And Arizona...Jason

I've completed the first story of a powerful and influential Arizona family.  The next development will be called And Arizona...Elsa.  Check it out!

Amy Goreham

Story 1 of several is done and being proof read by four members of my family. Here's my synopsis until I hear back from them.

And Arizona...Jason

Jason Sanders always dreamed he'd play for the MLB someday. While being recruited by the Red Sox in his junior summer of college ball, he fell under the spell of a Princess. The spoiled and self centered Meredith Winchester loved no one more than she loved herself. Jason, having thrown his career away for her, was left alone with five small children. But he had come into billions of dollars.
Having put his heart on the shelf, Jason was content to live his remaining days at the Ranch in Vista Verde, Arizona. And then he met a street urchin who would forever challenge his love and steal his heart permanently. Elsa was the antidote to a man who had believed the worst of the worst had happened to him. Would they find forever love?

I am a god...

I am a god.  I stand alone.  I am neither loved nor hated.

I am the decisive being to everyone's existence.  It is I, and I alone, who decides the eternal fate of all humankind.  It is I who determines who will revel in the celestial comfort and peaceful palace and who will be tortured in the dark abbess of eternity.  I will fly into heaven those that I have chosen. 

I am a god.  I stand alone.  I am neither loved nor hated.

In a masochistic world, the ambition is to plead for miracles, not to please me but to satisfy earth-bound ambitions and shortcomings.  I hear the cries of the people and they beg for more and more to make their lives on earth materialized and rich.  But it is those that ask how to dedicate their existence to my ideals whom I recognize.

I am a god.  I stand alone.  I am neither loved nor hated.

I am assumed by most.  For all children, I will take their hand and fly them to my celestial palace where they can frolic and romp for all of eternity in peace and comfort.  I hear the cries of mothers.  Those who have done well to provide for their offspring are ushered into the warmth of my embrace.  They find solace there.

I am a god.  I stand alone.  I am neither loved nor hated.

I am the ultimate conscience of men.  How often did they negate my warnings and persist in their earthly acquisition of power and wealth?  How often did the woman, their own mother, their wife suffer at their neglect?  For the men, I will push them into the fire and further into the darkness.  I will hold them there until their cries cease and their worthless breaths are extinguished.  And then I shall resurrect myself.

I am a god.  I stand alone.  I am neither loved nor hated.

For many, I will reinvent their purpose and recycle them to their earthly world.  Will I then hear them cry, how do I be like you?  How do I serve you?  Show me the way.  But again, I hear them cry for miracles of earthly-bound satisfaction.  Again, I watch as man after man assumes a standing of power over woman.  Again the cycle begins and I feel the cold of mankind.  Will I ever feel loved?  Will I begin to feel hatred?

I am a god.  I will always stand alone.  I will never be loved nor hated. 

TRIGGERS

If your behavior is interfering with daily living, it is possible that you have a personality disorder.  This may be learned behavior or according to neuroscience, the emotion-processing center of your brain is not working as it should.  But you can manage how you react to several situations.

The following is an example of things that set you off and cloud your rational thinking:
little money
relationship end
scholastics
fear of anything
the death of someone

It took me 25 years to sit down and actually think of things that cloud my thought patterns.  I was honest with myself and wrote down 32 triggers.  This is a self-reaction, and self-perception activity.  Once done, a new course of behaviors can be adopted.

Tool for managing BPD/EID

http://steppsforbpd.com/

Definition of BPD/EID per DSM IV

Borderline Personality Disorder (DSM IV-TR^TM):

1.      Real/imaginary abandonment

2.      Intense/unstable relationships

3.      Identify disturbance

4.      Impulsivity

5.      Suicidal attempts/self-injury

6.      Instability of mood

7.      Chronic feeling of emptiness

8.      Intense/inappropriate anger outbursts

9.      Paranoia

Self-description of Borderline Personality Disorder/Emotional Intensity Disorder

“I have this illness called Borderline Personality Disorder.  I hate that label.  What border am I about to cross anyway?  Insanity?  I would rather call my problem something like emotional intensity disorder.  That sounds more humane to me, and it describes closer to what this illness feels like.  That label that professionals use, “Borderline,” strikes fear, disgust, and a series of degrading comments hidden within the nervous laughter of those from whom I seek help.  They think I don’t know or can’t see the anger I bring out in them.  They call me manipulative.  I think they really don’t know what to do with me and that makes them angry.  My illness forces them to deal with their own fear of not knowing what to do.

Let me tell you about my illness, what it feels like to be me.  First, I really like calling it an illness, instead of a disorder or some other label.  For me calling it an illness takes away some of the shame.  It’s like diabetes or asthma.  When I look at it like that I don’t feel like it’s my fault or that I could change if only I wanted to, or if I wasn’t such a horribly bad person I wouldn’t be this way.  Calling it an illness makes me feel equal with others only I have to manage symptoms of my illness just as others do.  I believe a part of my brain is broken.  I believe it’s that part that regulates my emotions.

It’s like a floodgate at a dam that holds back a raging river.  A floodgate can range from being completely open to three quarters open, to half open, to one-quarter open, and many, many, many, many various and minuscule positions in between.  Depending on the position of the floodgate, the water floods out or trickles out or seeps out, etc.  Well for me, my emotional floodgate is broken.  My floodgate only has two positions, either completely open or completely closed.  My emotions come flooding completely or not at all.  I don’t know which is worse.  When my emotions come flooding out I seem to destroy everything around me.  I say horrible things to people I really care about.  I scream, I rage, I go on and on.  It’s so horrible for those around me, but not nearly as horrible as it is for me, because I see the pain and cruelty that I pour out on those I care about, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.  I just watch in terror as all the vile, angry, black inside comes out and destroys everything it touches.  I cannot keep friends, my family doesn’t want anything to do with me, and I can’t keep a job.  Worse, I hate myself so much that I become hopeless and depressed.

At other times, when the floodgate is completely closed it’s unbelievable.  The powerful river wants out.  I become anxious.  Then the river’s intensity starts to build and build and build and it begins to beat at the floodgate walls.  But the floodgate doesn’t budge and I don’t have a key.  The river’s raging, pounding and screaming inside.  I have to let it out but I don’t know how.  I panic.  I don’t know what to do.  I need help.  I start calling for someone to help me.  Now the pounding is so intense I can’t hear myself think nor can I hear what others are saying to me.  It just rings in my ears, it courses through my veins, it plunges through my heart, it wants out. I have to let it out.  I see a knife or a match.  It’s no good.  I have to cut.  I cut.  After a few minutes it’s over.  The river is quiet once again.

The quiet times of the river are at times the sweetest and at other times the cruelest.  When all is quiet I start to live again.  I begin to build friends.  I get a job.  I talk with my family.  Things seem to go along.  People start to trust me.  Or they think I’m just doing what I’m supposed to be doing.  Or that I’m behaving myself and being good.  Others make a devastating assumption about my illness.  They assume I can control it.  I have news for them.  The river has a mind of its own.  It’s like a possessed demon that I neither fight nor ignore.  I have to learn to live with it.

The river episodes come and go.  They can last from just a few moments to several hours.  The damage that can be done in such a short time is absolutely devastating.  I feel like I’ve been raped over and over by a demon that lives inside.  When the river is active, my thoughts become so distorted.  I interpret situations so negatively.  Then this negative distortion becomes my truth.  Those trying to help do their best to explain and rationalize with me.  This only makes me feel discounted and invalidated because my perception of the truth.  So I become frustrated and angry and begin to doubt everything about myself.

I don’t remember when the illness started.  My parents seem to think it was when I was quite small.  They feel like it just became worse as I became older.  They, of course, think this is their fault.  They blame themselves.  They want so badly for me to have my own life and for them to have their own.  They just feel so badly about my life; they feel like they still need to take care of me.  They don’t know how.  Of course, in the river times I have been so very cruel to them.  My brother won’t even talk to me.  He just doesn’t seem to care anymore.  He’s angry because he believes I’ve messed up my life and mom and dad’s life.  I don’t really have friends.  I don’t trust others easily.  I seem to want to adopt the professionals as my family and friends.  I know that’s because they think they can help.

The doctors try to help with medications.  Actually, nothing really ever works for me.  When the river is quiet I don’t look as if I need medication.  When the floodgate’s closed and the river’s trying to get out, the doctor medicates my anxiety with an anti-anxiety medication.  After I’ve released the river I become depressed so I get an antidepressant.  Since the river comes and goes on its own, and I go up and down with it, doctors think I am bipolar, so I get lithium.

I believe what I have found to be the most helpful with my illness has been to find some professionals who understand that the river is going to rage.  They know I can’t do anything about it, and they know they can’t do anything about it.  They understand that I act the way I do because I need relief so badly.  They understand that I call and try to keep them on the phone forever because in the midst of the raging river my thoughts become distorted and I once again believe someone can relieve the pain of the river.  They know that during that phone call if I become afraid that they just don’t want to help me (my thoughts being distorted again) I’m going to talk about cutting or killing myself.  They understand that I will say or do just about anything to relieve the pain.

My relationships with professionals are pretty amazing. (I can say that now since the river is quiet.)  See, when the floodgates open and I’m spewing all over them, as with all my relationships, I say cruel, hurtful things.  I think this is hard for them because they feel they are not supposed to let clients hurt them.  But I do.  Partially it hurts so much because I build some professionals up.  See, when my perception is distorted, I say they are the best therapists I’ve ever had.  Then when the floodgate is closed and I’m again trying to get someone to relieve my pain, I call and of course, they can’t relieve it, but I just want to make the professionals like me.  So I tell them and I believe others can relieve my pain, I call and of course, they can’t relieve it, but I get so disappointed and angry and think that they just don’t want to help, I tell them they are the worse therapists in the whole world, and I’m worse now than I was before I started seeing them.  Then I add the name of another professional that is “better than they are.” (STEPPS, 2013)