Borderline Personality Disorder:  Consumer Talk

I was recently diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. I spent a month denying it, ignoring the thought that i now had a label on me which would make people see my in a more  horrible light. But eventually, I accepted the truth-it wasn't hard, I've been sick for a long time. 


For three years I found solace in my wilkinson double edged razor. It was the easiest thing I have ever loved. It took away the pain, and it was there when I needed it, unlike the friends I'd had over the years. Looking back now, I see a very scared person, which I still am to a degree, although now I'm trying to stay alive. I never did before.


I try to forget, but I have so many scars that serve as a constant reminder of my own irrationality. I try to fit in now, but i still have to wear long sleeves and trousers. I still have to HIDE. 

Well I've not been officially diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, but I'm sure that if I'm not DSM level borderline I certainly possess the majority of its features. And through the many postings and websites, etc. that I have read I see myself reflected so clearly that it's quite frightening. In fact, I believe that this explains quite a lot about my entire life, the way I have always viewed myself (to greater and lesser degrees at different points in my life), the way I have let myself be taken advantage of, the reasons why my family find it so difficult to deal with me, and the list just goes on and on.


I'm not as self-destructive as many of the people whose stories I have read, at least not through cutting and repeated suicide attempts. But then again, aren't I equally self-destructive? Since I was a child, I have always been compelled to pick my scabs and let them bleed. The bigger, the better. I sort of drool (funny, I know, but that's the somatic sensation associated with this) even now as I think about it. In fact, I still rather enjoy picking a nice juicy scab (sorry, I know how gross that sounds *l*). But that's just the tip of the self-destructive iceberg. Let's get more serious. Drinking and drugs. Promiscuity. Several bad-for-me relationships. Lots of suicidal ideation. One drunken razor-slashing on the wrists (tiny scars). Recklessness in other areas of life. All done in my early 20s, something I thought was just a phase in life, but which I now see was symptomatic of something deeper.


Then there's all the abandonment. Or perceived thereof. Men and women. At 32, I have only one true, loyal friend and I'm glad to have her. Yet I do not have the network of friends and relationships that so many people seem to have. I have never had that, even though I have tried to surround myself with people. I have always felt a lack, and I still do. I wonder why it seems like people don't want to be my friend. And the people who do seem to want to be my friend, I sort of assume that they're doing it because they feel sorry for me.


I have been in and out of therapy offices off and on since I was about 20. I have never felt like it was ever doing me any good, and I quit every time. I am back in therapy now, and I'm still not convinced that it will work this time, but at least I think I'm on the right track now. One reason why maybe it didn't work in the past is because I was misdiagnosed. I've had therapists ask me if I heard voices (I am NOT psychotic!). I've had them wonder if I had bipolar disorder. Depressed (which I am). Attention deficit (hyperactivity} disorder - AD/HD. Sound familiar folks?? Oh yeah, and as for myself, I've often wondered if I had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder - OCD or even Tourette's syndrome. I live in a state of chronic anxiety. Sometimes it's not bad at all, but when life stressors occur the anxiety gets overwhelming at times. 


I've always felt a bit unbalanced in terms of my ability to cope with life stress. I know that family members have worried about me sometimes, but I hide things from them as much as possible. I just don't want to have to deal with it. I think that I am lucky in a sense because my childhood was relatively stable (at least at home). Some peoples' stories just make me cry out for their pain. And yet, I have known for a long time that I never quite felt the attachment to my mother that I should. I feel guilty for it. I love her, but I don't. In fact, sometimes I hate her guts. I don't think that she was always there for me emotionally, and I needed her to be perhaps more than the average person. 


But let's talk about the isolation and simply horrible treatment I suffered at the hands of my schoolmates! My exboyfriend thinks that I have a "chip on my shoulder" about the way I was treated as a child, and in a way I do. But he thinks that I need to just get over it. We were kids. Kids are kids. But boy were they cruel. They saw that I was different, in that intuitive way children have. They enjoyed the intense reactions they got out of me through their taunts. I never fit in. I was always the one that got the tricks played on.


And so sometimes I view my life as a series of dirty tricks. Even when good things happen to me, when they go bad as they inevitably do, it's just another dirty trick. I don't like myself. I know I should. I'm well educated and people tell me I'm funny and attractive. The life of the party. The center of attention. Except when I'm feeling down and ugly, then I isolate and withdraw. 


Well, this post is more of what my story is all about, in case there are people out there who are searching for answers just like I am. I hope it can help somebody. I know I need my own help. People tell me I need to find what makes me happy. I don't know what that is yet. Every time I think I'm finally happy, something happens to make it all disappear. But maybe, just maybe, I will be able to learn how to soothe myself, find that balance which is so lacking right now, come to achieve a state of inner peace and acceptance of myself. These are my goals in life. Easy for some people, but not for me. I still hope. I haven't yet turned into a lonely, bitter old woman although I worry that will be my fate. Yet I hope. 

Hi I am 19 years old and i have had borderline personality disorder most of my life .This past year has been the hardest I have been in 9 hospitals I missed my birthday and Christmas .nothing helps it bothers me cause i know i don't have the normal life of a teenager i have a lot of trouble dating cause i get so attached way too fast and when they leave me i just get more and more scars from cutting my arms the hardest thing is looking in my parents eyes and knowing they don't understand why i hate them one minute and cry the next for someone to love me i recently found a awesome boyfriend and this past weekend we moved in together but as much as i love him the pain is there or should i say the fear i don't eat or sleep i am so worried he is going to leave me i need help really bad and don't know who to turn to so i am asking everyone who reads this pray for me and ask god to give me the strength to make it through thanks you 

hello everyone my name is joann. i am 33 years old and work as a psychiatric nurse. i was quite adapt at dealing with bpds on an inpatient unit, and god were they difficult. always, always finding things to hurt themselves, and ultimately because of agitated behaviors would end up in restraints. it was always a long day at work when a bpd was in rare form. 

anyway, i was getting ready to get married in 2 months when weird things started to happen to me. big time depression, angry feelings that wouldn't quit, and those horrible thoughts of hurting myself to relieve anxiety. the flags were there i just chose to ignore them. take a pill, see a therapist, get married, have kids, make money and be happy. wrooooooong!!!!! 

2 weeks after i got married i was admitted to a psych unit for a suicide attempt. for the first time i saw what it was like to look out from the inside of the QUIET ROOM. there i was exactly what i hated most, angry, self mutilating, depressed, unmanageable. the docs told me i was bpd and let me tell you that did not sit well. i tried everything to prove the label wrong. only to prove them right. long stays in the hosp. no responsibilities, with a tremendous power to AVOID anything that was emotionally uncomfortable. even my poor husband whose life changed in a day. state hospitals, local ers, private hosp and even out of state hosp, nothing helped. nothing. 

i was alone. i was so alone and so very angry. lots was discovered in my times a the hosp, childhood things, the death of my mom when i was 15,relationships i had, coping skills i so very much lacked. therapist after therapist, day programs, community living, lots of MEDICINE.. 

i look back now and i say to myself what the hell happened? this of course being 9 years later. i finally found DBT (dialectical behavior therapy) and a therapist who who taught me that being bpd wasn't a defect in my makeup. there were reasons and answers to my pain. there were survival skills she taught based on Marsha Linehan's Dialectical/cognitive behavioral therapies. don't get me wrong, things were not a bed of roses, and i put her and myself through some really bad times. But, we are still moving towards mental health and a somewhat more functional life. 

i have got lots of stories, lots of battle wounds, but i am still here. i am back at work after years of disability, and when i see a patient with bpd i remember me how i was before and how i am now. 

i finally can see their pain and hear their cries. i don't of course allow the behaviors but i can now offer something more than just medicine. i can offer HOPE.

all my hopes and thoughts of encouragement

I am alone and yet not alone. There are the ones who came before and the ones yet to come. We all have the fight before us at all times. I am drawn to join those already gone, done in by their own hand. I am also drawn to those who will come. I want to tell them to fear nothing except their own black thoughts. There are some here and now. We are slowly finding each other and are reaching for the understanding that only we can give. All in this group fight the same battle and yet each fight is different. Even though we don't know why we have to fight we fight endlessly to get further down the road than we were before. Some of us live, some exist and some don't exist or live. We call and reach out for help from the humanity around us and only get hit for our troubles. The surrounding humanity makes no sense to us because they call to us to reach out for their help and then turn on us and tear us to bits. We have started to band together so that we can see each other and help each other fight our battles. Alone we fail but together we press on and start winning some of the battle. Eventually, we will make our voice be heard throughout the world just because of our number and unity. We will press on through much to get to the little. We will go through the little to get to the love. When we get to the love there will be no stopping us. We will uphold our honor and our code. We are the Borderlines of the World. 

Sometimes I can't stop crying. Everything in my life and in my mind feels like it's imploding and killing me. I cut myself so I can stop crying.

My first grade teacher was a hypocrite. If I cried, she punished me and sent me out in the hall. Then we all went to music class to sing a song called, "It's All Right to Cry." I hated that song. I hated that teacher.

Therapists ask me, "Who do you trust? Who can you cry in front of?" The answer is still, "No one." No one wants to hear me cry. No one wants to know how I feel. Some of them claim to want to know. As soon as I trust them, they flee like the wind. One even went to another continent to get away from me. Out of one side of his mouth he said, "You need to trust us and tell us how you feel." When I caught him in a tired and truthful mood, he said, "Everyone is tired of you always talking about your problems."

If I cry, people hate me. If I cut myself to stop crying, they hate me. I can't win. Lately I've been cutting the ring finger of my left hand. No one will ever put a ring on it, so I may as well decorate it with some scars.

Maybe there is hope. Maybe it'll all be okay in the end. But not tonight.

Reading all of these true stories here has given me an inkling to share my own. I'm 24 now, going on 25, and was diagnosed with BPD four years ago. All of my life I have been a shy creature...afraid to do a lot of things but wanting to so desperately. High School years were terrible for me, so I created a character that would laugh a lot and tell a lot of jokes so no one could get to the real terrified me. My College years just amplified that persona, and drew me into a terrible depression after a party gone wrong. I've been hospitalized, and treated with many anti-depressants and anxiety meds...but well, I've chosen poetry as more of a release these days. It doesn't leave me with the Euphoria that I felt on those medications. Here is a poem I wrote last year about the cycle I know I go through, and probably many of you go through too! 
"The Demon Within"

There is not a day it doesn't come
The webbing falling down
The pictures fading from my mind
Silence the only sound 

Happiness does not remain 
The walls turn crimson red
The knocking sound continues
My conscious fills with dread 

Whispers float around the room
Yet I am in the space alone
Time drifts by so slowly
My body turns to stone 

Like the mirror on the wall
An image appears ahead
Try to make my body move
But it just sinks like lead 

She shouts with bitterness and hate
Things I cannot dispel
Her voice shrieks so loudly
I fall into my hell 

I cannot run or hide from her
And so I take her in
Suffering through another night
The demon under my skin 

My night continues filled with rage
Hating every sin
I hurt, I cry, I hate myself
I guess I let her win 

I awaken in the morning time
To another bitter day
Time to act the part again
Keeping her at bay 

I wonder what I'll tell the man
Who thinks he holds my heart
I fear one day this demon
Will tear the both of us apart 

And I'll be left here in my cage
Waiting for us to reunite
Thinking about what it is I need
For me to win this fight...

...Like I said, it's a constant struggle...but I manage. Thank you all for sharing your stories; it's nice to know I'm not the only one out there!