What It's Like Living With BPD!

What is BPD?

BPD is also known as Borderline Personality Disorder.

“A mental disorder characterized by unstable moods, behavior, and relationships.”

For most of my life, I have been battling severe depression. It is always worse in the winter. This means that seasonal mood disorder, aka seasonal effective the disorder, has been added to my mental issues.

But it doesn’t stop there. When I was going through a divorce and a custody battle with my ex sister in law for my 3 girls I was seeing a therapist once a week, every week.

She sent me to my psychiatrist for bipolar disorder. That is when I was put on mood stabilizers right along with an antidepressant. Every now and then in the course of my life, I was hospitalized for a complete mental breakdown, with thoughts of suicide. I had bouts of insomnia that would give me high anxiety and over stressed.

In the winter, anytime I have to drive in bad weather with snow and ice on the road my whole upper body (shoulders, arms, and neck) will tense up real bad and my anxiety soar so high. I drive really slow and can’t calm down until I am out of the car again.

This is how I have lived most of my life dealing with one crisis after another. Off and on with my medication didn’t help matters. When I didn’t have insurance or money to afford my meds my life would gradually spiral out of control and I would be in crises again. For me, it seemed a never-ending battle. Psych meds are very expensive.

I mostly went to work or the store and then came home. I consider myself a homebody. I never wanted to go anywhere. I didn’t go out and party. I didn’t really have any friends other than co-workers. I didn’t even have custody of my 3 daughters from my failed marriage. The one serious relationship that I had after my divorce gave me a 4th daughter. But even that relationship fell apart when she turned a year old due to physical abuse to me. I took her and left him. I wasn’t going to put her and me through an abusive relationship. Needless to say, I am not a very social person. I am very introverted.

Then one night about 2 ½ years ago I had some family living with me and was having medication issues again. My family and I got into a severe fight. I was at another low point in my life and was spiraling out of control again.

I ended up calling the counseling Crises hotline that night. The police and ambulance were called to the house and I was taken to the emergency for evaluation.

A lady came in to talk to me. She informed me she was not going to have me committed this time. I was in a lot of emotional pain and thought she didn’t care. This is when she informed me that my records have me down as having Borderline Personality Disorder. This was news to me. I never knew this. Hell, I didn’t even know what this was.

She then told me she was putting me into outpatient DBT therapy. I asked her what that consists of. She said weekly group and weekly individual therapy for at least a year. This meant 3 hours of therapy each week.

But I did it. I was back on my meds regularly and in just a little more than a year, I completed the therapy. During this time, I learned a lot of new skills for dealing with different people, relationships, and situations.

So now I am in a much better place than before. My family moved out of my house. We sold my large 6 bedrooms 3 bath home. And I moved in with my mother and stepfather for the time being.

All my life my mother and I didn’t get along much in the same home. I have realized through my DBT therapy that it wasn’t people who made me crazy, it was my family. I came from a very dysfunctional family. But during this past year and a half that have been living with my parents, we have so far been getting along better than we used to.

Also during this time, I have gotten back into my writing. I spend a lot of time reading, researching, and writing. I am working daily to improve my life and planning and fighting to better my life and dreams.

This is not easy for me to do. But I try and I fight. All I can do is take one step at a time. Put one foot in front of the other. And I make sure I am taking my medication nightly before bed.

My advice to anyone else out there who has BPD try to get into the DBT program. It will give you the tools to help you deal with a little more positive and better life. And at least if you find yourself having a hard time there are tools that can help you get through it without going into crisis.

Wendy is very passionate about her daughters, 2 grand kids, Cali her cat, and writing.