Things money can’t buy

It’s my birthday today. Weird thing is, I feel more down today than my ordinary days. I don’t feel like celebrating, I don’t feel like being happy; in fact, I don’t see the “happy” in “happy birthday”.

Came home tonight and my mom gave me a red envelope (for those of you not familiar with it, it’s Chinese culture for older ones to those who are younger “red envelopes” containing money during special occasions). I didn’t want it. What does money give anyways? Money can’t buy happiness.

I’ve been feeling like this for a while now…

When I was 16, my parents sent me to Canada for better education. Since then, I feel like more and more they try to give me everything they can for a brighter tomorrow. But what IS a brighter tomorrow? What if you had a car? a house? everything you wanted? Yet inwardly, you’re a mess, you’re a wreck, you’re just like a puzzle no one – not even yourself – is able to piece together.

I don’t blame them for being “cruel” in leaving me and sending me here. For I KNOW they did so with the purest of intentions, that they’ve sacrificed a lot for sending me here as well. But I wish I had my parents beside me while growing up, especially during those years wherein you just get lost, so lost, trying to figure yourself out.

My parents try to visit every now and then when they can. Since being diagnosed, my mom tries to spend more time here. But I know she’s leaving again. I know I can’t depend on her. I know I can’t get attached to her. Because when I do, I’ll just crumble all over again when she steps out that door.

So this is me, refusing the red envelope she just handed to me for my birthday tonight. I’m afraid letting her I don’t want it because I’ll hurt her feelings, so I’m leaving it under the bed. I can’t accept it because it’s not OK for money to replace a person’s presence. It’s just not.

Sasha Courey

Here’s a Toronto Star article my sister found this morning that touched me deeply. My heart goes out this bright young woman’s family; may we all help raise awareness for Borderline Personality Disorder.

‘A bright light trapped in a dark room’

Sasha Menu Courey, who suffered from borderline personality disorder, committed suicide in June. The talented 20-year-old swimmer from Etobicoke was attending university in the U.S.

August 9, 2011

ALLISON CROSS

STAFF REPORTER

Sasha Menu Courey had a disease that wrenched away her will to live.

On June 17, two days after deliberately ingesting a bottle of over-the-counter painkillers, she died.

A talented swimmer on an athletic scholarship at the University of Missouri, the exuberant 20-year-old from Etobicoke got good grades. Her parents were loving and involved.

She was fluent in French and spoke a smattering of Spanish.

But Menu Courey had borderline personality disorder, a disease that plagued her with extreme emotions and caused erratic behaviour.

“She was like a very bright light trapped in a dark room . . . there was a sadness in her,” said Menu Courey’s mother, Lynn. “It’s hard to understand that she’s not coming back.”

As Lynn, Mike, her father, and Kayla, her younger sister, sat in their living room watching a slide show of Menu Courey, they described a vivacious young woman who couldn’t get the proper medical treatment she needed in Canada, and their drive to prevent this from happening to other families.

“I believe that if Sasha had been able to get treatment here she would still be alive today,” Lynn said. “She wanted to be a humanitarian worker . . . she really wanted to make a difference for people who suffered.”

The family’s story comes amid calls from Ontario health organizations that mental illness be given priority in the upcoming provincial election. Twenty per cent of Ontarians will experience some kind of mental illness in their lifetime, according to the Ontario Mental Health and Addictions Alliance.

Menu Courey struggled with intense emotions in high school, but was never diagnosed, despite a suicide attempt at 14.

She called her parents from school in March to say her world was starting to collapse. She injured her back and had to stop swimming, jeopardizing her spot on the team. She had split up with her boyfriend and been in a car accident.

“Swimming was her lifeline,” Lynn said. “You let go of your emotion (while swimming). You clear your mind . . . all of these things, (they were) like a perfect storm for someone with (borderline personality disorder).”

Menu Courey ended up spending time in a psychiatric ward in Kansas City, where she was given an official diagnosis. But she didn’t get better.

Shortly after being released she tried to kill herself again.

After the second attempt, the family called the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto, hoping to get their daughter into an in-patient program for BPD sufferers that involves intensive psychotherapy.

They were told it could take as long as a year to get Menu Courey a bed.

When Lynn called about outpatient programs that used Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), she heard voicemail messages saying to call back in a month to see if the waiting list had opened.

“My kid wants to kill herself and you want me to call back in a month?” said Lynn, who added she stopped sleeping, afraid she would wake up to be informed her daughter had died.

They eventually found a DBT program at McLean Hospital, a private facility outside Boston. It cost $44,000 for 28 days and a bed was available in a week.

They signed up and Menu Courey spent two months there.

CAMH doesn’t comment on specific cases, but Shelley McMain, head of the Borderline Personality Clinic, said wait times vary depending on the person.

Families in crisis can also access CAMH’s 24-hour emergency department, McMain said.

“The good news is that we have effective treatments for (borderline personality) disorder . . . but the big problem we face is that effective treatments aren’t widely available. That’s a problem realized not only in Canada but also internationally,” she said.

Menu Courey’s condition improved at McLean, and she and her parents discussed the possibility of her coming home to Toronto to continue treatment with private therapists. It was too expensive for her to stay in Boston.

But she felt like she couldn’t bear the move home, Lynn said.

She swallowed at least 100 pills and after being rushed to hospital the next morning, floated in and out of consciousness for two days. She told her parents then that she was ready to come to Toronto.

She never made it home.

“There needs to be more awareness about this disease,” Mike said. “We didn’t know how to help her.”

The Menu Courey family has started a fund through Mt. Sinai Hospital to raise money that might one day help educate the public about the disorder and increase access to treatment.

Some Enlightenment

After a few month’s wait, I’m now in touch with Ontario Shores. For those who don’t know what it is, it’s a mental health hospital here in Canada; to be more concise, one of the few that have a specified program for treating Borderline Personality Disorder.

Today was my assessment appointment with one of their clinicians. We filled out a form together that every patient admitted into the hospital is required to fill out. While  doing so, he shared something with me that I never saw before: The root of my issues is me  (ie who I view myself to be); while the symptoms are merely manifestations of this root. Sure, I’ve known that I can’t handle my emotions, that they often take control over me, that I can’t understand and sort through them, and that they lead to cognitive distortions, but I’ve always thought that that was the problem – my overwhelming emotions causes cognitive distortions.  However, as of today, I’m starting to see that I have loads of issues within me that need to be dealt with. History of different kinds of abuse, my upbringing, learned behaviours, etc. It gives me hope that I can go beyond the constant need to be in check and control my emotions (which don’t get me wrong, is also needed). But to hope that once the root of the problem is dealt with, I’m able to be and feel like everyone else around me. That once my inward wounds are healed, restored, and recovered, my emotions won’t constantly be all over the place anymore. That I can put all my new, learned, healthy strategies in a tool box, set it aside, and take it out only when needed; as opposed to carrying it with me 24/7.

Admission is still in a couple of weeks. I’m excited yet afraid and anxious of starting the program. What if it becomes too much? What if I won’t be able to cope? What if the program doesn’t help?

Deep breathing, grounding. Deep breathing, grounding.

Step by step, one day at a time.

What Withdrawal Means to Me

Since my diagnosis, I’ve been quite withdrawn. I’ve isolated myself from friends I used to chat/hang out with, locked myself up from pleasures/activities I used to take part in, and (with exception to people directly related to my recovery) holed myself up to avoid engaging with people. If it were up to me, I’d disappear from the face of the earth, even if I had nowhere to go – this would explain my many thoughts and failed attempts of running away from home.

Why the withdrawal? I used to think “this was just the way I felt”, hence I act accordingly so. But since getting help, I’ve slowly come to realize that I act accordingly so because withdrawal affords me certain things and feelings (real or perceived) that help me cope and get by. The feelings may be real, yet (unfortunately) they’re only temporal. But when you’re at a place wherein you’ve reached your limit and feel like nothing can help, what’s temporal becomes enough to get you by.

There’s a horizon of thoughts, feelings and emotions that I experience by withdrawing when I’m down. Here’s to name a few: peace, rest, calm, and composure. Unfortunately, just yesterday I came to a realization that most (if not all) of these were either 1) perceived or 2) temporal. I could go on and on about reasons for why I choose to withdraw; but when it comes down to it, for me, withdrawal makes me feel better because withdrawal means avoidance; the perception that I and everything is ok, even when truth is, it’s not. I’ve learned to see it as a coping mechanism, something that helps me make it through when things become unbearable.

I’m beginning to understand a little bit more of what withdrawal means from the inside, but this doesn’t mean I’m able to get out of it “just like that”. It’s gonna take work and the willingness to face things, figure them out, and learning new, healthier strategies to cope.

The (continual) First Step

It was a Wednesday afternoon. Floods of guilt, sadness, emptiness, anger and fear struck me… all at once. Each emotion like a wave, at its crest, piled on top of one another. It didn’t take long for it to bring me down.

I tried to experience the emotions as they came, like my therapist taught me to, and as people normally do. But when there’s so much thrown at you all at once in such high intensities, how do sort through them? Let alone feel them? The moment I feel guilt, anger kicks in. The moment I feel anger, sadness comes. The inward chaos became unbearable and led me to depression.

I hit a new low; the emotions led me to depression, and the depression was feeding and fuelling my emotions (past, current, and even new ones). I became discouraged by the state I was in and felt like I’ve gone back to square one – even worse, a few steps behind square one. I’ve been overwhelmed with streams of different emotions many times before, but to the best of my recollection anger was never one of them. Having felt an additional emotion that previously wasn’t there made me feel like I was getting worse. I shut myself out from those around me, the outside world, and there was nothing I wanted to focus on but what I was feeling inside, to sort them out. Yet, because of its chaotic nature, this wasn’t gonna happen. Now (looking back), I knew it wasn’t gonna happen until I got the help that I needed; help that came during my scheduled appointment with my therapist.

Did it solve anything? Not necessarily. Do I feel better now? Tons. As hard as it may be, as unwilling as I can get, I do believe opening up to the RIGHT people helps. Oftentimes my stubborn mind would tell me that no one can and will ever understand what I’m feeling – and hence be able to help me, but many a times I’m proven wrong. Contrary to what we believe, there ARE people out there who understand what we’re going through; it’s taking the step to acknowledge and accept the help we need that’s the hardest part.

Thoughts

I’m tired, there’s nothing left in me to give, no energy left for me to fight, no reason for me to go on.

Guilt

Lately, I’ve been plagued with these emotions of guilt. Strong, intense, emotions of guilt.

My therapist helped me realize the other day the reason I’ve been unwilling to move on and get myself engaged in pleasurable activities is because of the guilt I feel inside.

See, when my symptoms of BPD arose last year, I’ve immensely hurt those around me. Some more than others – basically the closer you were to me at the moment and the more you meant to me, the more I hurt you. Problem is, I didn’t know – and no one else knew – that I had an illness that required immediate attention, and treatment. Situations would arise, I’d feel overwhelming emotions, and being unable to bear it all, it would manifest itself as irrational behaviour. This meant a lot of things, but one that I can’t get over is lying; lying to escape the inward struggle, chaos, and noise that no one understood of – not even myself.

I feel a different degree of guilt for lying than I do for my other offences, and I think it’s because of this: If I displayed other irrational behaviours before, I did so being true to myself – true to who I was and what I was feeling inside. However, in lying, I became untruthful not just to who I was and what I felt inside but also to those around me. Now that I’ve started to seek the help that I need, I can’t undo what I’ve done in the past. While people have forgiven me (many times indeed) in the past for lying, I wish I hadn’t taken those second chances until now. Because frankly, without receiving the help that I unknowingly so desperately needed, those chances were all a waste. I thought I could change, thought I knew better, when really, it was my illness that knew better. Now that I’m fighting so hard for my recovery, those chances I talked about earlier are nowhere to be found.

I’m looking for forgiveness… Thing is, I don’t even know if I deserve to be forgiven. I’ve hurt those around me so much it’s unreal. Yes, I had an illness no one knew of but not everyone understands that – not everyone understands BPD. I don’t even blame them for not wanting to understand my condition, for thinking it’s “just another frenzy”. Truth is, I had my chances, and I ran out when I needed it the most.

If others don’t understand and can’t forgive, how do you forgive yourself and rid the pain inside that others you’ve hurt still feel? I just can’t seem to put an answer to that. It’s not right.