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BG, that's really interesting what you've posted about coping with some situations but not others, and your T's explanation for it.

I've always found that I cope admirably with big crises, but fall apart over the little things. It's like if a situation is sufficiently serious, it flips some sort of switch in my head and I go into "coping mode" and just do what needs to be done. But then I can have total meltdowns over little things like a train being cancelled or my internet not working. PMS is definitely a factor, but I'm trying to figure out what the other factors are. I think I tend to invalidate myself - I tell myself I "shouldn't" be feeling bad because this is only a "minor" problem, and then things escalate from there.

I haven't noticed a theme such as situations where I feel attacked (or am attacking myself) but I'll keep an eye out for one.

Hope I didn't hijack your thread too much. I'm finding it really helpful.

Echoes, you DID NOT hijack the thread! You added to it! I'm glad that what my T told me might help someone else. It's interesting that others have the same experience as I do. It shows me that I'm not alone.

Maybe it's not about being two different people so much as being one person who responds in different ways, depending on the circumstances?

Reading your original post reminded me of where I was a few years ago when I was under an immense amount of stress. Suicidal thoughts became my default position - they became so normalized as a solution to everything, I would just skip there automatically as soon as I felt overwhelmed. And I did meltdown over smaller and smaller things.

In the end it was noticing what I was saying to myself that helped me to gradually pull away from suicide - or the thought/threat of it - as a solution to everything. Realizing that there were other, less catastrophic and drastic ways to address stress, learning to take steps toward caring for myself before I went into meltdown, learning not to push myself so hard. I had to learn a lot of things I'd never really known about before - things that 'normal' people just seemed to do instinctively.

It does worry me that if I get under enough stress, those thoughts will come back. But I hope I have learned enough stuff to help me towards alternative coping strategies.

Just reading your post I thought wow, that's somebody who's at the end of her tether and just beyond coping right now...we all have the capacity to crack around the edges when life's like that, BPD or not.

Thanks Susanna. My problem is that when I get upset about the "little things" - that's when I go nuts. Not the big things! And I don't realize I'm doing it until I'm caught in the middle. By then, I'm so far gone that I can't get myself out. It's like being caught in the eye of a hurricane.

I don't necessarily have to be under stress to get crazy. It can happen out of the blue. One little thing can just set me off. I have to learn how to recognize that this is happening and do something to ward off the wild reactions that I get. Once I am actually in it, it's much harder to stop.

I can be sitting here at my desk, fine as can be, then all of a sudden my H can say or do something that has the potential to "make me crazy." But I don't HAVE to react that way. It's all in my perceptions. I do have the power to stop it. To stop it from being a big deal, when in reality it isn't.

Today I went for breakfast with my H. We were in the restaurant and there was a little boy at the next table with a box with a picture of a cartoon character that I have a phobia against. It was directly in my line of vision. I muttered to my H that this always happens to me. So he said, no, the reason is that you have so many things that set you off, of course stuff like this is going to "happen to you." So it's all in my perceptions. Nothing is really HAPPENING TO ME. It's what I see and how I react. I have to learn to stop it from taking over me.

The sense I got, from your comments earlier in the thread, is that the "big" things you can cope with because you don't take them personally. You know it's not about you. There's no threat to your sense of self. When something affects that sense of self, you feel threatened and have a hard time coping. When it doesn't, you deal with whatever comes your way fine.

And that really makes a lot of sense that it would be that way.

Wow Ellen! You really got it! No one ever explained it to me that way before. I am going to tell my T what you said! Yes, if it's "about me" then I get nuts. The other stuff, the big stuff, is about other people and I can handle that. But one little slight, and I'm off the wall. I'll have to ponder this. Thanks!!!!