What's Beneath The Surface?

Most have heard someone in their life use the phrase "Woke up on the wrong side of the bed," right? Well in this instance it can be difficult to know which side you woke up on at all. Although as you go through the day things may seem fine, you feel angry, anxious, or even just empty. Living with Borderline Personality Disorder is like taking depression, anxiety, and a healthy mental state and rolling them all into one. That may not make the most sense considering if you have depression and/or anxiety clearly you do not have a healthy mental state, right? Well, that is a good way of explaining BPD. One moment you feel normal, like you could actually live a life without struggling to get out of bed or being able to hold a job, but then all of a sudden it feels like the weight of the world is crushing you. You feel like you can never get your head above water because nothing you do is good enough and eventually everyone leaves, right? NO! This is that imbalance causing those feelings.

One of the main factors when looking at what could cause someone to develop BPD is early childhood trauma. No, that does not mean someone with BPD went through a traumatic childhood; this just happens to be the most common factor. Unfortunately this trauma could be as simple as moving a lot in early childhood which could simply be due to the parents careers and does not mean a bad childhood. In adult life someone with BPD tends to struggle with random mood swings and are commonly misdiagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. The difference in mood swings however, is that someone with Bipolar Disorder will have a manic episode that will last for weeks, whereas someone with BPD can go into a manic episode suddenly and be fine after an hour or two. This can be caused because of triggers that cause an involuntary emotional response even if the person does not know what those triggers are and/or does not recall the trauma attached to the trigger. Unfortunately people with BPD struggle to have relationships with family, friends, or even a partner in life.

Even those who know they struggle with BPD struggle to cope with the effects. As much as anyone may wish there was a magic way to know when someone is dealing with any sort of imbalance, let alone BPD, there is not. Being on the outside requires a lot of patience, the ability to listen, and the willingness to try to understand why the person is reacting in whatever way they are. If more people cared enough to do research and learn about these different difficulties, maybe society would have a better chance of understanding one another. Unfortunately many are only worried about themselves or just lack the drive to care enough.

People have a tendency to run at the first sign of difficulty instead of learning about the person and why they might be the way they are. If someone in your life needs you, do not run. We need the people we care about to stick around, We fear abandonment and everyone always leaves. BPD looks a lot like anxiety and depression. Your best friend could be struggling and afraid to tell you, or they may not even know they have it. Just make a difference and be the person that sticks around and pushes through their walls, because I promise you, they have built some thick ones. They want the people in their life to climb over those walls and be there the way they will be there for those people.