Update on project progress - 30/09/19

As I touched on yesterday, Part 1 of my Project could well be considered a spectacular fail. It is important to me that I am open about the reasons for why this has not been the successful venture I had hoped for.

My #11 coincided with the start of the children's extra long school holidays and then subsequently and very sadly I experienced the breakdown of my marriage over a period of several months. During the whole of August, some of July and most of September I did absolutely zero towards the blog or the art but this is not the only aspect of my life that suffered. I wasn't even able to keep up my well-being practices of regular swimming, water workouts and a healthy diet. My mental health went down hill and consequently I entered that vicious cycle of low mood, inactivity, procrastination and self-loathing. In two days time I reach the half way point in my project and I am viewing this as a fresh start for me not only in this project but also in life; I hope to be able to start eating more healthily and doing regular exercise again as well as finding joy in my creativity again.

This is all such a struggle for me, as it would be for anyone, but with my BPD it is a constant battle to try to allow my emotions to exist whilst at the same time not allowing them to destroy me. BPD is characterised by lots of extreme emotions; highs and lows of emotions which can occur multiple times throughout the day. I guess the problem I'm having lately is that the lows are so much lower than I've been used to for a while and there are very few highs, if any at all. It is incredibly hard trying to regulate my emotions to a point where I can be calm and stable for any length of time. And when the overriding feeling is sadness and disappointment it feels even more difficult to 'get over' than anger which can rise up in bursts, but then settle down and dissipate fairly quickly. This is my experience anyway, it could well be different for other BPD sufferers.