Month: March 2019

Cognitive Dissonance, Eggshells, and Guilt

Posted on by Heather Scarbro Dobson

I don’t talk about Mom a lot online. Last year, I posted that we were no longer in contact and I’ve reached out to a few mutual friends to help me keep an eye on her simply because she’s no spring chicken. But, other than that, unless you’re a close friend who I talk to on a regular basis, I’ve been radio-silent.

I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing.

I’ve spent the last 13 months reading books about borderline personality disorder, subscribing to Facebook and Reddit groups that allow for safe spaces to post about borderline parents, and going to therapy. Well, scratch that. Therapy only lasted six months because my therapist started talking about reconciliation and Christian resource books and talking to my mother again and I tried to put the kibosh on that but she kept saying those words and so I canceled my next appointment and never went back. Yes, I ghosted my therapist. I figured it was for the best. And I’ve been too lazy, and frankly a little scared, to look for another one.

Reconciliation is a no-go for me as there is nothing to reconcile. Living with someone who has borderline personality disorder is about setting boundaries and keeping those boundaries in place. Except, like a toddler, the person with BPD will constantly push those boundaries and you, the loved one, will spend your life walking on eggshells. As reddit user u/NothingIsEverEnough succinctly stated, One book says “stop walking on eggshells”, I immediately called bullshit on it. The book teaches you how to walk on eggshells with lesser damage, but you will walk on eggshells as long as you’re in the relationship.

I’ve walked on eggshells for over four decades and I’m done, ya’ll.

So, instead of therapy, I call Toni, talk to Jodi over our property line, text Stefanie, and drink more coffee.

Yes, Heather, you made the right decision. Toni tells me.
Your mom pinned something on Pinterest, so she’s still alive. Jodi informs me.
I got your back. Just let me know who I need to cut. Stefanie says.
You are amazing and you are so smart and beautiful and talented. Everything you do and say is brilliant and I love you. Coffee will whisper to me.

I know that coffee is lying but three outta four ain’t bad.

I have a notebook that I bought last year that I use as a silent therapist. In it are neatly written pages of memories of my mother’s lies and mental illness. It’s probably not healthy to have it, but whenever I think, Maybe I’m being too harsh. I just need to call her and apologize and not leave her by herself, I just pick up that notebook and re-read it and remember why I have established this No Contact  boundary and why that needs to remain the status quo. I also read it to remind myself that I have borderline personality tendencies and that I need to fight that and not react as a person with BPD would react. Any time I find myself overthinking a situation, misreading a social cue, or worse, splitting, I pick up that notebook to stop it.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky nailed it when he said, “I swear to you gentlemen, that to be overly conscious is a sickness, a real, thorough sickness.”

My goal is to, someday, burn that book and the memories written in it. But not today. Today, I need it.

I guess, through all this rambling, what I’m trying to say is that I’m going to have blog posts that seem to start in the middle of a discussion, that tell a story halfway through. And those are the posts where I’m working through my relationship with my mother, myself, and our shared mental illness. If you don’t want to read those, I totally get it. If you read and have nothing to add, that’s fine. If you read and decide that you have words of wisdom to share with me, by all means do so. I just need a safe space, outside of my notebook to share my life with my mother. I hope you all understand.

Not Very Sociable

Posted on by Heather Scarbro Dobson

These are my new “pick the kids up from the bus stop” sunglasses. Because a hobby of mine is to embarrass the kids as much as possible.

One month ago today, I got sick. I mean, not with anything horrifying like measles or leprosy or hantavirus. It was just an average cold. With fever, snot, coughing, and lots of misery. I guess you could say it was more like an above-average cold. An over-achieving cold.

Still going to give it an F for “Fuck that.”

On the second day of my feverish delirium, I was sprawled out on my couch, half-in and half-out of a blanket, watching the twelfth hour of a Mysteries at the Museum marathon, and scrolling through Facebook on my phone. It was at that moment that I realized I was tired.

Metaphorically tired. I mean, I was also literally tired because… sick, but I was also tired of what I was doing. Scrolling.

No matter how many advertisers I deleted from my Ad Settings, no matter how many offensive Facebook pages I hid, no matter how many times I excused inflammatory comments or tried to read past something with which I disagreed, I realized that it was my fault for coming back. Isn’t the definition of madness doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results? But, if I hide those things with which I disagree, aren’t I creating an echo chamber? But, if I don’t hide those things, won’t my anxiety get worse?

When I first joined Facebook in 2007, I joined under my old blog handle and only accepted friendships from those who read Burt Reynolds’ Mustache, a comedy blog for which I wrote monthly posts. Eventually, I started getting emails asking, “Are you Heather Dobson?” After about the twentieth email sussing out my true identity, I changed my name and accepted friend requests from, well, everyone. Bloggers, high school friends, family, neighbors, old co-workers, you name it. It was the one place on the Internet where all parts of my life converged into a strange amalgam of memory and current events. My fellow high school Black Eagles learned I now cuss like a sailor while my blogger friends found out I was a Rainbow Girl in my youth.

Slowly, but surely, though, click bait, the almighty dollar, and political opinions have overtaken everyone’s feeds. Many days, Facebook feels like a crowded party packed full of people, each shouting about their own life.

My kid won a gold medal!
This politician is an idiot!
This politician is a genius!
Thoughts and prayers!
Ban all the bad things!
Those things aren’t bad and this is why!

I fully admit that I’ve been part of this conversation for over eleven years, filling the feeds of others with my opinions, pictures, and thoughts. And you know what “they” say about opinions… everyone has one and everyone thinks everyone else’s stinks. After a huge familial blow-out over the Cheeto-in-Chief, I vowed that my Facebook feed would only be lighthearted, full of pictures of my family and pets.

And while that’s been true, Facebook in general is still a web site that exists for its own purpose. It is there to make money and in order to make money, it must convince us to click here, there, and everywhere. And that? Has gotten to be too much for me. I don’t mind attending the party where we’re all sharing pictures and hilarious stories of how that friend fell in a puddle and this other friend’s baby pee’d on them. But, when the party also includes arguments, disagreements, hurt feelings, relationships that end over opinion, and fights that never seem to end, never seem to find resolution, it gives me large amounts of anxiety.

I won’t deactivate my Facebook account because I need it in order to post on my paranormal group’s page, but I can tell you that this month off social media has been an eye-opener for me. I’ve had MUCH more time to listen to podcasts, read books, cross-stitch, and, more importantly, to listen to my inner voice. Social media had become my entire life and that wasn’t healthy for me.

I know that a number of you have texted and emailed me, asking if I’m OK. Yes, I’m fine. And I have decided that at the end of each month, I will post that month’s pictures and the goings-on of the Dobson family. But, my day-to-day social media interaction will have to be cut off for my own mental health. I’ll always lurk on my paranormal group’s Facebook page. My own page, though, will have to take a back seat to my life. But, if we’re friends on Facebook, it’s easy to get in touch with me. Just go to my page, click on About, and there you’ll find my address (physical and email) as well as my phone number. Feel free to contact me there!