Consumer Interviews

Age: 29

Gender: Female

Are you under care of a Doctor, Psychiatrist, Therapist, Other? Please List

Under the care of a Psychiatrist and Therapist

What is your diagnosis or diagnoses? 

Bipolar disorder with suggestion of Borderline Personality.

At what age were you diagnosed with the borderline personality disorder and/or bipolar disorder? 18

What age are you now? 29

Have you gotten better or worse?  Better 

** Very Important Question If You Could Answer Fully -> If you have gotten better, what specifically has helped you? This could be different for every person.

Medication and accepting I needed it as much as diabetics need insulin. I want to also say that several years of therapy make you more mentally healthy than people without mental illness. You just get to know yourself by talking to a perfect stranger. But, I have been in 4 mental hospitals, introduced to dozens of meds and been through years of therapy and the most important was missing-God. My relationship with him is a pivotal part of why I am doing better. 

With God, I learned I was not outcast and I was just a person with a chemical imbalance in my brain. I needed to just "suck it up" and not let it be her entire life. God's grace extends to mentally ill people too. After my family and I having to spend over 150,000 on hospitals, doctors, medications ect…the only true cure is what I found in relationship with God…it costs me nothing.

Has medication helped? 

Yes, if you have someone that knows what they are doing.

*What advice would you like to give to others who are suffering from your same illness('s)? 

Don't let people tell you this is a spiritual thing or make you feel as if you are just bringing it on yourself. Sometimes the ignorance of others can really affect someone who already has a distorted self-image. 

Use what you have to your advantage and tame the wild beasts that come with it.

Find a support group of people with common interests, for me that was not support groups that focused on BPD. 

Read the word and God's promises and you will not feel like a social outcast, as society often does to those that have an illness that no one can explain practically.

Find a good therapist, who challenges you and helps you gain insight. Therapists that make you mad are often hitting a nerve that needs to be addressed, so don't be quick to not see them because they have hurt your feelings. 

Use a psychiatrist for the chemical and therapists for the therapy. Separating these helps, psychiatrists to me tend to be more intimidating. 

Don't ever let anyone tell you that who you are is a result of a sin, a demon or just because you made your life that way. 

Accept you have a problem, soak it in and be determined to defeat it. The devil loves to pray on the weak, and that is what people with mental illness can be. Know his goal is to make you miserable and make you take your own life. 

God has something totally different planned for us. God does not expect for us to live with mental illness and fail, he is having us learn something else to glorify him. Don't be your own worst enemy, leave that up to Satan and be able to stand up to him by using God as your protector.

Have you ever felt stigmatized due to having the BPD and/or bipolar disorder? Have you ever felt you have been looked down on or put down by others because you have the BPD and/or BP? Tell us about it.

All the time, I feel as though I am stigmatized. Ignorant people run rampant all over this globe, no matter where you go. I hugely resent individuals who hinder treatment especially within the church due to their own ignorance. Trusting the Lord is not about NOT taking your medication it is about trusting him to lead you to the right people to help you with this disease. He gave us knowledge to treat this condition, not to condemn it.

A lot of stigma came over the years, especially as anti-depressants were advertised. Many people in the world feel that it is just a magic pill that helps you not deal with reality. For some people this may be true, but if it helps one feel better--who am I to judge? As long as we deal with our issues instead of expecting medication to fix everything about us, then we are a lot better off.

What do you know now that you wish you would have known long ago? 

As I have stated previously, I wish I would have known the answer wasn't all about the medication and therapy. It was about accepting myself, loving myself and having a relationship with God. 

Everything the Bible teaches about the grace of God and him dying on the cross, builds up your self-esteem in order to glorify him. It goes past that though; the Bible is filled with all kinds of reassurances about who we are in Christ and his unconditional love.

How have these disorder(s) interfered in your life? Which areas? 

They have interfered with my life mainly with relationships. It does not affect work because I think it is one way I can deal with those pressures of being escalated. I become so driven about work, wanting to succeed and be the best. Although when I am depressed my superiors cannot understand why my production level changes. They pile on the work and I can handle it for a while until I lose the spark and start complaining about the workload. 

My personal life is affected because my social activity changes constantly. I am a rapid-cycler so I can turn on you in a minute. When I am on my meds this is very mild, but when I am not I tend to upset people. I also tend to be hypersensitive and overreact more than others. I will take something huge and magnify it. I actually do see things as either all good or all bad, I can't see the gray. So if I am mad at someone everything about him or her is bad and vice versa. I look at my life that way, if one thing is wrong it is all wrong. This attitude along with the compulsive behaviors and masochism is where Borderline diagnosis came from.

* What does it feel like to have your disorder? 

Well at times it stinks. But other times I see its benefits. I am very intelligent and can learn thing very quick. My brain is like a sponge and I can do things with large amounts of information at one time. I remember details which others find impossible to do. I often have people say they wish they had a mind like mine. 

My superiors at work say I retain and do better than people with three times my experience. Many say I am a real person; this is what I like the most. I lived a real life, with real situations and I don't try to put a mask over it. I don't wear a sign that says all my problems, but I am not someone that hides things anymore. 

This disorder is difficult, especially for a practical thinker. There is no blood test; I had to take the word of 5 different psychiatric diagnoses. Anyone would think that would be enough, but it wasn't for me. 

*Have you ever felt seriously suicidal? How many times? What got you through that (those times)?

Yes, I have attempted twice and debate often. I think it is something that is instilled in me as an option. I was cleaning the house one day and saw a butcher knife on the kitchen floor. The thought of ending my life when I saw the knife crossed my mind. That really scared me and made me realize I need to focus on something else. I remember being so depressed and looking up to God to take it away. I prayed while in tears, God if you will only take this from me then I will understand this is all in my mind and I can do something about this if I set my mind to it. I remember being on my knees and in complete and total desperation. 

God did not take it away from me; no amount of prayer or connection with him took it away. I realized, at this point, he gave me what and whom I needed to combat this illness and I had to do my part. Frankly, I didn't. I did not take my medications and I was just not taking care of myself. So when you ask how I got through them, I should have never had to. I just got off my schedule of chemicals and everything in my mind, as a result, went wrong. I lost focus on God, which as a result made me lose focus on myself and what was best for me.