the seriousness of this disorder. They wouldn’t know the seriousness of mine, unless of course I bring them into my inner circle. There aren’t many people there, and I am probably overreaching by referring to it as a circle. I don’t even have enough people in it to make a circle, it’s my inner semi-circle. I mask it well, my loneliness. My deeply planted insecurities are pretty well hidden from the outside world. I know that I have the ability to hide it when I need to, but moments like last night make it impossible for me to keep those ugly monsters completely locked away. So instead of locking them up inside my thought garden, I have decided to do the hard job of cleaning up the mess of overgrown weeds and getting back to tending to my more positive thoughts. Tending to my thought garden.

I finished this blogpost and discovered a little bit more. The nightmare was sent to apparently convey a message. After thinking about the dream all day, realizing that I was constantly worried about being abandoned that I was on my way to securing that as my future. It was as if while sleeping I had been visited by the “Ghost of Christmas Future.” He drew the connections to the time I had lost my faith in love during my youth & what I had been seeking to replace that lost faith, maybe I was seeking a lust for romance and adoration. Understanding that connection led me to more questions… If God is love, had I lost my faith in God? Have I been actively rejecting love, choosing only to survive? Choosing list and romance and adoration over love. I know now that if I want to live, and not just remain in survival mode, I must learn to love myself & others, showing each and every individual grace, acceptance and understanding. By rejecting love to self, I had been earnestly working towards securing a future of loneliness. It is a reassuring thought that we are never alone, and I pray that no one is ever without love! God Bless!

For more information or useful strategies, listen to my previous podcast episodes or check out other blogs by individuals with BPD that understand it is a constant struggle, and wake up each day ready to continue the fight… Maybe you could even start writing your own blog.

After wrestling around with all the thoughts that it took for me to produce this piece, the Bible verse that came to me was (plfff!) 1 Corinthians 13:6. The actual verse that talks about love starts on 13:4

Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud. It does not dishonor others. It is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs…

Take a break you deserve it!
* Next episode I am hoping to have Sarah back on with me. We briefly discussed what we would like our chat to be about and I just love collaborating with her. Please check back next month for Season 2: Episode 8.