Consumer Interviews

*Age*

25

**Diagnosis**

I have been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. I only discovered this after doing a lot of reading and then asking my therapist if this was my diagnosis. I suspect that I already had this diagnosis at the age of 19, when I was hospitalized for depression and severe self injury. When asked, the Dr.s there only told me I had "a developmental problem" and were very uneasy about it.

Prior to the diagnosis I was definitely affected by the BPD. I was self injuring in my teens (still do now at 25), and in fact as a baby (I would hit myself on the head repeatedly when other babies pushed me or hit me). 

I had violent rages, and was increasingly vulnerable to criticism, rejection and all other negative stimuli. People were always commenting on how hard I took everything, how I should not be so upset over nothing. It tended to make people angry, because they all assumed that I was "just exaggerating". I couldn't find support, because no one understood how I could feel so bad "with no reason"; I was often told to "snap out of it" or "stop being crazy".

**Substance abuse**

no. But I do have a strong tendency to get addicted to anything I like, always had this, so I do not drink or smoke. I do however EAT a lot.

**Early symptoms**

as mentioned above. They increased progressively and now, at 25, it's the worst yet.

**Knowing something was "different"**

At about the age of 13. I kept feeling like something was missing in me, like I was "defective". My social skills were bad, and there was a growing feeling of a void inside me. 

I went to the school counselor, but as I could not yet identify what was wrong, was not really helped. At 14 I started to suffer from suicidal thoughts. It has never gone since. It's always there, like some undercurrent. My parents are emotionally crippled in many ways and they could not help or understand, they would tell me to stop being so sensitive. 

I had only 1-2 friends at a time and none of them could understand what I was going through; I also got used to hiding it and trying to please them. I would enter into a "role" when with friends and so no one really knew what was going on. I don't think I did.

**School**

Ouch. I was very nervous in the sense that I constantly tried to please people, to be funny, witty, whatever. I always failed, and my classmates never liked me. In grade school I was hated and mocked. I was taunted by my entire class from 5th to 6th grade. I don't know why, but I assume it was because something about my behavior annoyed them. I think I was very unnatural and it showed. I just could not be myself.

In junior high my parents applied for a transfer because I couldn't stand it anymore, and so I went to another branch of the school. I promised myself that this time I was going to be "myself", and be nice, be quiet, not annoying, but I failed and again, I was disliked and mocked. The same goes for high school: there was less mocking, because people were more mature, but I was ignored, despised and disliked. 

My studies went well up until 10th grade, where the stress got to me and I was beginning to experience the first symptoms of depression. 

At 16.5 I started to cut myself because I hated myself so much. I was sure that I was crazy. I somehow managed to oppress all those feelings for a while, so I kept my grades up, at the price of not being able to feel a thing or think about anything that was related to my emotions. I guess it was just the beginning of depression, so it was still manageable, it was nothing like the pain I would experience a year later.

I graduated with relatively good grades and joined the army (where I live it's obligatory, you are required to join). That's when all hell broke loose. I was in a very unforgiving surrounding emotionally, and my depression re-appeared with a vengeance. I also went back to cutting myself. I was getting suicidal: at one point I put my rifle in my mouth and pulled the trigger. I knew it wasn't loaded, so it was anything but a suicide attempt, but it's still something I would not be able to do today. 

I started collecting bullets; I didn't really think that I was going to kill myself, but knowing that I could was a relief of a kind. I was finally hospitalized in a psychiatric ward, because a test showed that I was severely anemic from the blood I kept losing, to the point where the Drs were worried about heart damage. I checked in because I could not stop injuring myself and was getting to the point where irreversible damage was around the corner.

After being released I quit the army and went to school. I got my BA degree with honors, I don't know how. I had a lot of trouble studying, because when I do I feel like I am "erased", gone, and another part of me takes over. Not a "personality", just another side of me. It feels very fake, because I stop feeling, I stop thinking, I have to, if I want to be able to study. When it's over and I have to get back to myself, I usually experience a downward spiral in my mood. So I almost never studied, I did everything on a tight deadline, and because I'm a good actress and I am so used to finding what it is people want me to be, I have been able to create the impression that I am clever, intellectual and self confident. Nothing could be further from the truth, of course.

I am getting my MA degree right now. It's increasingly hard to study, because the feeling of "erasure" intensifies. I guess everyone has to, in some sense, "erase" themselves when studying; but in my case, I never know if I'll have something to return to, because I don't feel like there is a "me" waiting for me. I have acted so many roles in my life, ever since I can remember, and although I am trying to avoid doing that, it's stronger than me. And it feels like there is no longer an actor behind the "characters" (i.e, clever student, funny girl, confident classmate, quiet scared woman, good friend, crazy person, etc). It's like an actor going off stage and finding out that he has forgotten who he was before the play. He is left only with the character he was playing, and that's fake, but there is nothing else to go back to. That's how I feel, and it makes studying and being with people very, very hard. That is my worst obstacle both socially and academically. Another is the depressions and the total lack of energy and interest. I have almost never enjoyed studying. I can't see, to take an interest in anything. I also have poor concentration because I am so preoccupied with what's going in my head.

**Work**

I am not working. I have so little energy and such a fear of people that I barely manage to study. Doing both would be impossible. I feel very guilty and lazy for this.

**Social life**

Well, the feeling of "erasure" I described in regard to studying is even stronger with people. It's like 90% of me disappear. I turn into who I think they want me to be, or into who the other person is. It's like an instinct. My opinions, preferences, likes and dislikes, personality, temperament - all change to suit the people I am with. I guess everybody changes according to who they are with, but not like THIS! It's so extreme, and I often don't even notice doing it until later. I find myself with things I bought or did that do not suit me, but are typical of the other person's liking and personality. When I'm with them, I simply convince myself that I feel and think the same way they do. I am so susceptible to suggestion, it's ridiculous.
This alone makes me feel very fake, stupid, so stupid. Combined with the fact that I get hurt so easily, it's just too much to handle. 

So I stay way from people. Every once in a while I am tempted to try again, knowing that avoidance is not the way to go. Every time I get into a relationship, I end up blowing it to pieces, because after a while I get very angry at the other person. I get angry because I "sacrifice" my own personality and needs, and of course No one can stand doing that for very long. No one asks me to; why the hell do I do that? I DO NOT know. I try so hard not to do that, but I can't. I think it has to do with the fact that I see disagreement as the end of a relationship; I am so afraid to fight over anything that I ignore my own needs in order to avoid conflict. That might be at the core of this problem. Why do I fear conflict so much? Because the pain it causes me is UNBELIEVABLE. 

I break down and suffer from attacks of serious depression because of a fight over the internet. Anyone who uses the internet knows that fights occur in many places, including support groups. Most people get used to it. I go crazy. I shake, I cry, I feel my blood pressure rising, my heart beats like crazy, my entire body heats. And then comes the depression, suffocating, dark, so painful. 

It doesn't help that I tell myself to get a grip, that this is just a little fight, that this person doesn't even know me. I cannot function. It's like an elevator falling form the 20th floor to the ground: a fast and fatal fall. So, if this is what happens over the internet, you can imagine what happens in real life. 

The last relationship I had ended badly (like all the others) and I had a horrible attack of depression, so bad I could hardly breathe. I almost immediately started considering suicide, because the agony was beyond description. I managed to survive it, but the experience was so traumatic that I cannot even think of getting close to anyone again - and this was over a year ago. This is as far as friendships go; I have never had as much as a date, let alone a romantic relationship. I feel as ready to do that as I was at the age of 11. I can't even imagine having sex. It scares the hell out of me.

**triggers and dealing with them**

the worst trigger for me is someone being angry at me. A conflict feels like a disaster. My world caves in on me. I build my sense of who I am by what people think about me, because I don't know who I am. So when someone thinks I'm a horrible person, it's not just someone's opinion, it's the truth. And then I feel like I am scum of the earth.

The other is rejection or being dismissed. Same principle. The third is rage. I go crazy. I have no doubt that I could kill someone when in one of those rages. To someone watching me it seems like I am nuts. I can really fly into a rage in a matter of seconds, over what seems like nothing. But to me it feels like the person I'm raging against is Satan himself. A monster, someone who hurts me beyond words, hates me, wants me gone. The pain is not even related to what really happened: it's like it's always there' and any spark of anger lights it all up. I once made a computer drawing of rage: it shows a person crouching in the corner of the frame and a huge, blinding flash of lighting hitting him from above. That's how I feel when I am raging: like all the electricity around me is sucked into my brain and bursts out of my mouth, my hands, my eyes, my ears, in fatal velocity. It scares the hell out of me. 

I take medication to help control it, and I try to get to the root of it in therapy. I have been violent in my teens and early 20's when I had these rages, and although today I can control it better, I truly feel that a very thin line separates me from being a killer. It's like a time bomb ticking away in my brain. I work on it constantly, because I am simply afraid.

My ways of dealing are basically avoidance, which is hardly a solution, but it's all I can do right now to survive. I stay as far way from people as I can, because I truly fear for my life (suicide) and their well being (rages). When one of these triggers is in motion, it's like an avalanche. There is no stopping it no matter how hard I try. All you can do is stay out of its path, and that goes for people around me, not for me, because I am engulfed in it completely. It's hard to escape it when it takes place in your own mind. No one can help when it happens, and no matter what I try, I can't seem to stop it, be it rage, depression, self destruction or fear. The one thing I can do, when it's rage, is to get AWAY from people before I lash out at them.

I am in therapy, trying to work on these problems, and I hope I'll beat them some day. I am also learning to remind myself, when I feel like the world has come to an end, that this will pass soon. It's pretty obvious, but not emotionally, not to me. Anyone who hasn't experience the totality of BPD emotions cannot understand.
It's very hard work. Sometimes I feel like there's no hope, but all I can do is keep trying.

**mental health professionals**

I was in a psychiatric ward for some months when I was 19. Didn't feel like anyone helped much, because it was more of an emergency treatment, almost no talks, just meds. Later on I found a therapist who is also a psychiatrist, and I have been in his care for almost 6 years now. It's very slow, but I see improvement. It didn't start working right away; I have only seen changes in the last 2-3 years. It's a painstaking work process. I don't think I have much to say about that; I haven't experienced what I hear from many people with BPD, no abandonment anxiety, no fights, no acting out. Guess I'm lucky in that sense - I don't know why these things have not happened to me. Perhaps I've had an easier life than most borderlines.

**support**

Other than therapy, my only support is on-line. I am a member of a mental health forum and have been there for 3 years, I think. Since I have no friends and my family is extremely unsupportive, this forum means a lot to me. It's clearly no substitute to real-life support, but it is a relatively safe environment for me to relax in and talk about my problems. The forum is part of a community, and I have had the privilege to write articles for them about BPD and self injury. That has helped me gain some introspective and also to get some feedback, which is very useful to me. One of the worst things about BPD, for me at least, is the sense of being different, not good enough and lonely. Finding people who feel the same way, and acknowledging the fact that they are still often very sensitive and caring, has helped me feel a little better about my sense of being an outsider.

**living with this illness**

living with BPD means, to me, being alone. It means constantly trying to hide the fact that I am emotionally immature, scared, unable to function as well as other people in my age group. It means feeling defective, wondering if I wasn't meant to be born, feeling like a mistake.
It means having mood swings, never knowing when I plan ahead if I can really go through with it, because god knows how I'll feel, who I will be.
It means always fighting to get better, while at the same time being constantly criticized by others for not trying hard enough.
It means feeling guilty for all the outbursts, the verbal abuse, the terror and the pain I have caused in my loved ones' lives.
It means feeling out of control almost all the time.
It means fearing change, needing change, wanting change, escaping change.
It means, with good therapy and meds, growing and discovering that life is nothing like you thought it was; being amazed at the new spectrum of emotions and sensations you find once you begin to heal. Being extremely annoyed by the realization of how much you've missed, and enraged by how slow recovery is.
It means searching yourself for every ounce of courage you have, because you need it to survive and get better when all you instincts are screaming "go back, don't change, you'll die inside if you do".
It means researching your illness on you own, because no one wants to tell you what is wrong with you. It means being treated like a hopeless case or an attention seeker when you need treatment for you self inflicted injuries.
It means thinking about death all the time, no matter how you feel.
It means building walls around you the size of the Great Wall of China, only to find that you have to tear them down if you want to get better.
BPD means to be misunderstood and to always be misunderstanding the world around you.