Boderline Personality Disorder (BPD)

My BPD Story....

This past July, I encountered a situation where I did something TOTALLY out of character.  A friend of mine began dating a guy.  Prior to this, my friend and I were pretty much inseparable.  We spoke on the phone several times a day, messaged one another incessantly, visited often and texting was pretty much an every day event too.  As she began to date, I felt her pull away from me....and I literally lost my mind.  I made EVERY attempt at making SURE she didn't "leave me".  You may be reading this, and thinking like most---that I was crazy, but THIS is the life INSIDE of someone living with BPD. You see, people living with BPD often make frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.  Whether it was real or imagined, I felt as though she wasn't paying attention to me  anymore.  She wasn't calling as often, not texting much, and my frequent visits were now in question because there was someone ELSE in here life that also needed to visit.  I was consumed with fear and anger, yet again another symptom of living with BPD, inappropriate, intense anger...and I did some things to hurt her, before she could hurt me.  I packed every single item that I had stored at her home, and I took it with me.  You see, people with BPD live in black or white....there is no grey in our worlds.  Either she was gonna be my friend...or she wasn't---there was NO in between, in MY mind....she couldn't be my friend AND have a happy life of her own. 

So I left- heartbroken that she hadn't chosen ME over her own happiness, and she was left wondering WTF was going on in my "crazy ass" head. What neither of us realized at the time, was that I was suffering from BPD...and all of the BPD "catch phrases" were evident in that situation.  I repeatedly asked her not to leave me, not to give up on me, I panicked and ran outside after her barefoot when all she wanted to do was take a walk to clear her head.....in MY mind, she was leaving me. People with BPD tend to do ANYTHING, just so you won't leave them.

She was noticeably more distant after that incident, and I once again panicked.  I immediately recognized an increase in impulsive behavior on my part, but emotionally, I shut down. I kept it all in. I fell into a depression. I didn't eat. Panic attacks were increasing. I fainted from dehydration. Hospital visits were frequent...this was NO way to live. I immediately began to seek answers as to WHY I was behaving so erratically.  I had been seeing a therapist for some time, regarding childhood stuff that I've been trying to overcome in my adult life...but this situation was SERIOUS.  I didn't even know who I was...and I didn't like it.

I was met with opposition.  It seemed as if NO psychiatrist in the entire Washington DC area were accepting new clients...the BEST psychiatrists had waiting lists and weren't scheduling appointments until 3 months away.  But God dropped a gem into my lap...and she opened up a whole new world for me as I was properly diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder.  This probably should have been the point at which I shared my diagnosis with my friend.  I was too ashamed.  The stigma behind people with mental illnesses are vast, and I didn't want to be offically labelled as "crazy"...she had in fact called me that several times, and I didn't want her to think that she was right.  So I hid my diagnosis, and suffered in silence, hoping that I could get meds and therapy, and make it all better (or make it go away) before she caught on.  Truth is, there is no cure for BPD...no magic pill...and it's something I'm stuck with for the rest of my life.  Many people actually go on to live healthy lives with proper medication management and therapy.  I personally do psychotherapy in addition to DBT (individual & group) and just added a life coach!

At some point, I'll reveal my ENTIRE formal support team...all my doctors, hospital inpatient care facilities, etc....but today is about BPD education.

What is BPD??  I'm glad you asked!! (info from Mayo Clinic)

Borderline personality disorder affects how you feel about yourself, how you relate to others and how you behave.
Signs and symptoms of borderline personality disorder may include:

• Impulsive and risky behavior, such as risky driving, promiscuity , gambling sprees, compulsive spending or illegal drug use
• Awareness of destructive behavior, including self-injury, but sometimes feeling unable to change it
• Wide mood swings
• Short but intense episodes of anxiety or depression
• Inappropriate anger and antagonistic behavior, sometimes escalating into physical fights
• Difficulty controlling emotions or impulses
• Suicidal behavior
• Feeling misunderstood, neglected, alone, empty or hopeless
• Fear of being alone
• Feelings of self-hate and self-loathing

When you have borderline personality disorder, you often have an insecure sense of who you are. Your self-image, self-identity or sense of self often rapidly changes. You may view yourself as evil or bad, and sometimes you may feel as if you don't exist at all. An unstable self-image often leads to frequent changes in jobs, friendships, goals and values.
Your relationships are usually in turmoil. You may idealize someone one moment and then abruptly and dramatically shift to fury and hate over perceived slights or even minor misunderstandings. This is because people with borderline personality disorder often have difficulty accepting gray areas — things seem to be either black or white.

In my next blog, I'll fast forward to what happened two months AFTER my diagnosis...how I hit rock bottom, how my worst fears were realized,  how I lost just about everything that mattered to me...and how I hated BPD for ruining my life---THIS made me fight even harder to beat this thing, and take control back over my life!

Lastly, I'll leave you with this video that I feel NAILS what it feels like living with BPD.  I couldn't have made a better video....it explains EVERYTHING I've felt over the past few years of my life.  If you're living with BPD....you are NOT alone!