Borderline Personality Disorder:  Consumer Talk

Borderline personality disorder has got to be one of the most readily handed out and most speculated diagnoses I’m aware of.. I was first given this label when I was 17.. I want people to know that it's NOT the end of the world.. many pshrinks label you as borderline because they think you're untreatable..you're a social failure.. you'll never get anywhere in life.. I'm in my 2nd year of university doing a double major honors program and I work full-time.. 2 years ago my doctor's would have thought there was no hope for me.. and that I would spend my adult life in failed relationships or in the hospital. I still fit the dsm criteria, I've been on dozens of medications...several hospitalizations.. the label follows you everywhere..

I read somewhere .. it was a joke type thing.. if your pshrink diagnosis you as bipolar, you're interesting; unipolar, you're boring; borderline, they hate you. and it really does feel this way. You're acting this way because you're borderline this reflects your borderline tendencies. "We can't change you, you're borderline".. well I don't want to be changed.. I might not be the epitome of normalcy.. but I am getting somewhere in life despite this black fog.. one day I will go visit my old doctors, the ones who said there was no hope, and maybe I'll teach them something.

The Master Electrician

I prefer to not consider myself "mentally ill" or one who has "borderline personality disorder" or any of the DSM labels placed after my name for insurance purposes. I prefer to consider myself, perhaps, "personality challenged" and I accept that challenge entirely. For in the word challenge comes strength to my brain, vibrancy to my soul, and hope for my life. I never have backed down from a challenge, yet I have backed down from a label or disorder.

From what I have read, discovered, and most important have FELT is that many of my problems are accompanied by sensations in my own brain. The times of confusion I have felt my brain fall backward and move. I have felt the misfiring of my own brain and related functioning. Part of my brain says, "don't do it" and the other part says "I have taken over.. back off" To explain this to any professional who has not felt this before would just add another DSM criteria to the craziness. So I explore and experience this in solitude.

I have felt and sensed each misfiring in my own mind that proceeds self-destruction, self-loathing, and self-suffering. I have felt the electrical wiring go astray deep within my own mind. Depression creates colorful dots that take me away...only visualized by me in the depths of despair. I know when the depression is lifting... it is at the points that these dots (or balloons as I called them in childhood) grow scant and eventually disappear.

In times of stress, I feel my brain pulsate. Sending message upon message to the rest of my body - to shake, to fear, to panic and to flee. A danger no longer exists around me, it exists only in my brain and I am trying hard to retrain each misfiring and to put the wires in the proper order to function as all of you seem to do. There is truth in psychosis and there are answers when the wiring connects - one wire and electrical charge at a time.

I am the master electrician then. I have found that with each awareness, each internal discovery and each option I select to change past behaviors - that the circuits in my mind are finally letting current flow.

Example... before any compulsion which I would have acted upon...I can feel the surge of power agitating the compulsion. Repeating it in my head and having in the past to fulfill the desire in order to quiet the mind and put the connection to a stop. I was not retraining my mind back then, I was simple capping off the exposed wire for a short time.

Now, today, I still get the surge of compulsion and desire to act borderline. I can still feel the warning sign of the brain waves falling backwards, getting jumbled in internal messages and the currents inside my brain still run wild. Yet.

Yet.... I stop. I view the undercurrents of these wires. I explore them...their reason, their cause, their destiny. I become aware. The threat to any fantasy is that of awareness and the threat to any brain misfiring is that of rewiring and reprogramming.

Today I can feel the currents in my brain, yet I am able to attach them to the proper exposed wire or the proper connection in the brain. Now, for example, the compulsion to act is followed by a pause. A re-examination of the compulsion, the location of the wire that is sending out dysfunctional behavior and I am able too connect it to the central part of the brain...the part of the brain that sees clearly and says "there is no need to act out, simply place your sparking wire here and the connection will come and the surge will calm and disappear.

I am the master electrician of my own self, my own life, and my own future.

If you'd like to give Meri feed back on the above article or many of her other writings found on page 2; email them to her. Meri

BEST FRIENDS

An enchanted tale from long ago
used an imaginary way to show,
though your path through life is often unknown
you have all you need to face anything alone.

The story is a magical fantasy
about a girl named Dorothy and her odyssey,
and how she longed to know what lay beyond
for her life seemed so dull and wrong.

She eventually finds her land of dreams
but isn't happy there it seems,
she felt so lost and all alone
all she wanted was to go back home.

She had to follow the road ahead
not knowing what to expect or dread,
many encounters would test her there
both joy and danger were everywhere.

She met three friends along the way
a lion, a man of tin and one of hay,
and together they did journey on
to try and find where they belonged.

A powerful Wizard is what they sought
surely it would be him they thought,
that would help them with what they need
from all their problems they would be freed.

Instead they find to their dismay
that he can't help them anyway,
but what they learned was oh so true
what must be done - you must do.

Dorothy found her way back home
without any help but all on her own,
she also discovered how much she cared
from what she tried to escape was luckily still there.

Thus this magical fantasy
gives us an idea of what we all ought to see,
that life is an adventure filled mystery
with happy endings if in yourself you believe.

So as you pursue you lifelong dreams
which all of us must do it seems,
don't count on Wizards to help you
but do what Dorothy had to do,
just take a look inside your shoes
and there you'll find who'll get you through.

All of us go through life on our own
yet all eventually find our home,
and there'll be many friends for you to know
but probably not a lion, tin man or scarecrow.

There's still a way to rely on these three
they're already yours if you look carefully,
for whatever you do in life you will see
your best friends will always be
your brain, your heart and courage.

"tunnel of madness"

it was a tunnel of madness
the darkness scorching her back
lights blinding her eyes
she hopes this isn't the tunnel of abandonment
she's created
or perhaps it was just meant to be

a lot of anger
she can taste the raw bile anger
at the tip of her mouth
a lot of anger drawn to black and white
scrapbooks
detailed, only colors eliminated from it
it was tarnished by ideals
of rationalization

they got more hope than she does
who is going to make her smile?
did you know that when she's down
she goes to the woods
and sits only on stumps
to write?
because words and paper
gave her a reason to live?

she knows you won't understand
the rushing racetrack of thoughts
just merry go rounds going in her head
all she wants to do
never to be abandoned
just to understand a few things
like why the dice on the floor is blank
but the one she holds in her hand says four

to understand simplicity
without all the medical jargon,
psychology labeling
in a tunnel of madness that closes down on her

the next time she sits on that stump
ignoring the tunnel of madness
read what she writes
she only wants to be loved
and love what she has

I just confessed to my therapist a few months ago that I think I have borderline personality disorder. Her only comment was, "I've suspected that myself for quite a while." But it's nice to know she doesn't believe in labels, just looking for solutions.

I'm a very angry person, sometimes, I wouldn't be surprised if rage has shortened my life span. I love to write poetry and short stories - it's the best thing that brings me back, even when things are black and white, I can still write- a lot of rage ceases. I always worry about abandonment. It's a constant issue with me with everyone I encounter with. I always think in a few days that person will find a reason not like me. I always know I won't be loved because I can never accept myself. My thoughts are always in constant chaos, I never can find a moment when I can sit down and take a deep breathe and just relax and say to myself that everything will be ok.

I'm 23 years old now. I started cutting back when I was about 15 years old. I look back in the pictures and I just see this messed up kid trying to struggle in her own way she knew how. I stopped right before I became 21 years old. I got into this awful fight with somebody and I knew I was going to be alone forever, which I couldn't accept. I called my dad at two in the morning to tell him there was no point in life. He kept telling me to go to bed and everything would look more cheery in the morning. I was so mad at him, I hung up. My friends found me and put me into bed, it was rather unfortunate that I had been drinking because I took a razor blade and decided to cut myself so I wouldn't feel any more pain.

Two hours later, I was in the hospital in a daze getting 11 stitches on my left wrist. I explain to the nurses and doctors it was just simply self- mutilation, not a suicidal act. For some reason, they believed me. I was only trying to punish myself- quite severely. I still have a scar. When it's the beginning of the year, I always celebrate by myself congratulating that I have made it through another year.

I used to be really nervous. Seriously, I stayed inside during my sophomore, junior, and senior years in the summertime. My dad had to drag me out. My daily limit was getting the mail and it was time to go back inside. How I get around to places these days amaze me.

I was also bulimic. During my senior year of high school, I decided cutting myself on my arms wasn't just enough and I was getting to feel fat. So, I started throwing up. Unfortunately, right in the beginning of the fall, I was cutting myself up to two times a day plus barfing. I was quite a nervous wreck. I ended up in the hospital and was quite cranky because I didn't want to be helped. I stopped throwing up two weeks before my high school graduation when my boyfriend broke up with me. I just stopped that day.... I just told myself- it wasn't worth it.

I planned to end my life the week after I graduate high school. What kept me going on.... I do not know. I like to think, there was a small fraction inside me knowing I owed myself something better despite all the madness around me.

I still go through a lot. Sometimes I get angry and still want to retreat to my little world. But then, as I'm majoring in Psychology, I want to help others with what I've been through. Sometimes, I just want it all to end. The daily battles of what's right and wrong.... sometimes, it's emotionally draining to be in therapy. It's just physically and mentally draining to just sit for a few minutes and rationalize things.

I'm with someone right now. It's hard..... sometimes I want to blow up and yell when we fight. Sometimes I'm tempted to go back to cutting or even drugs. But I've got a lot going on right now... it's nice to know I'm not alone.... that is, when I'm feeling fine.