TW: suicidal thoughts mention, self harm mention, suicide attempt mention.

So last night I was having some troublesome FP-related feelings (doubting their love, feeling like a burden, etc) and suicidal ideation started. Things got worse because all my FP-fears started mixing with the suicidal thoughts and then I started feeling guilty because "if you really felt that bad you would do something about it" and "do something, now, or are you faking feeling bad?" and "come on, coward" etc, etc. So, to get my mind out of the thoughts, I went to youtube, and a video about FP and BPD appeared on my recommended section. I don't remember if it was on this video or the next one I watched, but the person on it said something about making a scale of the intensity of your emotions. I can't remember the reason they gave for it either, but making one really helped me give things some perspective. Every time I feel bad, even if I know I've felt objectively worse, I always feel like I should be taking the same kind of measures (killing myself of course), and if I feel "too far away" from actually trying, so to say, I start being really hard on myself and telling myself I must be faking feeling bad for attention or to manipulate someone or to feel special etc etc. The scale made me realize that I can feel bad for real, and not be willing to kill myself, and it's still valid. I'd still be feeling bad in real life, for valid reasons (for me at least), because I was genuinly triggered, and I'm allowed to feel this way.

I guess I just wanted to recommend you guys to use the **scale of intensity of your emotions**, **from 0 to 10**, **to give you some perspective and validate what's going on inside you**, in case that's an issue for you. 0 would be "your feelings are completely unaffected by whatever's going on" and 10 would be "you are completely emotionally engaged in this, this directly determines the worth of your life". 

In case it helps you make yours, here's mine. It works on "ranges" to define the general "state" of my mental stability, and the numbers themselves speak more of how I'm feeling on a specific moment: 

\- From 0 to 3: the range for the usual intensity of my emotions, the "stable" range. I'm guessing this is because of BPD but I'm a pretty intense person even when I'm stable. Once a friend of mine gave me a gift for my birthday and after I reacted to it she said that seeing me happy was like seeing 10 happy persons jumping around at once. That's a 3 for me. Also when I'm sad-yet-stable, I'll cry a lot and have no energy for hours, that's also a 3.

\- From 2 to 5: when I'm just a little bit "unbalanced". Even things that have nothing to do with me will engage with my emotions. I get to 5 when something that affects me directly happens. 5 is where suicidal ideation starts, too. I can bring myself to interact with people when I'm on this state, but I'll probably be very quiet and maybe a bit "pessimistic". This is also the range I operate in with my FP when I'm stable. So a good text (now that we're on lockdown) triggers a happy reaction with an intensity of 5 (literally gives weight and meaning to my life to a big ammount, what I have is *enough*, I sing and bounce and jump while doing chores, things are so fucking good and I feel all fuzzy and warm) and a dissinterested text, no text, or them ignoring one of the many-messages I sent them at once, triggers a negative reaction with an intensity of 5 (life is meaningless, nothing will ever fill this void inside of me, I have no identity nor future, dying would be a release). 

\- From 3 to 7: not doing so good. Things having nothing to do with me get my emotions engaged with an intensity of 3. Things that trigger me get me to a 7, and also, a lot more things trigger me in this state. 7 is right before self harm starts feeling like something I *have* to do. Also, usually when I'm on this "range", I'll feel like I have to avoid certain situations in order not to kill myself. Usually, I won't take the subway because I feel too strongly that I could jump to the rails. Interacting with others is very hard, I can't do it for more than a couple hours, and it brings about a lot of visible anxiety.

\- From 5 to 9: when I'm on this range, a thing my psychiatrist called "psychotic anxiety" is a constant. Basically my sense of self completely disintegrates and my emotions are the only things I can perceive about myself. A lot of paranoia and intrusive thoughts in any "number" I could be in. Life is fucking hell, even positive emotions are too much to handle because they feel like mania so something inside me knows it's not good either. My insides are poison. I couldn't possibly interact, in any way, with another human being. This is where attempts of suicide attempts (thank God I've never actually gotten to trying, this is one of the things I'm really grateful about) happen for me, between 8 and 9.

I've never gotten to 10. I think if I did, I wouldn't make it to tell the tale. So yeah. Hope this helps you! Sorry for the wall of text, I talk a lot.