Borderline Personality Hell

For 21 years I’ve struggled to express my emotion in a calm and collected way, I began writing my thoughts down and sending them to my family and friends so for once they could understand a little into what’s going on in my head. For those who live with bpd this isn’t a story on how I turned my life around and become in control, so if you’re needing an inspiring story or some reassurance this is not for you. This is to express the pain, anger and confusion people with bpd feel every single day with every choice they make, from choosing what to wear to making plans with a friend, decision making is hard and not as easygoing as we once thought.

I was diagnosed at 18, by this point I had 6 suicide attempts, a full arm of scars, 3 broken relationships and had stabbed my boyfriend at the time. They then explained what bpd is and how it effects me, I couldn’t get my head around it as this is how I think and how I process things normally and it’s hard to realise that I’ve been doing it wrong my whole life. Bpd usually comes from a childhood trauma and once I heard that I kept overthinking my childhood thinking had anything horrific happened to me and was I mistreated as a child but the most important thing to realise is that everyone sees trauma differently, I asked my friend what was the most traumatic thing you’ve experienced and she said with no hesitation “when I had a period stain on my pants at my 17th bday” my response was obviously “are you bloody kidding me?” (Pun intended) and she had this sad look as if it really effected her and I couldn’t understand why until I thought everyone perspective is different and everyone has their own views on events. For example I stabbed my boyfriend, we make jokes and laugh about it but for some they are horrified.

This leads me to part 2, the emotions. This is by far the worst part for me, they say people with bpd have a constant fear of being abandoned which is why someone doing something as small as cancelling plans can put me into a psychic and angry mood. Yet I don’t feel abandoned, a part of my brain is just freaking the hell out that they don’t like me or they don’t want to see me while im screaming at the tv or chain smoking to control the anger. I feel everyone wants to me liked, it’s how we are build to make relationships, to have someone think you’re special which is hard when that’s not how I react. The second worst emotion is the depression, and I don’t just mean I’m sad and I’m gonna cry, I mean not going to work in 3 weeks, barley eating or binge eating, sleeping for hours and hours and still being tired, staring at a wall for 3 hours and seeing nothing, feeling this emptiness like you’re grieving, not paying your bills and what’s worse not actually caring that you’re collecting debt, constantly making plans than cancelling them as soon as their close and unfortunately self harm so you can feel something anything even if it’s pain.

Then once you’re out of your depressed mood, out of no where you’re on a high again, a manic mood where you’re happy, laughing, seeing all your friends, making plans and keeping them as if you weren’t half dead on the couch 2 days prior.

When I try to explain to my Mum why I reacted the way I did, I feel I need to over exaplain it so she understands yet she never does. She’ll say things like “how can you just not care?” And I’d just shrug my shoulders, like why care? It’s not important and I can see her looking confused and try to question it more but no amount of explaining will help her understand why I think the way I do and why I make the choices I do because to her, I sound crazy.

With the treatment there are many ways to help bpd, unfortunately it’s not going to cure it but it will make a massive difference. The main one I recommend is DBT, I haven’t started it yet but I have many friends who have noticed a massive change in themselves from doing it. Medication is good but it’s in no way going to help the bpd. I personally am on antidepressants & antipsychotics which help with the depression, anxiety and anger moods. But that doesn’t fix everything.

If you have bpd or you know someone who does, please don’t think of them as bad people or uncaring. People with bpd can have the biggest hearts they just don’t think the way you do and don’t know how to express things in a healthy manner.