Is Google-stalking your therapist morally wrong, a self defeating masochistic exercise in futility, considered Borderline Personality Disordered behaviour or worse, or downright creepy, dangerous and illegal; or is it healthy curiosity and something everyone does but would not admit to – or perhaps all of the above?

I have received emails from my blog readers and heard personal anecdotes from people who have Facebook and Google-stalked their therapists and I have heard of therapists who have terminated clients once they found out the client had typed their name into the internet.

The golden rule is that you never put anything up on the internet you would not want your grandmother to read or the world to see on the front page of the daily newspaper. Google your own name every few weeks to see what other people have said about you and if it is derogatory either ask them to take it down or if they won’t then there are legal avenues you can take. I had to caution a friend’s daughter who had written some slanderous content about my motherhood skills on a parenting forum where someone had reviewed one of my books.

This is the internet age, the age of information sharing so expect to be Googled especially if you are a mental health professional. But while I might want to find out your professional history, qualifications, cost, location and perhaps some testimonials, there are self-imposing strict personal boundaries around this. If I start to type your children’s name into Facebook to find out personal information or to see family snaps of you then perhaps my curiosity belongs in a different dimension and I need to address the reasons why I want to seek this information out.

This sort of behaviour, like drugs, alcohol, smoking and food, can become very addictive very quickly. When you find out new information there can be a dopamine rush to the brain which acts as a reward and creates a deep neural pathway which leads to more of the same behaviour. Or it can work the other way and the information can be so distressing it can lead to self-harming behaviour. This is serious and non-judgemental, empathic and compassionate help is much needed.

I also believe, for the mental health professional, terminating the Google-stalking client is also about safety, security and risk management. I believe most therapists would want to find out the reasons why their client finds someone else’s life more fascinating than their own, but management can see things differently. Questions to ask is what is it that is lacking in their life that they want to spend inordinate amounts of time in a dark room in front of a pixellated screen in order find proof of life of someone else’s happy existence? Perhaps it could be a golden opportunity to address the lack of substance in the client’s life and boost and enhance their daily activity to a level where Google stalking no longer seems an attractive proposition.

However, as a therapist this can be very disconcerting at least and downright scary at worst. But if you do find out about this, would you be curious and ask the client what this meant for her/him or would you automatically terminate the client out of a sense of compromised personal safety? Also are you sure your personal safety is actually compromised? Does it depend on the functioning and insight level of the particular client? Would you allow this behaviour in some clients and not in others?

I am a Google-stalker and I have been Google-stalked. As an author who has appeared regularly on radio and in print and once on TV I have had people I work with tell me I have written two books, or been on radio or even that I write a blog for Psych Central. That is not creepy for me; I enjoy hearing that and feel as though what I do is appreciated and loved.

So at what point for some does this change from acceptable to downright creepy? Pre the internet age no-one would come up to you at a party and say they did a Dun and Bradstreet on you? Yet people tell me they Googled my name. I have Googled my therapist over the years. She knows about this and we have discussed it. Anyone with transference issues is highly curious of how someone else lives, especially if you have that someone else up on a pedestal. I was always open with her and let her know what I had found. We discussed my need to do this until I got to the point where my own life was more interesting than hers. Had she not addressed my behaviour in that manner and terminated me I would not be in the good place I am now. I also learned in the process that she also was curious about other people’s lives.

It is very much context dependent. It is all about culture, existing zeitgeist and what is considered socially acceptable behaviour for the changing times. If you are a therapist and you have an open Facebook with 1097 “friends” and you post controversial opinions and update your status three times a day (yes there are therapists who do that) then you should accept that your clientele are going to be curious about the rest of your life. Or perhaps you are so private that your Facebook is on total lockdown and even your own mother could not find you. In other words you need to manage your Googleness and check on it regularly.

I have been in the public eye in the past and I now work in mental health and I have met many people who do not meet social norms in terms of acceptable behaviour (not all of them are clients or patients some belong to other organisations) but rarely do I feel scared or threatened or feel my security and privacy compromised.

It has been said also, in jest, that you have not made it in Hollywood unless you have a stalker (see Kevin Bacon episode of Will and Grace). Some therapists might be terrified that they are not being Google-stalked. Others might be upset that they are not even considered Googleworthy.

Curiosity did not kill the cat, curiosity made it most inquisitive about its own nine lives. Unlike felines, you only have one life so make the most of it.

Photos: Sonia Neale – Ubud, Bali 2012

So, let’s get to the bottom of this once and for all. If it is OK for therapeutic couples to hug, then here are some types of therapy room hugs that might be considered appropriate:

The Stealth Hug: This happened for me about eight years ago. I saw her in the corridor wearing a green jumper and a black pleated skirt and I made a snap decision, so when I got into the room, I launched myself at her. She was quite startled, but put her arms around me and hugged. That, by the way, is the only correct response when a client stealth hugs a therapist. Had she refused, my mortification factor would have been stratospheric and I would have had to leave immediately – never to come back again. When a therapist refuses a client’s stealth hug it can make the client feel contaminated at best and the embodiment of evil at worst.

The Lonely Hug: Touching someone is a very intimate gesture. It provides warmth and creates a surge of oxytocin, the attachment/love hormone. Lonely people are sometimes oxytocin/dopamine depleted and need lots of hugs rather than mind-altering medication doled out by dull, bored and indifferent psychiatrists. Lonely people are the ones you find in long-term therapy. Lonely people are lonely because they either have no friends or their relationships have soured over the years. Sometimes a hug from their therapist can save their life.

The Therapist Initiated Hug: This has happened a few times and I really feel good about this one. I feel validated and affirmed and for me it means I have achieved what I set out to achieve in therapy and this is kind of like a reward for good work done. There’s nothing like realizing your therapist thinks you are OK in a normal, non-stalker sense.

The Bear Hug: Sometimes I get so emotional when I hug people (not just my therapist) I can get a bit carried away and end up crushing the hug recipient. I am always mindful of this in therapy. It is generally considered good manners not to crush your therapist into a small ball.

The A-Frame Hug: This is a great one because you get all the intimacy without any genital contact. It is always a good idea to keep your hands above waist level as well.

The Cheek Hug: This happened once after a very emotional session. It was interesting to note that her cheek was as cool as her handshake had been a few weeks earlier. The coolness was incongruent with the hot emotional therapeutic tension hanging in the room. I recall once thinking she was an Ice Queen. However, her mannerisms are very warm and inviting.

The Epic Fail Hug: I once went to hug my therapist and stepped on her foot with my black boot. That was four years ago and I have only just stopped blushing. The other epic fail was when my handbag slipped off my shoulder and crashed into her hip. We’ve also done the head “dosey doe” dance as well. Do you hug to the left or the right? Does the left hand go around the shoulder and the other hand hover above the waist? It gets a bit complicated.

The Short Hug: This is a kind of pat-pat hug and a really good hug to have at the end of therapy. Short, sweet and simple with no lingering aftertaste regarding transference issues. It is in essence a non-hug.

The Long Hug: Sometimes you just want to stay there forever; however even I know that is not appropriate (my therapist’s favourite word). It just feels warm, soft, soothing, inviting and suspended in time. People with abandonment/rejection/attachment issues tend to sink into this sort of hug and want to merge into the body of the therapist. This is good and needs to be verbally explored. A good therapist will provide both cognitive and behavioural experiences regarding the meaning of the hug for the client (and the therapist as well).

The Kiss: Never a good idea, this is crossing boundaries in a huge, damaging way.

The Sexual Hug: What Robin Williams said!

Hug photo available from Shutterstock

Sometimes, I catch myself having fierce arguments in my head with people I have never met, about situations that have not happened, followed by resolutions that are never satisfying. My headspace is cranky and irritable and there is no logical preceding incident; it is just where my head automatically ends up when let off the leash and wanders free range. I call this IBS – Irritable Borderline Syndrome.

Now, when I catch myself doing this, I redirect my thoughts into something else. I discovered I was doing this on the 45-minute journey to and from work. Without external noise distraction (my radio/CD broke) and only my thoughts to keep me company on the stop/start traffic jam journey to and from work, I was mentally irritable from plotting evil thoughts, arguing with my inner self and ruminating long before I reached my destination. My armpits and skin would itch with stress induced hormones and my bowels and intestines would cramp into knots.

My therapist once told me that traffic jams and traffic lights were wonderful opportunities to un-cramp, de-itch and meditate into a peaceful state of mind, because you literally have nothing else to do, so use that head-space wisely. Instead of picking fights with people who don’t exist (I can argue with a lamppost sometimes) I now redirect (with much effort sometimes) those thoughts to something pleasant.

Towards my destination, I drive through semi-rural country and there are many horses, sheep, cows, ducks and geese on the side of the road to keep me company.

Like my daily routine, my mind needs much structure and focus. Arguing with myself is counter-productive to where I want to be. I want to move to infinity and beyond. I want to think of ideas. I read recently that small minds think about people, average minds think about events and great minds think about ideas. So I now keep a notebook in my bag for any great, world-transforming ideas that might spring to mind when traffic starts to bottleneck in front of me.

Conflict resolution is necessary for the function and progress of the human race and internal conflict resolution is imperative if I am to arrive at my destination free from mental cramps and diarrhea. Part of the BPD syndrome involves living in the past, being unable to get past previous situations and having a different perspective from others about the same events. If direct focus on personal events is too scary, then I can fabricate alternative scenarios which have a distinct revenge theme.

But instead of rocketing down that rabbit-hole every time a car stops in front of me, I try to practice mindfulness and meditation and think about happy or neutral present-day issues without judgement or harshness. This involves practice because redirecting anger into constructive thoughts processes did not happen overnight with me.

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, or as I like to call it, Diabolical Behaviour Therapy involves much mindfulness, interpersonal effectiveness (including with yourself), emotional regulation (keeping those mind demons at bay) and distress tolerance. Tolerating the distress of being in your own thoughts at traffic lights can be quite liberating.

I could have gone out and bought a new car radio/CD but I would have missed this golden opportunity for personal growth. The first few months were agony and I missed my favourite radio stations. I had it on my list of things to do, but never got around to it. Then I slowly and gradually started to enjoy the peace, learning to live in the unregulated air space that was my twisted and tortured mind.

Then I started to greatly look forward to the nothingness, the blankness that I could fill with wonderful new ideas.

This became my personal time to save the world from itself, free the Universe from mental illness, self-sabotage and self-destruction, but most of all, it was my time to chill out, to decelerate my racing brain, keep it in neutral, humming and clicking over, and even staying completely idle in a fast, tumultuous, ever changing world. It is good not to be continuously plugged into white noise, loud-mouthed shock jocks, talk back drama and national opinions just so you don’t have to think.

Staying unplugged and mindful can take you on a well-worn car journey to a destination you have never been to before because you didn’t know it existed.

Photos: Sonia Neale 2012

Borderline Personality Disorder is not just about mental illness and emotional distress, it is also about social skills (or lack of them), empathy, manners, conflict resolution and self-care. Most children learn these vital social skills early on at pre and primary school where they observe other children’s behaviour, learn a “theory of mind” or how other children think and feel (mentalising) and experience compassion and empathy for others. These things come naturally to them.

But some children, through no fault of their own, are unable to learn and remain totally clueless about how to survive socially in the playground. These are the kids who suffer social neglect, rejection and abandonment. These are the children who need a step by step guide or a “recipe” on how to learn empathy, how to be a team player, how to get on with other children, negotiation skills, conflict resolution, the rough and tumble of give and take and sharing toys with grace and dignity.

These kids need to learn that when this happens, this is the correct response. I was not one of those naturally cluey children; I lived in social Siberia most of my school life and became a library refugee.

Here are five survival techniques desperately needed when suffering from BPD:

SOCIAL SKILLS
Some people with mental illness lack manners and social skills, and this is not their fault. While I have no personal evidence to back this up, I know that when you are barely surviving the environment, it is near impossible to pick up on social cues from other children that you are not conforming or cooperating and that your behaviour is socially unacceptable.

When this carries on into adulthood it means job losses, social exclusion, lack of friends and relationship difficulties. However, having a mental illness and having non-acceptable social skills are two different things. I have seen many badly behaved people not taking responsibility for their actions, blaming everyone but themselves, simply because they lack manners, dignity and basic social skills.

It is never too late to learn, it is never too late to be aware of your own role in your mood swings and emotional distress.

EMPATHY
There is much internet anecdotal evidence which correlates Borderline Personality Disorder with Asperger’s Spectrum Disorder. People with Autism (high functioning in the case of Asperger’s Spectrum Disorder) have a distinct lack of empathy and mentalisation ability due to their neural wiring. But empathy along with social skills can be taught recipe-style by a competent therapist.

If there is a BPD/Asperger’s Spectrum Disorder correlation then the lack of empathy Professor Simon Baron Cohen states is part of the BPD syndrome may instead be due to the Asperger’s factor. I would appreciate anyone reading this to enlighten me further with a scientific evidence based journal paper (if one exists).

MANNERS
Even people with BPD know how to say please and thank you. But in times of crisis and distress, manners can easily get forgotten. I know, I’ve displayed appalling manners when cognitively/emotionally challenged. Part of the process of getting well is remembering manners.

Even if you have to carry a sheet of paper around with correct responses to various social situations — and I have done this — then it is worth it. Once I learned to remember my manners and took responsibility for my lack of them at times, I started to get on with people, reduce my mental distress, avoid much conflict and start to feel like a regular member of the human race.

CONFLICT RESOLUTION
Two words in the English language that can avert national disasters, world wars, nuclear holocausts, unemployment, divorce and ripped up relationships, and they are “I’m sorry.” You could, if you wanted, add, “I made a mistake.” How empowering, how liberating those words are. Saying this means you are responsible, you have taken ownership of your words and actions. Then look at yourself and think, “Aha! That’s where I went wrong, next time I will do it differently.”

Also, use statements like: I feel…when you…because it makes me feel… According to Norman Cousins, wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences.

SELF-CARE
When I get something right, like an apology or taking responsibility for something that didn’t go well, I reward myself with flowers, an ornament, a book or something to remind myself I got it right, helped someone, said something, avoided saying something, or added value to the office harmony.

Being a person with a BPD diagnosis, I gave up smoking and drinking, starting eating well and exercising regularly (80 percent of the time). I cannot stress enough that there is a poisonous connection between drugs, alcohol, smoking, eating unhealthy foods and mental irritability. The best gifts you can give yourself if you have a BPD diagnosis also includes routine, regular sleep and tuning into your sixth sense about how you feel internally. HALT if you feel that gut feeling. Are you Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired? HALT and sort yourself out. Sit down for five minutes and evaluate your inner self.

Social skills and mental illness are separate entities. Don’t blame yourself or beat yourself up on either count; learn what manners and social skills are. Become your own expert on yourself and watch yourself grow and mature emotionally.

I work in mental health and I have seen this and experienced it. It is a thing of beauty to behold.

Photo: Black Swan and Ducks – Sonia Neale 2011

My goal recently has been to respond rather than react to what I perceive are excruciatingly provocative circumstances and situations. I want to think and act with grace and dignity, to deep breathe, turn around, walk away, move on, learn the lesson and get a life. This attitude has, in the past, kept me in relationships, out of the law courts, out of jail, out of psychiatric hospitals, in employment and in therapy (or life coaching as we are now doing).

No longer is my therapist my nurturing supporter, smothering me endlessly with loving/kindness, reassurances of never abandoning me and justifying my bad behaviour and lack of social skills as a result of my environment. We have a more pragmatic egalitarian relationship where I feel mentored, rather than mental.

Responding quickly and with social correctness to sudden galling and goading instances and happenings when newly symptom-free, means being switched on to mindfulness at all times; even – especially – when you are unprepared. Life is full of incidental learning curves and today was no exception.

I went to the loo (bathroom) before going into her office and on the wash basin was an expensive text book so I took it to her office and said perhaps we should call office management and pass it on. She told me in a very stern voice, which broached no disagreement whatsoever indeed, that it was all sorted, to take it back to the toilets and leave it there.

But…I started to argue. So she told me that people knew about this and the best course of action was to take them back down – now. But...I started to argue again. However, her icy glare penetrated my fierce resistance and indignation and with my armpits itching I said with a forced smile: oh well I’ll have to take another trip down the stairs then.

So I resentfully stamped down the stairs and left the book on the bench and by the time I got back, I had decided to let it go, move on and get down to life coaching.

We then processed what had happened. I asked her how did it feel when I started to argue and she said that she felt I took it well, acted with grace and dignity and even had a sense of humour about it. I said that I felt she was quite directive (because she said we were about to start therapy and she did not want to waste time), however, seeing as I had no emotional investment in the book, I chose to cooperative with the current prevailing winds.

I compliantly conformed with the situation rather than resisting and rowing. I had passed (with a high distinction) my own unexpected accidental learning curve without realising it until it was over. I responded rather than reacted. My external appearance was one of going with the flow. This is what has kept me in the same employment for the past eighteen months.

I do know that eighteen months ago I would have argued with her till I got my own way. We would then have had a magnificent row and I would have shouted at her, devalued her, called her all sorts of names and cast aspersions upon her therapeutic ability, secure in the knowledge she once said she would never abandon me. The added bonus would be that I would have had an audience. Her colleague was in another room with an open door, and I could have seriously embarrassed us both.

I would have then driven home (perhaps through a tree or a freeway pylon) or gone home and drank, smoked, drugged and overate and blamed her for everything (of course) taking no responsibility for my actions.

Then, as the evening progressed, I would have sent her the obligatory apology email crucifying myself. She in return would send a very nurturing, and supportive email expressing loving/kindness (and we’d be back to therapy and not life coaching) and she would reiterate that she would not abandon me – ever.

Her colleague would have understood and silently labelled me as a borderline personality disorder and sympathized and debriefed with her. I would send her more idealizing emails and probably a huge bunch of very expensive flowers. And then we would start the cycle over again. Not dissimilar to the dynamics of a very dysfunctional relationship where abuse and possibly domestic violence are involved.

To a casual observer, this was a simple non-report worthy event, yet it was a monumental life-changing phenomenon to me. This all gets recorded in my body and in my unconscious and builds up and compounds on my social skills, resilience and a theory of mind, so the next time when it happens, I will do the same thing because it will feel right and keep doing it until it becomes automatic and I don’t even have to think about it.

This is what other people have taken for granted all their life; the ability to mentalize, empathize and see life from another’s point of view, even – especially when they don’t agree with them.

It’s easily to flow down the river than to fight against the rising tide because you get to your destination a lot quicker, feel a lot less exhausted and you get to enjoy the view on the way down.

Flat tire photo available from Shutterstock

My borderline reaction went to DefCon One in less than a nanosecond and I thought my brain would implode.

To be fair to myself, my thoughts remained relatively mindful (she’s said no before for the same reasons and yet I continue to email her things; it could be said that an idiot does the same thing all the time and expects a different response. If that is the case, then I am that idiot) but my body was transported instantly back to the mid-seventies where school bullying and parental fighting had finely tuned my fight, flight or freeze response.

It’s total madness to live in a high alert, hyper-vigilant state where everyone who has an adverse opinion is the enemy, but instead of smashing a cup, a plate or the TV remote, I sat in one place without moving and fantasized about her waking up with a teddy bear and rabbit’s head on the pillow next to her (Godfather style) and screaming incoherently. Luckily I am familiar with this over-reaction and my mindfulness skills kick in almost immediately; I just needed to briefly indulge my favorite revenge plot for a few glorious seconds.

I even tried watching Desperate Housewives to take my mind off her email, but try as I might she bears an uncanny resemblance to Bree Van de Kamp, so that particular day watching the ladies on Wisteria Lane was like pouring petrol onto an already roaring fire. So I decided to go food shopping and my perfectly coiffed blow-dried hair (ready for a function that night) ended up a tangled sticky mess after an unexpected and surprisingly strong thunderstorm hit our suburb.

Because of my state of mind I should have had a seizure and collapsed, but I amazed myself by taking a deep breath – and getting over it (I didn’t make it to the function after all, but that is another story).

But I still was not over that damned email nor my Damned Desperate Therapist. By this time two and a half hours had elapsed since my narcissism needed an ambulance.

These types of semi-fatal injuries are invisible and I managed to hide it well, go about my afternoon without any family member suspecting I was a walking/talking aneurysm. So I decided to re-read the email to see if I had missed something crucial – and I had. I had only read the bit about it not being relevant to therapy but there was so much more that I had missed – or misinterpreted.

This is what happens when my head explodes into a black anaphylactic abyss where toxic neurotransmitters invade and overwhelm my pre-frontal cortex. I literally do not see the rest of the words; I only see the “golf club sentence” which does my head in. I still have that Chernobyl reaction, but now I respond rather than react. I switched on the Large Hadron Collider in my head and manufactured much mindfulness particles (and maybe even the random thunderstorm) out of nothing and let this dark matter wash over me without judgment or criticism (as best I could) and did not let that damned time machine crank itself back to the future where I get sucked into the black hole of the madness and mayhem of the mid-seventies.

I emailed her the next day, took responsibility for my actions (a humbling experience, “sucking it up” as some would say) and mentioned, amongst other things, that I would not send her any more videos for her to watch, and my narcissistic injury healed beautifully without any scar. She knew this; somehow with the words she used in her next email she KNEW what had happened the day before.

She’s like that, she gets me. She’s a witch sometimes but a good witch. And Teddy and Rabbit are safe again, smiling and carefree in the way that all teddies, rabbits and young children should be.

s_bukley / Shutterstock.com

At my last therapy session my therapist turned into a savage rottweiler; baring her sharp teeth at me, picking me up by the scruff of my neck and shaking the living daylights out of me. The doggone woman deliberately picked a fight about nothing, provoked me into a snarling row, called me a liar and then threatened to sue me for slander.

Interpretation of unfolding events is always a personal perception. I have been seeing her again for some workplace issues that need resolving. I was having problems accepting constructive criticism from the top dog in my organization. I found I was getting deeply triggered when told I was not achieving what I was supposed to achieve in the way she wanted it achieved and I was getting my feathers ruffled in a big way, getting upset, huffy and resolving the issue by fleeing or freezing.

So when within five minutes of arriving, my barking mad therapist activated every button on my panel and almost blew us both up, I almost called her a bitch, walked out the door and planned on brooding, ruminating and plotting impotent revenge against her for the rest of my natural life. Talk about an idealizing transference killer.

I argued back, “why are you doing this to me?  Why am I paying you (insert discounted fee here) for you to have this argument with me?” I went from zero to borderline in 30 seconds flat. I wanted to duck for cover. My therapy (and therapist) had turned rabid and gone to the dogs. I might have been reasonably calm on the surface but I was paddling furiously underneath the water in order to stay afloat, but she was like a dog with a bone and would not let go. I had to reach for my handbag before she explained the method in her madness.

In her version of events, in the dog eat dog world of workplace employment, I wasn’t understanding how crucial it was to be able to accept criticism. I wasn’t getting how important it is to understand that sometimes even people with diagnosed BPD have to “suck it up” when their Princess tiara gets knocked off their head. I wasn’t “getting” that I had made a mistake and I needed to learn that not only is it OK to make a mistake, but that it is expected of me; it is not whether I make the mistake that is important, it is how I handle the subsequent discussion of what went wrong.

This is what my therapist was trying to explain to me. Sometimes in order to treat a disorder with a high emotional arousal component one has to tap into those high arousal emotions in order to correct erroneous thinking and belief systems. She also praised me for staying in the moment and processing it. It was tough love and her bite was worse than her bark this time because she cared. Talk about a dog day afternoon.

So when I grabbed my bag to leave, she told me she had deliberately bailed me up with both front paws against the wall and manufactured the situation in order to evoke the implicit (unconscious) emotional system to see my reaction and told me that this is why I have difficulties at work and why she wants to do body-centred psychotherapy with me. She asked me why in the entire argument, had I not been curious as to her point of view. Talk about ducks and drakes. In other words, she was sick to death of chasing her own tail when it came to my therapy not progressing.

I was so thrilled. She doesn’t do body-centred psychotherapy with just anyone. You have to be at a certain level of high functioning in order to do so, otherwise she could unleash the “Regan” (Linda Blair from the Exorcist) within. My therapist is an Exorcist, but more of a Joanne Woodward than Max von Sydow. In fact she is the sort of person who would hold an umbrella over a duck to protect it from the rain.

I was able to see what she did clearly and precisely and understood perfectly her body-centred experiment. Last time this happened I suffered the “freeze” syndrome where I sat for 15 minutes without moving and barely breathing. This time I was able to get back into my body and viscerally understand how it works under intense implicit evocation. It was so intense that I cried a few minutes later and after that it was water off a duck’s back.

I discovered (in this argument) I was reacting to the past not the present. Her provocation story involved a predator and a prey and I was reacting as a victim to the victim in her story. I was sticking up for the underdog, which of course was me. And this is how I react to people, including my family, children and husband, when even the slightest criticism has occurred.

Since then I’ve spent time being mindfully alert to how my body responds to criticism and changing how I choose to react. My body is still highly activated; the trauma of the past is locked away inside as it is with most people who are diagnosed with complex trauma disorder or borderline personality disorder. It is up to me to stick with what my therapist is trying to say to me in the nicest way possible so I don’t slink out of the door with my tail between my legs.

We have agreed to throw down our gauntlets into the arena and get down, like a pair of dirty dogs for some bare knuckled fighting. Validation and nurturing has been put to one side because as she said, if I don’t learn how to take criticism, my beloved job will be in danger. By this stage both our tails were wagging.

Even when I think I can take criticism I know it takes a huge toll on my physical health. Teaching me to accept criticism, to embrace it and even welcome it and remain centered with my tiara still sitting high on my head, rather than strangling me is where I want to be. My therapist now has me on a very short leash.

Perceptions of events differ from person to person. We all know of car accident witnesses who all have different accounts of what happened. I could have picked up my bag, told her to “get ducked” and walked out. I choose to accept her unorthodox method of therapy. I am paying her a ridiculous sum so she can make me feel like a roast duck, yet the lesson she gave me and the one before are priceless in terms of experientiality, safety, trust and loving kindness. She was in total control of what went on in that room; she is, in most ways, my guide dog.

If a man’s best friend is his dog, then a client’s best friend is her/his therapist.

Learning how to accept criticism graciously is a form of art, but for me it is a work of art in progress. This is because I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and part of that syndrome is being unable to tolerate critical comments, no matter how well-meaning.

So what happens when I get criticized? No matter how mindful my brain wants to be, my body has an anaphylactic reaction. I feel as though someone has thrown acid in my face. I feel my body disintegrating and my internal organs shutting down and psychological and physical death is imminent. Does that sound familiar to you?

This isn’t planned, this isn’t about me being a Drama Queen or a Princess with a slipped tiara; it’s about staying alive. I go into survival mode where I have to sit in a chair, breathe deeply, count my fingers and toes and make sure that I am all here. I have to detoxify my body before I can even start to work out cognitively what was said, why it was said and what the ramifications of the criticism were.

My body has this urgent need for rapid motion, for crying, for storming, screaming, wailing and breaking precious things. I am non-functioning for as long as it takes. There is a regression towards childhood memories where it feels annihilating. I feel as though I am being murdered.

You may think I am seriously out of control when you read this, but all this is raging inside me as I sit cross legged on my yoga mat. I plot impotent revenge in my head but it goes nowhere as thoughts are not actions and my thoughts do not telepathically start fires, blow up buildings or hurt people. The only person in any remote physical danger from myself – is me.

So how do I move on from here? Good question. Over the years I have disciplined myself to wait until the physical reaction has passed. This is not easy and it works some of the time. It took 16 years and I have managed to practice this for the most part over the past two years. Asking myself meaningful questions helped. But trust – trust in the people who criticized me was crucial.

Usually it is a boss or supervisor, sometimes a friend or even a comment on my blog (now that can send me up into the stratosphere like an unmanned rocket). Most of the time, it is a criticism that, on its own merit, is deserved. Usually it is something that the person has thought about and agonized over for a long time and it takes a brave, concerned, loving-kindness person with a vested interest in my recovery and progress to do it.

But no matter how well-meaning, any criticism makes me want to self-destruct because I feel evil, bad and morally un-salvagable.

So I tune my thoughts into what the other person was feeling, thinking and their possible motive for saying what they did. And most of all, the part that I really dislike, is looking at my preceding behaviour and trying not to justify what I did. More importantly, where did my reaction really come from? Is it my childhood voice speaking in the present and addressing unresolved issues from the past?

We learn behaviour implicitly and under stress react accordingly, automatically, without thinking. Perhaps we are not reacting to our current supervisor, but a teacher from the past who tried to hurt and humiliate us in front of the class, or a parent who did not know how to relate to a sensitive child. Who are we reacting to when we feel the back draft of criticism scorching our sensitive skin?

My current crop of critics are my supervisor and my therapist (now turned work coach) – arguably the two most important people in my psychological life. I like them both and they are wise, wonderful women, so their criticism comes from a present-day perspective.

Since changing roles, my therapist has been harder on me, less soft and nurturing and more, well, critical. What’s more, she tends to take the perspective of my supervisor and advises me to trust her because she has my best interests at heart and wants to see me grow, emotionally, psychologically and within the organization I work for.

So I have two women in my life who want to see me stretch my wings and soar through the air, not come crash landing in a heap at the bottom of the cliff. Both these women criticize me. Both these women say things I do not want to hear, but under the guidance of these women I have grown, matured and have some semblance of what emotional intelligence looks like from an insider’s point of view.

For me criticism is now a gift of love.

Pictures: http://theadventurouswriter.com/blog/what-to-do-when-nothing-is-good-enough-for-your-mother/ and http://www.fabjob.com/Mar05_web.html

At what point does a therapist decide to terminate a client because their relationship has broken down? Over the past three years writing my blog I have received many emails from therapy clients telling me that their therapists terminated them, either for no reason or for a small infraction within the relationship.

Are therapists being over-sensitive or are clients diagnosed with borderline personality disorder unaware of their own personal lack of empathy towards someone who is on their side? Being terminated for relationship issues with the therapist does not make sense to me. The entire reason we are in therapy is because we have huge external relationship problems and this plays out in the therapeutic relationship and the therapist should be aware of this.

But at what point does a therapist say enough is enough? Is it because of transference; counter transference; a therapeutic error; a pissed off punitive therapist; a client with irresolvable attachment issues; a personality clash or the therapist who blames the client? Is it none of the above or all of the above?

As someone diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder I can hurt someone’s feelings at a very deep level and think I have only superficially wounded them. I have hurt my therapist on occasion and used her as an “emotional punching bag.”

It appears to be a common pattern, I get upset and accuse her of something and she calls me on it and I get insight and remorse and think, why do I always do these things? At the time I feel I am being reasonable with my demands but on reflection of her point of view I understand where I went wrong and why I went wrong. The “why” is very important is therapy.

I have managed to circumvent this pattern by recognizing my body’s response to what is happening in the present moment. Why do I feel hostile towards her, why do feelings of jealousy and envy surface, why do I feel she is “out to get me,” doesn’t care, thinks I’m a loser or many other hundreds of different erroneous beliefs and schemas that abruptly surface when I am too triggered, hungry, angry, lonely, stressed, frightened, upset or tired?

Because I am used to operating at a very high emotionally hostile level where things I have said are highly inflammatory, outrageously insensitive, stingingly and penetratingly abusive, I assume everyone else can operate at this level as well and get over it the same way I do. After a row I can “forget” hurtful statements I made and others cannot. I have lost friends and family members due to my behaviour.

So I have to be aware that my choice of words, tone, volume and body language dictates my future relationships. I have been told by my therapist, in the past, that I can take her for granted and it is not a nice feeling to receive that sort of assessment of our relationship, true as it might be. I attempt to stay in the present moment so I do not take her for granted.

Therapists are not emotional punching bags. They are professional people who deserve respect for their difficult work. I try hard to say to my therapist that I am feeling out of sorts today and not in a good frame of mind and for some reason it feels like it’s about our relationship. That’s called transference and this tricky, sticky, icky little concept is what gets us Borderliners into enormous strife in session.

A good therapist will know this, and take it into account, but sometimes therapists have feelings as well, hidden unresolved parental issues, or are even undiagnosed Borderliners themselves. And we can press their buttons quite easily. Not all therapists are self-aware, self-insightful or take self-responsibility. It is always a good thing to have had therapy yourself before therapising others, to sort out issues and problems, but not all therapists think they need this.

When I hurt, when I am triggered, I just want to lash out. But I let my body inform my brain of this these days. I work hard at not reacting emotionally, at distress tolerance, at maintaining and enhancing relationships and most of all I try to be mindful and stay in the present moment. Most of the time I do get it right.

Most of the time.

Pictures: http://calmingyourinnerstorm.blogspot.com.au/2011/07/stop-pushing-my-buttons.html, http://www.adfs.alabama.gov/FATM.aspx and http://blog.lib.umn.edu/meyer769/myblog/2011/12/

When Borderlines and Narcissists clash, it makes When Worlds Collide look like two butterflies locking wings together in a mid-air prang. As someone diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder I had the misfortune to run up against a Narcissistic Personality Disorder and I would describe the experience like running full speed, head first into a brick wall without a helmet.

For me, it is exceedingly rare to come under the microscopic scrutiny of a dangerous and mentally unhinged person who appears to be made out of concrete in such a manner that a nuclear bomb would be unable to dislodge their black and white thinking. For this person it was either night or day, there was no pearly pink twilight or early misty mornings.

This person was highly and appropriately right and I was incredibly stupid and wrong. I know this because it was hammered into my skull at every given opportunity.

As someone who in the past either self-destructs, screams abuse to innocent family members or smashes plates and crockery in order to relieve psychic pain and distressing emotions, over the past week I have kept a comprehensive visceral diary of how I felt inside when this narcissist attacked. It felt like I had been punched in the stomach and internally violated.

When I was anxious, my stomach was in knots of turmoil.  When I was sad, my throat was swollen and constricted. When I was angry, my brain felt like exploding, but when I was fearful and frightened my bladder and bowels turned to jelly. I used these bodily sensations as a guide to get through my day.

I did notice, however that my mind was mostly thoroughly engaged in the visceral process, rather than mired in the content and process of the attacks. My mind felt separate, cool, calm, clear, full of clarity and observingly mindful of what was happening and it was this process that guided the way I conducted myself both publicly and privately when this person threatened to annihilate and humiliate me with legal action for a minor narcissistic injury I had unwittingly inflicted.

This was when I realized just how much hard work I had done to alleviate my diagnosed borderline symptoms especially high emotional dysregulation, instability of personal relationships, anger management and self identity. I kept my cool, I did not sabotage any relationships (except for the one with the narcissist) and I kept my agenda, my dignity, my grace, my manners and my integrity intact. I was able to remember who I was and why I was doing this and managed to keep this in mind through major personal and public attacks.

This was not always the case. I self-destructed once because someone at work called me dogmatic. This was in 1989 and I went on to sabotage myself into unemployment. In hindsight, yes I was very dogmatic, and proceeded to swing wildly between homicidal rage and dramatic parasuicide. Now I can admit that yes, sometimes, like most people, I am dogmatic about certain things, but my mind is now far more malleable and I am likely to laugh at myself and not take my own dogma so seriously.

Life is far too short to take on board a narcissist’s rantings and ravings about how they know everything in a way that you could possibly not because they are brighter, smarter, sexier, more powerful, better looking and have more friends and possessions than you have and therefore you should hang your head in shame and whip yourself across your back.

I know who I am. I know that I am not always right. I know that I still feel emotionally disregulated inside, like everyone else at times, but outwardly I am in control. I know that thoughts and feelings are not facts and that I am mostly at peace when I am bushwalking or photographing my beloved ducks.

I know that life is impermanent and seven days from now this will not matter. I know that I accept who I am for what I am. I know that I will change again over the years. I know that my observing ego functions at a higher level than my Freudian id. I also know viscerally that I like myself.

And I also know that Karma is a bitch.

Pictures: http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.au/2010/09/when-worlds-collide.html#!/2010/09/when-worlds-collide.html