I signed up for the holiday to Northern Cyprus. My initial reaction was that this was going to be a much-needed, fabulous two-week getaway. There would be sunshine, laughter, swimming, lots of eating and being surrounded by people who I hold very dear, my “London family”.
About two months before we were due to leave, the first wave of panic set in. I’m overweight, I look like crap in everything I wear. How can I even dream of wearing a swimsuit in front of all those people I know? It’s not like when you go on holiday on your own or with your partner. You may meet people and chat with other people but let’s face it, you’ll probably never see them again. These are people who I spend a lot of time with socially and are a massive part of my life.
Then, the second wave of panic. My scars from self-harming. When I start to get a sun tan, they start glowing bright white. Literally they glow like beacons on my arms and legs and the ones on my back are just horrific. I researched all these different oils and creams that were supposedly helpful in covering up scars, stretch marks and other things. They had either had bad reviews or were ridiculously expensive. A level of fear and paranoia set in like I hadn’t felt for quite a while. Was this a rational reaction or was this a BPD reaction? To be honest, it didn’t matter because I was scared and I couldn’t process the emotion. I ate. I self-harmed and then came the guilt that I had eaten and cut myself. It’s a vicious cycle.
Then came the packing. What do I take? What do I wear? I have to look presentable in the evenings as we would be going out for dinner. I don’t have dresses. I don’t have girly shoes. I bought some plain, floaty tops but when I put them on with the cropped trousers that I had bought, they just looked dreadful. I left it a couple of days and tried them on again in the hope that I was just having a “fat” day but no joy. So, the tops went back. That left me with tents for t-shirts, cropped trousers and shorts that are two sizes too big and just the hope that I could make them look reasonable. Then there are the hair products. When I used to travel with my ex-Husband or on my own, I would pretty much just take a hair brush and some hair bands. Not for this holiday. These are all glamorous ladies. Without question, the hair straighteners were getting packed. Even worse, I would have to take make-up.
I’m doing the packing with BPD and Bipolar. I’m not doing it with OCD. Now I’m not talking about the people who just say they’re OCD because they like to have the tins in the cupboard all facing forward. I am talking about the people with OCD who pack and unpack sixteen times before they are satisfied. The people with OCD who have to get in and out of a shower a dozen times before they even feel comfortable enough to take a shower. I was trying to distract myself from my own issues with packing by thinking of how much worse it would be if I suffered with OCD too.
The day of travel arrived. The flight was early morning so there wasn’t any point going to bed beforehand. Already, I know it’s going to be a challenge because I need to sleep. The medication I take in the evening has a sedative effect so that had to be avoided so I didn’t fall asleep and miss the flight. I now have to prepare myself for a very long day and probably without most of my medication and keep my emotions in check as much as possible.
I have a good distraction first thing in that I’m driving to the airport. Thankfully not on my own. I had two of the children in the car with me, albeit they are 19 and 21. Whenever I’m responsible for somebody else in the car, I never drive recklessly. One thing that I am absolutely sure of without question is that I am NEVER a danger to anyone else, only to myself. This is one of the questions that you get asked a lot by the Home Treatment Team and by a counsellor and given the treatments that I’ve been through, it is one of the absolutes in my life.
We all made it to the airport with minimal stress. We all met at check-in. Everyone was in very high spirits given that it was 6am on a Sunday. I even joined in the frivolities, laughing and joking even though I was surrounded by so many strangers at check-in. I was surrounded by my London family and felt safe.
We separated off as some were travelling Club Class and the rest, like me, were travelling cattle class. This is normally the point at which a panic attack could potentially start. Thankfully I was responsible for Jack and Jill’s three children, making sure they got through passport control, security and on to the boarding gate. They might all technically be adults but we’re not sure there’s one ounce of common sense between them! This was the perfect distraction. I was responsible again for somebody else and I couldn’t lose them! I got them through security and we were into the duty-free waiting area. They couldn’t get lost in amongst all that so I just had to keep an eye on what time we were boarding and they went off to get food and do some shopping. We all naturally migrated back to one of the screens and as much as I thought it would be like herding cats, I got them to the boarding gate and onto the plane without any trouble. My work here was done.
We were all in different seats and I had a window seat so dutifully tucked myself into the corner and was asleep before we took off. This is something I have always done on flights much to the annoyance of Dave when we travelled and to my Mum when we flew to New York many years ago and I was out for the count before we even taxied to the runway! That day I was so grateful that I could sleep on an aeroplane because sat next to me were a young family with a five month old baby on his first flight. This could be tricky. However, I think the baby slept more than I did! What an absolute result. I get sat next to the world’s first perfectly behaved baby on a flight. Someone, somewhere must have known I needed a little bit of good luck to get through a 5 hour flight.
By the time we landed and collected our bags, I still hadn’t had any medication and was starting to feel tetchy and on edge. I knew that this time would come and had to employ my mindfulness techniques of deep breathing (whilst waiting for my suitcase and also whilst queuing at passport control). The only time I let it slip out was when the entire party was together again and we were looking for our transfer taxis. With so many of us, we were all getting into different taxis and had to make sure everybody had a car. We had all pre-booked transfers before we left the UK but this bit was like herding cats. Now don’t get me wrong at this point, it had been around 8 hours or so since I’d had a cigarette. I was tired and nicotine deprived. This wasn’t going to be good. There were other smokers on this trip too and one of them decided that he was having a cigarette no matter what and he just wondered off. We were trying to keep everyone together and he just disappeared. I snapped. When he finally returned to the group, I called him a dick head and said that we would have plenty of time to have a cigarette whilst we were sorting out who was going into which transfer taxi. I was right. I had ample time to have a cigarette and employ yet more breathing techniques. I was incredibly grateful for my mindfulness training at the point.
After we had our transfers sorted, the actual drive to the hotel was stress free. We arrived and checked into our rooms. After a little re-arranging of who was staying where, I got to dump my bags and join the others at the bar for something to eat and drink. I knew more than anything, I needed to have my medication. My body clock for taking my medication was way out of tune and I could already feel the effects of not having the Venlafaxine in my system. It was now around 7pm local time so I had gone 24 hours without my medication. I could finally relax with the London family which I did. I lasted another couple of hours and knew that sleep was essential for me to recover to enjoy the holiday.
Now it was time to enjoy the upcoming two weeks of sunshine, laughter and good times. How hard could it be?
Living The BPD Life 