Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) – A condition I was diagnosed with at the age of seventeen… almost twenty years ago.
How did I feel about this back then?
‘How dare she tell me I’m crazy!!’
‘I’m NOT fucking crazy!! Am I…?’
‘What the fuck does she know’
‘Dumb fucking bitch- I need to get the fuck out of here’
Fast forward to a few weeks shy of my thirty fifth birthday with three failed marriages under my belt, two religious conversions, countess toxic decisions and coming damn close to loosing the love of my life. I stop and find myself thinking ‘what the fuck is wrong with me?’
Over the years I’ve seen multiple doctors who have given me multiple diagnosis including depression, anxiety and bipolar and lets not forget the multitudes of medications i was put on from anti- depressants, to anti- psychotics and whatever is in between. I found some temporary relief from some of these drugs however like I said it was always TEMPORARY. I hated my life, and everything about myself, which resulted in several occasions of self-harm, and daily thoughts of suicide. I was barely existing.
A memory that I had long ago suppressed began to float to mind. What if that psychiatrist was right? What if I actually did have BPD? Did that mean that I really was crazy?
So I did what I do best… I researched the fuck out of it.
Like every disorder there is a list of symptoms that are used for diagnosis purposes, here are some that I came accross…
- Fear of abandonment – Check
- Unstable relationships – Check
- Impulsive, self destructive behaviours – Check
- Self harm – Check
- Extreme emotional swings – Check
- Chronic feelings of emptiness – Check
- Explosive anger – Check
- Feeling suspicious or out of touch with reality – Check
Shit!! now what? Maybe I should have listened when I was a teenager. Why was I so stupid? Do I really want to face this now? I want to be happy, but do I deserve it? I don’t want to be a burden and I don’t think I could bare the embarrassment of admitting to people that I have this condition (if I do, that is). So what did I do? I sucked up my pride and spoke to my partner about my suspicions and we read through whatever information we could find and he said “hmmm, well this is all making sense, I think you should go and see our Doctor”. I was sent to see a psychiatrist which bought up a lot of negative feelings however in the end it was a far better experience then I had all those years ago. She helped me to understand that there is absolutely NOTHING wrong me. That there is hope for me to be happy and to overcome this debilitating condition. It’s going to take years of therapy combined with medication. Can I even do this? Absolutely I can!!!
BPD- A beautiful life. 