Mucky Monday: Rejection & Abandonment

I've had a rough couple of days. Then again, sometimes it seems like I bounce from one bad day to the next. First of all, I struggle to be okay with being okay (more on that in another post, I think); and then, of course, life keeps happening, and I struggle with the ability to find my feet there.

When mental health closed my file, I was told to make an appointment with my GP and connect with him. I was told to see him approximately as often as I had been seeing my psychiatrist (I am curious if she ever listened to a word I told her about the extent of my self harm - I see my GP a couple of times a week in regards to that) and check in with him in regard to how I am doing.

Let me preface this by saying that as much as I'm about to use powerful words such as "knew", this is mainly conjecture. To start off this new plan, I had organised an appointment with my GP for today to discuss the letter and make sure he was happy enough with the plan. I knew, as soon as I mentioned it, that he was not happy. We are staying with that plan, for now, but he made comments along the lines of "we will find an alternative if you continue to deteriorate". I am not hopeful that there are any alternatives left; but that is not a bridge to cross today, so I am choosing to leave it. Perhaps if/when it does become relevant, there will be new avenues to take that are not currently open to me. The future, after all, is not set in stone.

As he provided the necessary treatment, my GP mentioned to me that he is planning to leave for a month. He stressed that it is absolutely imperative that I begin to see one of the other GPs in the practice while he is still there. His concern is that if I do not, and I need to see a GP while he is away, the situation will end in my needing hospital. I agree that this is not at all a favourable outcome (and my heart secretly wants to beg him not to leave, thus solving the entire situation).

So, on the heels of mental health closing my file, and my ex husband's new fiancée giving birth to his daughter, the sexual violence counsellor I managed to attain after leaving DBT (unfortunately I was not able to hook back in with my old counsellor, but the new lady is one I am familiar with through various art activities run through the centre) is going to be away through all of my upcoming major trigger dates/events, the nurse that I see for wound dressings was away... and now my GP is also leaving. Is it any wonder my normally high fears of abandonment and rejection are so high they're staring down at the stars, at the moment?

Like most people with Borderline Personality Disorder, I am hypersensitive to abandonment and rejection. Usually to decrease the chances of it happening, I will people please to an extraordinary degree. In this situation, there's very little I can do along those lines. No matter how much I try to be 'good', my GP is still going to take his holiday. My counsellor is still going to be away. Mental health are still finished with me. I feel at a loss, as I fear that everything I have put faith in to be there and sustain me is fast disappearing. Soon all that will really be left is me, myself and I.

Knowing those fears are there, though, doesn't mean I have to bow down and give in to them. I have a choice, now: I can choose to see this as yet more rejection and abandonment, and throw in the towel; or I can choose to see that these events are not necessarily connected. It's a hard path to take, to choose to see that these events may have nothing to do with me or each other; and I imagine I'll fall down a lot along the way, but I much prefer the place to which that path leads.

I am choosing to tell myself that it will be okay, that I can learn from this and grow, that I have the capability to live through this and come out the other side a better person.



Today's thought challenges/cheer-leading statements:
If my GP chooses to take a vacation, that does not mean he is personally rejecting me.
A slip is not a failure. I now have a new chance to try again.
The past does not dictate the future. Just because people have left in the past does not mean that people will always leave me.
I am not a bad person.
If someone is upset by actions I have taken, it does not mean they cannot like or love me anymore.



Take care of yourselves until next time, and may we all find our own small fences along the way.