TW self harm Schema: Punitiveness

I’m really struggling not to go back and update my Unrelenting Standards posts but I still haven’t despite realising things I wanted to add to it, so I will mark that as a small victory before I talk about the punitiveness schema.

I have decided to write about this schema as I am feeling particularly low and have a desperate urge to self harm. I have not been left alone all day as my boyfriend and parents are well aware of how I feel.

Young’s definition of the punitiveness schema is:

“The belief that people should be harshly punished for making mistakes.  Involves the tendency to be angry, intolerant,  punitive, and impatient with those people (including oneself) who do not meet one’s expectations or standards.  Usually includes difficulty forgiving mistakes in oneself or others, because of a reluctance to consider extenuating circumstances, allow for human imperfection, or empathize with feelings.”

The above purely applies to me, not to anyone else making mistakes. I have only ever taken any anger I have out on myself. As you can probably tell this schema closely relates to the two schemas I have already discussed (defectiveness and unrelenting standards) as I feel that if I cannot meet the standards I set myself I must be punished and also punished for being defective in general. It is often confusing as I feel that I deserve this horrible feeling and the symptoms of POTS because I am not perfect and cannot be the perfect daughter, girlfriend, friend. I deserve the pain and if I’m not feeling enough pain I need to cause myself more.

I would say I have a higher level of patience for others than most do, I am incredibly forgiving and tolerant of others and always look for the positive in people, no matter what they have done. As mentioned in my unrelenting standards post I do not give anyone else the high standards I set myself and will focus purely on the positive aspects of their personality or successes.

I can never forgive myself for any mistakes I have made in my life. I am haunted by all my mistakes, I can remember each and every one in detail and it replays and replays. If I lose something or something breaks or a voucher expires without me using it it never leaves me. It adds to my feelings as a failure, a let down, stupid. I can’t forgive myself. I shouldn’t forgive myself. If I think how I’d feel if another person had done any of that I’d of course forgive them, they are completely trivial matters, but to me I feel as if I truly betrayed people. I am not allowed to make mistakes. I am so imperfect, I am so flawed, I am so defective.

This weekend I have felt a dreadful sense of guilt as I am fortunate to have a wonderful father when a lot of people don’t. I have done nothing to deserve such a good father when others are incredibly wonderful people but have missed out on the love, care, humour, intelligence and support a good father provides. I therefore sensed the need to punish myself as it brought home the realisation that I was getting something good when others weren’t and I had done nothing to be entitled to this. I was also feeling incredibly low, my POTS was bad and I had menstrual cramps so generally felt rough. I therefore couldn’t help with organising Father’s Day to the extent that I wanted to. This needed to be punished. I couldn’t afford a decent present for my dad so my mum gave me some chocolates to give him. This also needed to be punished.

There have been other factors this week where things have gone wrong when I have had good intentions and this has become something that has kept ticking over in my brain, as I cannot fix it I need to be punished for it. I feel that by keeping myself thinking of it is a form of punishment as I feel the pain of it, however, the pain I feel does not make up for the pain others feel so I am at a loss of how to punish myself further.

I know it’s not a new feeling I began self harming as a teenager, even before that I recall walking through the city in heels on my way to meet friends and the balls of my feet were burning and thinking “I deserve this pain”.

Today, I want to self harm, however, doing this, if my boyfriend or mum found out would hurt them so I am stuck.

For now I will just keep thinking the fact I feel the pain that I feel and these thoughts in my head are a form of punishment along with the symptoms and pain from POTS and EDS. It certainly explains things to me that can’t otherwise be explained.

I’m sorry that this post doesn’t flow well, I didn’t realise how strong this schema was for me until I began writing. Hopefully I’ll be able to work through all the schemas on here soon and a pattern will develop that shows how they are all intrinsically linked.

Schema: Unrelenting Standards

I bring you my post on unrelenting standards after an incredibly draining therapy session, which included regression to an issue that helped form some of my schemas and a couple of mind boggling hours on Twitter so am tired, confused, sad and have a stinker of a headache.

I feel this blog is appropriate and needs to be written though as more and more frequently I have noticed other people with the unrelenting standards schema. Young defines unrelenting standards as:

“The underlying belief that one must strive to meet very high internalized standards of behavior and performance, usually to avoid criticism. Typically results in feelings of pressure or difficulty slowing down; and in hypercriticalness toward oneself and others.  Must involve significant impairment in:  pleasure, relaxation, health, self-esteem, sense of accomplishment, or satisfying relationships.

     Unrelenting standards typically present as:  (a) perfectionism, inordinate attention to detail, or an underestimate of how good one’s own performance is relative to the norm;  (b) rigid rules and “shoulds” in many areas of life, including unrealistically high moral, ethical, cultural, or religious precepts; or (c) preoccupation with time and efficiency, so that more can be accomplished.”

A lot of people thrive on this perfectionism and it keeps them going. Up until I broke down I put 100% of my attention and ability into everything I did, this obviously wore me out and made my POTS worse, I’d envitably have to cancel engagements or take time off work, which then activated my failure to achieve schema.

Constantly comparing everything about myself to the best in those situations (the most intelligent, the most beautiful, the most successful, etc) left me feeling like a failure, yet I still had these unrelenting standards driving me to make myself the best at everything. What I refused to recognise was that nobody is the best at everything, some people may seem to be perfect but I’m now trying to convince myself that there may be one thing they might not be able to do so well.

Please don’t misinterpret me, I don’t want others to question their own abilities and I definitely don’t want to knock anyone down or hunt for flaws, I just need to recognise that just because I’m not as pretty/clever/funny/settled/rich/happy as “Ann” doesn’t mean that I have not achieved good things in my life.

As part of my CBT my therapist surveyed people on my behalf to ask if it is possible to work at 100% all the time in every aspect of your life. The answer was a resounding ‘no’. Some understood where I was coming from, others just didn’t see it as necessary but they all had the same answer in common that it just plain isn’t reasonable. I know I wouldn’t ask it from others, so why is it fair to ask it of myself?

This is where the rigid rules of “I should…” guided my life, and still do to some extent, however, I am more aware of it now and get people I love to question me when I say these things. Sometimes in a response to a question asking why I have to do something perfectly, all I would be able to say is “I should”, because that is the rule I had given myself and it had become automatic rather than a reasoned thought.

I may add to this at a later date when I am feeling more with it, but in an attempt to break my behaviour associated with my unrelenting standards I’m going to post this without proof reading it ten times (yes, I would really do this, work would take forever), without being 100% happy with it and knowing that I have missed out some important parts (which are currently swimming about just out of reach in the mess that is my brain).

TW stigma My name is Jemma and I have a personality disorder

I’m standing up. I’m declaring I have a personality disorder. I also have general anxiety disorder and bipolar. I have some physical health problems too, but apparently they are less likely to make me a murderer, or so the recent article by Deborah Orr would have people believe. I refuse to link to it as I think the fewer people who read her offensive, spiteful words the better.

It has taken me a while after first reading her article to write this as I needed to step away from the computer, in the meantime the fantastic Louise Pennington has written ‘Ignoring the Obvious to Perpetuate Myths about Violence’  and I thank her for doing this so quickly.

Similarly to Louise I’m not sure where to start. Even after taking over an hour away to compose myself, my feelings have been triggered so deeply that it is impossible for me to address this in a calm, logical manner, however, I know I have to otherwise I’m playing right into the hands of Orr and her cronies.

I was first diagnosed as having a mental illness and began treatment when I was 17, however, I know that I have had it for much longer. I am approaching my 29th birthday and I can say with no shadow of a doubt that I have never been violent to another being. I apologise and feel deep regret when I end up killing mosquitos who are biting me, I used force but not violence when I was being sexually assaulted, I was vegetarian for over five years as I thought the animals had more of a right to life than I did, I went fencing and was told I would be a great fencer if only I was a bit more aggressive but I was terrified of hurting my opponent. The only person I have ever attacked is myself.

So with nearly 12 years of meeting people with mental illnesses under my belt I can honestly say that I have only ever met one man who had a mental illness and was violent and have met a lot more men who aren’t mentally ill that are violent.

Yes, the averages may say that there are fewer people with mental illnesses than those without so I am bound to have met more violent men without a mental health issue but this has not been representative of my life. As it has dominated my life a lot of people I socialise with have, or have had, experience of mental illness.

I have only met one violent woman. She was violent due to acts of violence perpertrated against her. She knew it was wrong but didn’t know how else to control what she felt as this was all she knew.

I’m not even sure it’s the article that bothers me so much as her continuation to defend her words on Twitter. I will not post the screen shots of what she said as they were actually so discriminatory and triggering that all the hard work I have put in to my recovery was wiped out, I can’t even revisit her feed myself. It’s not fair to share my feelings with you as I am dealing with them but really must thank the wonderful Twitter friends that I have as well as the amazing techniques I have been taught over the years for preventing me from going one step too far.

Orr ignores all statistics.

No one is saying all men commit violent crimes but the fact that more men than women commit violent crimes cannot be denied.

No one is saying people with mental illness don’t commit crimes but the fact is people with mental illness are more likely to be the victims of crime.

I’m sorry I’m not providing the stats but I am emotionally drained and can’t remember them off the top of my head, nor do I have the energy to look them up.

I understand people wanting to understand why people commit crimes, I feel the same. I really wonder why they do it, but people do not kill because they have a personality disorder.

Orr clearly shows her underlying bias as she keeps refering to TV dramas where women solve crimes. Maybe Orr needs to spend some time with the police to see that in fact there are female detectives! For too long have male detectives dominated our screens so it’s nice to see this finally being redressed. Women aren’t just the handy sidekick or used as bait for serial killers. In fact I think my godsisters who are both detectives would love to have a sit down with Orr and tell her a few home truths. Whatever Orr’s issues are with other females she really needs to address these in a more positive, productive way than victimising individuals with mental illnesses.

It is people like Orr who have made me fear telling the world about my mental health. Slowly I let people know about being depressed, then some of my anxiety issues and with the support of charities and the Twitter MH community I have shared my actual diagnosis. Today’s events made me regret all this and the temptation to just erase my life was overwhelming. But no, I don’t want anyone else to have to go through this. I am NOT a bad person. Orr, you don’t know me. You clearly don’t know anyone with a personality disorder, or if you do they have hidden it from you due to your disgusting prejudice (and you’d probably be surprised at just how lovely they are).

I am standing up saying I HAVE A PERSONALITY DISORDER and I AM NOT A BAD PERSON.

J x