Streaming Consciousness

Today I was reading a book about PTSD and BPD, the author described part of the BPD experience is the astute awareness of our consciousness, a ticker tape of thoughts, ideas, and feelings. For a BPD this consciousness cannot be avoided, it is so loud and overpowering that the sufferer is unwillingly trapped in it.

Reading this brought back memories of being caught in the current of my own consciousness, dragged under, and drowning. Like some surreal sci-fi movie in which I cannot die, but I feel like I should be. To make matters worse, only I could see the dangerous undertow, everyone around me unaware of it, but what they thought was an imaginary monster was truly and utterly real, even though I could not see it, name it, or describe it. I could not avoid it.

The only part of my streaming consciousness that I was aware of was my constant inner dialog. When life was good, the dialog disappeared, I had no need for it, other than to say to myself, “Wow, I feel good.” It’s much like a nice inviting breeze. But when life went askew, my inner dialog went haywire. It’s like walking through a wind tunnel, where your are immersed in a torrential wind, not one part of your body can ignore its velocity, and then try walking forward its near impossible.

When I was diagnosed with BPD, I was forced to look at a side of me that I tried so desperately to avoid. It was nice to have a name to it, but then to honestly look at yourself from outside in, it’s unnerving and scary. When I finally “pulled my head out of my ass” and looked at what I was doing and how it affected those I loved, I wanted to die. But it was activating that vicious cycle. It’s a horrifying experience. I needed to stop.

Finding the solution to stopping the problem, brought me to DBT, a godsend. I can’t stop expressing how I love “MINDFULNESS”. The first time I slowed down to meditate just on my thoughts, watching them come and go, fill me up and empty, trail away from the path, morph into other thoughts. Just sensing when they immerged and where they faded. I began to understand my consciousness at a level I had never experienced before. After hours and hours, weeks and weeks of just watching my thoughts, I became more apt to turning them back to the task at hand. Understanding that my conscious was just one part of many in me that I could use for information on how to deal with life. Discovering my conscious had three channels (if not more- still looking) past, short term (present) and the long term (future).

I began to see where the discrepancies lay in my streaming consciousness, each one effecting the other. I saw how my past and everything I took from it, influenced both my present and future. Literally, I began to see and feel the past affecting me, events triggered thoughts that translated into physical feelings of pain (my present). The pain so unbearable that I did everything and anything to end it, at the mercy of my future. I was sacrificing my long term goals/plans, my future, to appease the insatiable urge to end the pain and anxiety in the present.

Life was so much easier when I had no idea what was wrong with me, ignorance is bliss. Before I was diagnosed with BPD, all my thoughts, emotions, and behaviors were unchallenged, I blamed everyone and everything as the source of my streaming consciousness.

Things were different the moment BPD was unveiled to me. I felt like I was in some warped version of the PRICE IS RIGHT. Bob Barker’s voice….

“Is it curtain one, two, or three?” Then he proceeds to show me the two curtains I did not pick. “ Let’s see what is behind curtain number 1, ohhhh a dream life, your husband is with you and your four kids, your still in your house, wonderful job, you will be unhappy but you’ll have everything you think you need and want.” The audience is going wild. “Jenn, do you want to see what’s behind curtain number three?” I nod slowly. “ A donkey.” Hehaw sounds are blaring around me.

“Now let’s see what you’ve won, but first look at what you past up, a dream life, and a donkey.” Barker says. “You better hope that what you get is better than your dream life. We know its better than a donkey. Okay folks what behind curtain number two? Borderline Personality Disorder.”

There in the middle of the stage is me, writhing in agony on the ground, razor blades scattered around me, little white pills showering me, hanging from string are words “abandonment issues, lack of sense of self, sexually promiscuous, self-harm” The audience grows quiet. Even Bob Barker is pale.

Once I knew I had BPD, it was like having a fly bother me in a room, but this time the fly was the size of a elephant. I began to see BPD in every odd or normal thing I did. Ignoring it wasn’t an option. I had to learn everything about the enemy within me and train like a prize fighter. My first battle conquering the streaming consciousness.

I had to step outside of my own thought process, watch my thoughts from the outside in. Remember, those picture prints that were filled with tiny colorful dots. From the initial glance it looks like nothing, but when you un-focus your eyes, and relax, a 3d-ish picture would pop out. This skill takes practice, it seems unnatural, but over time the pictures jump out faster.

Suddenly my streaming consciousness that once resembled the static on an unused TV channel, loud, abrasive, incomprehensible, through meditation and mindfulness, 3-d images of real issues began to form behind my reckless thoughts and behaviors.

I began to understand myself. In instances where inside me there was this uncontrollable fear of abandonment that caused me to runaway, I secretly hoped to be saved, or fought the ones I loved, hurled insults, crushed them verbally, I was trying to be heard. But behind them there was small but powerful and vibrant need to be seen or validated. All the tiny dots of thoughts and feelings, in my picture, created my madness, but when I began to relax and allow myself to think past my initial perception, the real picture shone through. I understood, I need to save myself, listen to myself, and validated myself.

When we relax while looking into our streaming consciousness, it allows us to watch what goes on in our heads, it gives us the opportunity to not be so judgmental regarding our own thoughts. In stepping outside of the stream we are able to regain control of it. We are able to change direction of the stream from the outside. Tensing up, fighting it, judging it, only wears us down ultimately giving in to the stream. In effect tensing, fighting, judging causes more damage.
I once was in a really bad car accident, after it, my neck and shoulders were in severe pain. I went to a chiropractor to see if he could help me alleviate my suffering. He asked me an interesting question, “Right before the car hit you, did you tense up?” I thought that was a weird question, duh of course I tensed up, a ton of metal was careening towards me at sixty-five miles an hour, what was I going to do sleep?

He explained to me that the force of the collision combined with the tenseness of my muscles caused the whiplash I was experiencing. Had I been relaxed at the time of the accident, my body would have followed the flow of energy, chances are the only damage I would have had, would have been from the seatbelt near my shoulder. That my neck would have suffered less injury.

I think that the same with our self aware stream of consciousness, we are standing in front of a formidable force and our instinct is to brace ourselves, prepare for the worst. And at the moment of contact, we injure ourselves just to survive.

An important part to recovery is to understand what your stream of consciousness is telling you, Weigh the consequences effecting your present and future. . Decide if you want to act upon it. Not acting upon it is a option too. Or just to simply step back and let it wash over you and away. Somedays I chose just that, watch how my stream twist and turned. Slowly change it’s direction. Gaining back my control.

Nowadays, I am able to just sit at the banks of my stream, watch it flow to and fro. Then walk away to live another day.