Borderline Personality Disorder:  Consumer Talk

Hi I am 15 years old and I have bpd. My father sexually, physically, and mentally abused me, then left I haven't heard from him in a year. That had a lot to do with the birth of my disorder. When I was finally told a name for the horrible things I was doing I felt a small light flicker in what had been a very dark soul for years. When I was told there was another girl with the disorder in my town (pop. 1129) I didn't feel alone. When I was told there was therapy I had hope for the first time since the darkness. Now when I look in the mirror I have living proof that I overcame a painful, even deadly disorder. Though it creeps in the darkness of my soul I will not let it effect me or overtake me again. Even though bpd took about 2 years of my life it made me a stronger person and made me know what I want to pursue as a career. I would like to let everyone know that they are not alone and there is hope, help, and happiness.

I send all of you fighting bpd my love and strength.

I'm 21 and I'm bad. I have BPD and I thought at one time that putting a name to what was wrong with me would make me feel at least a little bit relieved. As usual, I was wrong. I still feel bad. I feel like I'm evil. An evil thing created by some external force that has nothing better to do than rape little girls until they feel this. I believe in God, but, I also believe he has forsaken me most of my entire life.

Where was he when I was being raped at 4? And where was he again when I was raped again at 18? I must be the worst little girl to have ever been brought forth into being to have to be punished twice. I tried cutting myself to end it all. But I was too weak to go through with actually slashing my veins. Instead I carry scars on my arms and hands as proof that I am bad.

I started at 18 and stopped 4 months later after my best friend threatened to call psych on me. I recently started playing with blades again and because I am weak I made appointments with counselors. I wish I could die.

My boyfriend tried to rape me a few times when he was drunk. I just keep thinking that if I die that can never happen again. People say it's not my fault. I shouldn't have been drinking that night and I shouldn't have ever gone into his room. Sure he said he was going to get a bandage for my finger, but I should've known better. It is my fault I was raped. Both times. I can't explain how it was my fault the first time. It just was.

I hate myself. I was also beaten. My mother was as cold to me as a sterile hospital room. She never loved me because I am a bad person. Please kill me.

I was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder 3 years ago, but the more I read on BPD, the more I think I may have the condition. Perhaps it's a combination of the two, I don't know, but the BPD symptoms I read about are exactly what I have experienced for what seems like most of my life. 
I've been on Xanax for 6 years, I was prescribed them after having "panic attacks." They have helped immensely with the anxiety, and I've never had any negative side effects. I occasionally take Trazodone for insomnia, and have been on Vicodin for the past 2 years for severe PMS pain. I've tried some anti-depressants in the past, but none have worked on my depression. I have read that Prozac is effective in treating BPD, but have never tried it.

I'm 39, a social worker for the past 10 years, and have no problems with my job or helping others with their problems, but I can't seem to help myself. I'm recently remarried, my first marriage lasted 15 years, but it was not a very happy marriage. My current husband was diagnosed with Manic-Depression a month before we married. He earned his law degree last year, but cannot work yet due to his disorder. He's in treatment, but it takes time to get the right drug therapy combination. Our marriage has been rocky, to say the least. His condition is not easy to live with, but I know I'm not easy to live with, either. I have always had this terrible fear of abandonment, one of the BPD symptoms, and yet I do things to sabotage my marriage. I filed for divorce just 4 months after we were married, then dismissed it a month later. I don't want to lose my husband, yet it seems I'm always looking for a way to get out on my own. Always looking for security, just in case he leaves me, always fearing rejection. I guess I want to reject before it happens to me. I have no family support system, can't seem to sustain any meaningful friendships, feel overwhelmed all the time, I can't handle money at all, spend impulsively, and verbally lash out at those I'm close to when I'm stressed out. 

I believe I have this BPD, and just want to learn more about it so that maybe I can get some help and experience some happiness in my life and be able to make those around me happy, too. It's just getting harder to go on like this.

I'm in another world. I am 12,000 kms away from all that I know and love. I left behind my family, my home, my own children, just to escape, to run away, to get away from "it"....and "IT" came with me.

I am not alone, and I have found someone who will not leave me. Or will he? I am 29 years old and for as long as I can remember I have been alone, even when surrounded by people.

But wait, there can't possibly be anything wrong with me. I am intelligent and beautiful, I am outgoing and cheerful, the center of attention, the life of the party....and when it is all over...the sense of ever impending doom sets in. I am alone....again.

So I went to the other side of the world and fell in love with this fairy tale land full of castles and golden plains. Centuries of history before my eyes....and the sea, the powerful, invincible sea....all I wanted to do was live here. I knew that here things would be different. The evil was there, not here....So here I am. With a wonderful "sane", "whole" person, who loves me. When I am with him, in his arms, or in his world, surrounded by his things, I feel no fear, but when I am alone....oh when I am alone......I seek him out in others and I hurt myself and him in doing so. He believes me when I tell him that I love him, that I'm sorry, that I don't want to hurt him....and he forgives me, and he stays....but he doesn't understand that I couldn't get away from "it", that "it" is inside me and I brought "it" with me. 

How long will he stay? How long before I am alone again? 

I long to go where all the souls are....where I will never be alone...anymore. Where "it" will live not.

PS. I am alone in Spain now, I have no friends, and I am no longer in treatment...therapy or medication. I only have my love, and we both know that I am in constant fear of losing him...and ironically, doing
things to make it happen. 

I am 20 years old, and I have BPD. About two months ago I tried to commit suicide. I was put in a hospital for a week and watched over like a hawk. I did a lot of thinking while I was there, and I was told that I had BPD. All along I just thought that I had panic attacks, but things just weren't making sense. I had a boyfriend at this time that I loved very much. I took all my anger out on him, and hit him a few times when we got into arguments, luckily he never hit me back. One minute I was happy with him and laughing then the next I was yelling at him. When we got into arguments I said some nasty stuff to him and I told him that I was going to leave. I then turned around and told him that I loved him and that I didn't want to lose him. This confused him a lot and he didn't know what was going on. I am still with him today and I am now seeing a therapist. Going to counseling is helping me, but I still fight with my boyfriend. We are suppose to be moving together next month, but I am not sure if he is still going to take me with him. I hate myself for what I have put him through, and I just wish that this would all go away so I can start my life with him. I am taking things one day at a time, and learning how to control BPD, instead of it controlling me.

I have been diagnosed with bpd since age 15 and am now 23. Life has been one living hell. However since entering a new therapy program called DBT life is getting better. I am not saying it's not a daily battle, but I found the right therapy program for me. I am also helping to set up a dialectical behavior therapy residential home in my area. I think eventually I will want to work there so I may help others who are going through some similar issues I have been through. Well I gotta close off for now.

sometimes the pain comes so bad i don't know what to do... i try to get my mind off it. That's why i hurt myself. The pain's so bad on the inside, i just have to hurt on the outside. i've cut myself, burnt myself, i've beaten my wrists on walls and doors and rocks and chairs just to get the pain out, bring it to the surface... i've been in and out of hospitals for the last five months, but i've been sick like this for years. Shit, i been sick for my whole damned life. i'm obsessed with blood. i love to cut myself and watch it run down in a stream off my arms and my legs. i am elizabeth bathory reborn, but this life it's my own blood i'm obsessed with. i could bathe in my blood. i'll watch it run down and pool at my feet, i'll spread it all over my face and lick it off of my fingers. i am a vampire. but i feed off of myself. maybe that's why i'm so f*cked up.

After a conversation with a Professional Psychologist & some web research; I have found that a person very dear to me is enveloped in BPD. Reading through this Message Board & several Medical Journal Articles has reminded me of a poem I had written early in our relationship . At the time (until this week I was unaware of the symptoms of BPD) of the writing it was simply my observations of her & her world as she darted about her room drifting from kissing me/to screaming at her wild mutt/ to getting ready for work(&Yes we were strung out as well & yes her hands are often chewed to bits). Little did I expect to be cast into this situation or grow to love her. The pinnacle has occurred in our relationship as I am moving away due to a career transfer (abruptly no less). I have seen her list in life like a buoy in rough seas. At 24 she has the pieces of something wonderful. I believe that SHE WILL someday pull them together & find herself one & whole. Here are the words from a summer ago...(she has the original hanging below her mirror in her bathroom) I wish you all the best & BE WELL!

A Girl & Her Dog

With Scratched Fingers
Sanctity's Lost
In a camisole
Of Shadow
Her Circumstance

We Sit
We Sit Well
Will You Dance?
You Ask!
Why Don't You Dance!
You Yell?

Alone
Behind Bars
Caged

CRYING ALONE

"kp"

"The Secret"

Like a giant shadow looming over me
it watches every move I make.
No word goes unheard, no action unnoticed.
It's a jail keeper.
It shuts my mouth like an iron door
and swings the key in front of my face,
laughs hysterically when I try to reach the key to my freedom.
It teases and taunts me to tell,
but I can't, no one understands.
It makes me so angry at times
that I want to scream, to kick something,
but that would only cause trouble.
At times it tortures my soul so much
I think that there can be no peace.
It's the part of me I can't forget,
it's on my mind all day long.

I wrote this about my borderline self. I get so frustrated. Every move another person makes is noticed and reacted to by this monster. I can't do anything to get out. There is no escape. Maybe someday it will die, I hope so, but that day seems so far away...I don't know if I can make it. I don't want to let this monster beat me, but I can't hold out much longer. This is my world.

Tonight feels a lot like so many others in my short life. Full of a nameless despair that grows inside of me more and more each day. I just feel like weeping. I have pushed the only person who ever truly loved me away. I have finally broken my boyfriend's spirit, and have finally found the courage and the guilt to walk away and leave him to find someone who truly deserves him. He is a sweet and perfect person, and all I have done is make him hurt. But it didn't begin with him. As long as I can remember, my Dad has told me that I was "happy being miserable". Every male in my life, my teachers, (at least a couple of them), my family members, my doctors, strangers, boyfriends, all of them have done unspeakable things to me, physically and emotionally. I have always felt an inner destructiveness that has often turned quickly into rage, ruining the good parts that could have developed in my life for fear that I don't deserve anything good. I started on anti-depressants last year when I was misdiagnosed with Social Anxiety Disorder> What a joke!!!! I was always the center of attention, and I sought that attention so I could feel loved. As early as age 12 I cut myself so that I could show people the pain I lived with inside myself. I didn't know how else to silence the destructiveness in my heart. Then 3 weeks ago, my boyfriend finally fought against my destructive rages and broke up with me. The guilt that I felt in seeing him in so much pain was too much to bear. I took 50+ Gravol and waited to die. My boyfriend called, saying he had reconsidered, but it was too late. I ended up in the hospital psych ward for 2 1/2 weeks, diagnosed (finally) with BPD. The worst part is, I don't feel any better. I hope that you out there can see beyond the pain you have lived with everyday and can realize that-like I know-it takes a while to heal your soul, but that when you're at the bottom, there is no place to look but up.

Take care of yourself. I'm out there thinking of you, please think of me those nights when you can hope beyond despair. You're never alone.

The Jackal

I bought a beautiful knife off the internet. It's called "The Jackal". She's over a foot long, leather sheath, and it's signed by the artist who created it. But I don't care about any of that. I bought it for the blade. For months I pictured that knife plopping through my skin, flushing red from the effort. I sleep with it under my pillow, my arm twisting so that I can grip the handle. I may wake up in the middle of the night and decide to do it.

I never wanted to damage my knife. Not so much damage it, but take its virginity. The smell of leather and steel. So I put it off as long as possible. I became accustomed to the lump in my pillow. But finally it became too much and I had to punish myself. My mother never wanted me; she gave us up in lieu of paying her debts from the divorce. So I got out the Jackal. I was tingling as I unsnapped the carrier. Unsheathing the knife sounded and smelled like delicious torture. I examined the blade, and then brought it across my wrist. Just a scratch at first, to get a feel for it.

When the scratches got to the point when blood was being drawn, I felt exhilarated. Like all the bad and evil inside me was bleeding out. So I started sawing away at my wrist. Well, not exactly sawing. I had to cut from left to right, *not* right to left. I don't know why. I think it was just easier that way, maybe it seemed more methodical at the time.

Looking back, it's difficult to recall what was going through my mind once I really got into it. I do remember thinking that I couldn't stop until the bad was gone, but at the same time wanting to be rid of any small part of me that was good. Before I started I was shaking and crying, but after that first good cut, I started to smile. I kept repeating a phrase out loud, something like, "Just one more. Just a little more." I don't really remember; it's kinda blurry. I do know exactly *what* I was doing, though. I was sitting on the edge of my bed, a beer on the nightstand (vodka under the bed). I hate to be drunk when I cut, but I wasn't planning my evening very well. I remember licking the blood off my arm and the knife. And reveling in the pain as the hydrogen peroxide bubbled. I don't know what's better; the actual cutting, or the weeks that it takes to heal.

As I sit here and type this, I feel the urge to pull out the Jackal again. I was a bitch today, my father yelled at me, my friends won't call me back, maybe I do deserve a little punishment. Why can't I stop this? My mind is empty except for the picture of my wrist bleeding freely. Every time I look at my scar I just want to open it again. When is this going to go away?