Dear All, thank you so much for all the advice I received to my introduction topic.

One was actually posting my problem on the appropriate forum - this one - which I simply couldn't find when I first registered here.

Thank you for the link, stratocaster and sabby! I hope it is not against the rules to re-post my topic here.

So here it goes...

"Dear all. I am posting this topic because I badly need some feedback, opinions, perhaps even help in the form of advice. After decades of denial, I have finally found the strength to face the fact that despite all my efforts, a considerable set of talents and a decent IQ, my life is more or less a disaster.
I am practically dysfunctional and very likely fast approaching an ugly ending.

I have been trying to get help but without any real result. Without a doubt I am getting close to the end of the line so I’m trying to reach out, whichever way I can. So please, bear with me.

First and foremost, I am not a particularly weak person. I am fairly disciplined too and until very recently I have always managed to bounce back from each and every disaster that has happened in my life. I have had some major professional and personal highs as well; real achievements I can be proud of, however, there is nothing left of any of them. As a rule of thumb, nothing ever lasts for me any longer than a few months or a couple of years at best. Everything always ends in drama; bridges burnt, losing face, feeling destroyed and pain - always excruciating emotional pain – feeling that it is the end of the world. No exception.

For some obscure and disturbing reason, I simply cannot stick to anything or anyone. I cannot see things trough, maintain a job, a career path, a degree course, a relationship; basically, because I cannot stick to myself. In fact, it appears that I do not have a self at all.

As far as I can remember - back to a very early age - I have always lived with a constantly present, torturous emptiness, fear, doubt and a sort of overwhelming emotional hunger to become complete somehow. Every choice I have ever made was fueled by this almost hysterical need to become someone I can recognise as me. I was a sucker for various role models and odd as it sounds, I still am. The pattern has always been the same since as far back as I can possibly remember – finding something or someone (interest, role, job, relationship, study path etc.) getting hugely enthusiastic about it, feeling that “this is it” this will be perfect, this is what I really want etc., putting an insane amount of energy into it, grabbing it and clinging to it desperately. Then, sometimes as soon as the same day or within an hour I am awash with panic and strong aversion to the very thing I was raving about just that morning and I feel I MUST get out of it.

When I was younger I did manage to hold onto commitments for months, even for years. Also, I should say that when I find the next “big thing”, the magic does last for a while – or at least it used to - and that is always a wonderful time when I myself appear to be a wonderful person.

However the cracks always start to appear rather soon.

Despite feeling downright claustrophobic about whatever I was involved in, more often than not I used to force myself to push on – well, that’s what “good” people do I understood. I just wanted to be normal. Without an exception, whenever I forced myself to stick with something despite my whole being screaming “no, get out of it!”, some kind of a personal hell opened.
I started to have uncontrollable, recurring thought patterns that sounded as if someone was talking to me in my head, unstoppably, 24/7. I didn’t recognise people I knew (friends, colleagues, family members), I didn’t understand people talking to me – it all sounded like gibberish and somewhat muffled too, as if I was under an invisible glass-bell. I had serious episodes of vertigo to the point where I couldn’t walk, very severe perception of an evil presence, occasional auditory hallucinations, regular nightmares on a massive scale and a frequent feeling that nothing was real at all. I think the scariest bit was the physical sensation of falling combined with being convinced that I am in the grasp of the devil and very worst of it was the overwhelming guilt, shame and simply unbearable, excruciating pain.

I know it sounds terribly irrational. When I’m not in the middle of it I can see that myself. However, when it is happening everything gets so jumbled up and I’m just bound to lose it all, needless to say. This pattern has always forced me out of everything in the most embarrassing ways and most of my previous bosses and colleagues see me as unstable, socially inept, unfit for the job and the worst “team player” ever. They conveniently forget my work ethics, that fact that I have always slogged my guts out – they only remember the conflicts and controversies I caused.

Try to get references with such a background...

I used to think that my tragedies were down to me not being good enough, not trying hard enough (despite the fact that more often than not I insanely overstretched myself) and every time an episode was over and I found myself on the ground, morally annihilated, I swore to myself that I would do better next time. Yet, despite my efforts, my determination, nothing has ever changed – this pattern has been repeating itself for decades now.

So I am a quitter. A professional procrastinator too – this has been my unconscious strategy to postpone the inevitable choice between quitting or pushing through and risking the onset of insanity. A damn grim choice if you ask me.

As I get older I seem to be losing the ability to bounce back, “swear that I will do better next time” and I am terribly worried. In the last three years I have gradually withdrawn from society and practically lost all my social contacts. I am dying to be loved, to belong to someone and I am convinced that I do have a lot to offer. Yet I can’t even tolerate spending a few hours in public – I get so furious about noises, the way people speak – sometimes the mere sight of someone licking their lips is enough to send me into a rage to the point that I have to leave because I feel I am going to lose it and hurt someone.

I am so exhausted by my mood swings. From the moment I wake up, it tends to be a roller coaster of extreme heights of enthusiasm, confidence and happiness, sometimes feeling awash with love, then, total despair, raging fury, disgust, guilt, self hatred and an overwhelming urge to end it all. These changes can happen within minutes and they just completely rip me apart, prevent me to hold onto a thought, an intention, let alone any kind of a long term project. It has always been like this and I just can’t take it anymore.
I am quick to add, I’m not one for suicide but that doesn’t make the urge go away.

Lately, things have changed, slightly. I think I finally realized that things will never get better; I will never become the person I should be. Over the course of last year I have lost most of my motivation to live. More often than not I don’t even get out of bed. Needless to say, I am in the middle of a financial disaster and my life is simply not sustainable any more.

I think I am starting to realize that some grim end is inevitable. That all “life” has been trying to “tell” me is that I am helpless and no matter what I do not deserve to live and be happy. My ways of “self-medication” and practices to make the day bearable don’t help either – they clearly are a major health hazard.

I have been trying to get help. All I got was being put on half-year-long waiting lists – and that is just for an initial consultation; I am told to expect a further nine months until I can possibly receive any form of counselling.
Over the last two years I visited various GPs but they all seem to suggest that I have anxiety disorder.
Of course I have. I am petrified of dissolving, ceasing to exist, being abandoned, descending to hell – and I am petrified that one day I get so angry that I won’t be able to control myself and do something to others and/or myself that cannot be undone.

Yet I am convinced that this is just the surface. Why can’t doctors see that?
All my life, I really thought that I was just bad, simple as that, I deserve a disastrous and hopeless life and I have always been indescribably furious about having no chance to ever become contented, calm and happy.
However, my view has changed lately. I have grown convinced that I am actually sick – I have always been, most probably. It appears to me that the closest description of what I have been experiencing is that of the borderline personality disorder.

I am not medically trained and I guess most of you aren’t either so I am only looking for feedback and opinions. Is it possible that I might be borderline? If not, what on earth can this be?

I would appreciate any input – very seriously, I feel I must reach out. It is now or never.

Regards,

ashpile"