This time I would like to talk about my habit of getting distracted and avoiding all the things that need to be done – Sometimes even things that I want to do, such as writing! While it is definitely procrastination in parts, it is also due to my borderline mind that I keep doing it.
Procrastination
I felt that it needs to be cleared out that procrastination means delaying or postponing something, most of the time voluntarily. While this is true for me as well, usually, it is driven by my borderline mind – the fear of failure and the bitterness that ensues every time I feel I’ve failed.
It has to be said though, that I’ve been quite the master delayer in my youth too. School project and homework? Forget it, I’ll do it within the 15-minute recess before the lesson! Or in the middle of the night before the tasks are due. And this was with knowing that I need to have something done, albeit sometimes in school (especially when it came to English or Finnish) the tasks were so easy that I never had to actually bother doing my homework assignments – I could just answer them on the spot if asked.
But then again, school, work, anywhere that I had someone that held me accountable is different from the reality I live in now and have lived for quite some time.
Responsibility
When you are unemployed, a little bit mentally unstable, and already in a state of misery that exclaims that nothing will be done… well, nothing will be done indeed. There is nobody to hold you accountable for things, nobody but yourself. And this is where it gets tricky since well, as a borderline I often can’t for the life of me trust my own judgment, so why would I listen to myself when it comes to things like taking responsibility?
What I am trying to say in a very roundabout way, is that when alone, I lack the discipline I showcase when trying to please others. After all, I’m not really worth the effort. Or so I thought.
Now that I’ve started taking the steps to heal and get a hold of my own life (with the help of my amazing husband), I’ve started to realize that I have value. And I would like to like myself. This means I need to start getting a grip and stop avoiding things just because little miss BPD whispers nice, distracting things into my ear. And let me tell you, breaking several decades worth of bad habits is extremely difficult.
The Distractions
Talking about the bad habits, I have an extreme case of the munchies when it comes to things like Netflix, YouTube, and games. Whenever I start to feel a little bit overwhelmed (and I get very easily overwhelmed) I tend to turn to some sort of a distraction that will allow me to shut off my brain, usually YouTube. Though these days I’ve been getting sucked into the void of FaceBooks’s video feed in all its cake decorating and rating terror.
While watching things would be totally fine in most cases, given that it would be done moderately, my tendencies combined with the fear and anxiety I have towards all things challenging and new make it worse. In the past, I used to sit hours on the pc, watching movies or doing thoughtless things such as running in circles in a game. I have never accepted discomfort in my life as an immovable constant, and thus I’ve tried to avoid it all my adult life.
Avoidance precedes Downfall
The borderline mind, mine anyway, is a marvelous tool of destruction. It will do its best to justify my actions and inactions to me and often makes it so believable that I won’t notice until it’s too late. I tend to notice I’ve been stuck in my trap a while after, and then have to go through trying to figure out how not to chew myself out because of it.
Avoidance was never really the solution to my problems, as it only ever brought me hardship and more stress, and even validated the lack of value I already felt. When things don’t get done in time, or at all in worst cases, when the fear just keeps growing and anxiety gnawing at my core, I know then I should’ve maybe not stepped into the trap, to begin with. But heavens it’s hard not to step in it!
It is so much easier to let things be, to not have to face the discomfort and possibility of failure at the end of it. It’s so much easier to just sit here and do virtually nothing than it is to try and improve. It is way easier to be empty-headed than it is to be thinking about the possibility that my book might not be great, that I might burn the dinner, or that my art might seem like a beginner’s scribbles.
Breaking Through
But, my friends, for us to grow, we need to do things that are hard. We need to be brave and keep trying. The only way for us to go forward is to start walking, then run, sometimes fall, and then get up again and start all over. Most of the time we don’t even need to start from the beginning – with each previous step we have been building on that foundation that can catch us when we take a tumble.
But it is going to be hard. Exceptionally hard. And I’m talking to us borderlines now, since having to face something that is already difficult for the stable people to face… well, it can get so very scary.
I know, from myself, that the mountain seems just like that, a mountain. And we are often climbing it with broken souls and bodies, and it just seems like there is no way we can ever reach the top. But we need to remember that that mountain has more than one side to it and while sometimes we will need to scale that freakishly steep wall without any proper tools to do it, there are those times too when we can take it easier, sniff the flowers on the mountainside and walk a path that was already there. Maybe made by some goat, or a feline, or maybe even the Yeti himself!
And friends, we need to remember that we can take a break anytime. We can sit down and look at the scenery, the road we’ve already traveled. We can take some deep breaths and get accustomed to the new climate. But then we need to get up and keep going. For our own sakes. Ain’t nobody else going to take us there. And I am 100% certain that each and every one of us is worth what’s at the top of that mountain.
So. Get up. Take another step. I’ll meet you there.