Living with Borderline Personality Disorder

[lookingforme]

I had absolutely no idea where to put this post, but considering I already have the depressive disorder, I'd put it here. I have just today been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder on top of the depression, does anyone on here have it and is able to summarise it? I don't quite know how to explain it to people other than by listing symptoms, which I don't really want to do. And you know that old saying, if you can't explain it simply enough, you don't truly understand it. It's a strange label.

Suffice it to say that I haven't been having a good time of it lately, and this diagnosis makes me half relieved and half unknowing, which I don't much care for. I just know it's something I will have to work at to manage, and stress aggravates it, and right now, I am nothing but stressed,

Any help is appreciated.

Joelle

[james1]

Yeah, BPD seems a lot less common and more difficult to describe in its entirey than depression. The individual symptoms are easy enough, but actually living with all of them running concurrently all the time... that's the bit that's difficult to explain.

In my experience, everyone feels like they do have one or two of the symptoms every now and then so they say, "Oh it's like when blahblah" and all I can say is "yeah, but no". Everyone gets angry, afraid, uncertain about who they are, worried that people will leave... but those things don't describe the chaos.

I've been thinking to myself: the root cause of BPD tends to be a rocky childhood, so a lot of the symptoms can appear childlike/immature. I'm only speaking for myself when I say how I behave feels (in hindsight) like a 5-7 year old full of energy and dedicating all my energy to whatever thoughts, feelings or actions happen to be in my mind. But unlike a child, there's a bit inside which knows I shouldn't do this. So I feel really bad, but I can't break my habits and the internal fight just rages on until I shut down and block it out.

No, I've not really had a chance to deal with closer relationships. My family is too fraught with bad history for reasons similar to yourself and my last relationship break up was what triggered this depression and decision to check out what was wrong with me.

Hmm...DBT focuses on distress tolerance and is one of the therapies for BPD, so it sounds like you were learning those types of skills. It feels like overcoming and changing all the behavioural aspects of BPD needs to come from understanding the cause (nurture aspects) and learning those distress tolerance techniques.

I'm not sure what BPD traits and behaviours you exhibit, but do you feel like you're working on the depression or the BPD at the moment? Or both concurrently?

Yeah work is aware but I'm feeling like I can't continue doing this forever. There will come a point when I'm dropping too many tasks, so I'm really just trying to minimise what I need to do.

Mhmm...I do a bit of running but that's about it. Recently I've been trying to start writing again, but it's difficult to get my concentration back. How about yourself?

James

[xmin]

It is hard to describe, whenever I've tried to tell someone about my diagnosis/the condition I've always had to reference an article with checkpoints, and even then it's hard to explain how serious they are. One person I told who has depression just said that it sounded like depression, which was kind of frustrating, but understandable. It does feel like a draining roller coaster, when I'd rather just have boring stability.

In that sense it's like other mental illnesses- like depression, anxiety and OCD. Most people feel a shadow of these things some of the time, but it's not the same. At least mental illness awareness/acceptance is coming along, although I feel like borderline is far off. Most of the borderline representations are just like 'Crazy Bitcy Syndrome', and don't really garner much sympathy.

Hmm. I guess I can kind of relate slightly to that in that if something is effecting me emotionally, it will demand most of my brainpower and energy and I find it hard to put things aside. Not sure if it's like that. That awareness that you have of your behaviour...well currently it's just part of a negative cycle. But for starters it's a somehow positive thing that you're aware- that's what they say about problems right? It does suck noticing all of the specific negative behaviours I go through, but hopefully one day it'll be managed more correctly and easier to tolerate.

To be honest I've gotten a bit confused with all the terms whirling around- I always resort to googling them. That does sound like the approach my psychologist has been using with me. Part of understanding the cause has been discussing my family history, and it's been quite satisfying and relieving having an outside party acknowledge that what happened to me was unfair/not right/abusive/damaging.

I guess..since it's the newer diagnosis BPD has been the main focus for me, but the other two are always running around in the background.

Fair enough there. Do you have any plans to take leave/change your situation?

I'm doing martial arts twice a week, it does help to shut out most thoughts for an hour. I've been meaning to do something creative but haven't really had the motivation for it.

xmin

[xmin]

Hmm...how long does moderation usually take? It's been a few hours and my response hasn't come up...

[james1]

I find Fridays/Weekends to be a bit shaky at times 🙂 I'll keep an eye out.

[xmin]

Hmm, I think it has been lost to the vortex. Somehow I always struggle to rewrite a message once it's gone but here goes.

I have found BPD pretty tough to explain to others- I usually have to refer to a list of symptoms in an article. And it doesn't help that the main representations of BPD in fiction just come across as having 'Crazy Bitch Syndrome'.

Yeah exactly, it's the same with depression, anxiety, OCD and so forth, people experience some of it to some degree but it's just not the same.

I guess I kinda have something similar in that if something is affecting me emotionally it will demand most of my brainpower and attention, and I have issues with just putting things aside. I get stuck in a highly emotional loop when I'm upset, and I guess it's mostly linked to abandonment, or being let down/misunderstood. Very tiring. Well, right now your awareness of your issues is just part of the negative cycle, but I guess it's something that you have that awareness? That's what they say about problems, right? Hopefully it will come to place where you can identify and address but of course that's a hell of a lot easier said than done.

Hmm fair enough. Have you told any of your friends about these issues?

Yeah, DBT sounds about right. Part of that understanding the cause has been a lot of talking about my family history, and it's been quite relieving hearing an outside party say that what happened to me was not right/damaging/abusive. The bad part I guess is having all these feelings(mostly of hurt and injustice) cropping up and then wanting to hold family at an arm's length for all these past transgressions.

I guess I'm working more on the BPD part at the moment, but the other two are always running around in the background.

Do you have any future plans to /are you able to take a break from working? It's good that you're trying to keep on top of your workload/stress levels.

I'm doing martial arts twice a week, which is great for shutting things out at least for an hour at a time. I've been meaning to do drawing/painting(I'm horrible at both) but I haven't found the motivation for it.

xmin

[james1]

Hey xmin I got your reply. Looks like they both came through haha. I'll reply later this arvo 🙂

[james1]

Hey xmin,

Yeah borderline is a quite bit... different from depression. My psychologist prefers to talk about it as "emotional dysregulation disorder" which sounds a bit more friendly haha. It also captures the rollercoaster you were talking about.

My friends don't really get it unfortunately. Similar to you I think. One friend thinks in terms of sadness and another friend thinks in terms of panic, but they don't really hit the mark.. or come close to it at all, haha.

Yeah, the one thing being aware of it has helped with is that I can try to accept myself a bit more by understanding everything in terms of how I grew up. But there's a certain sense of "there's something inherently wrong with me" that comes with the thoughts, and that's not a welcome sense. It's easy to say it's not my fault, but when I start looking at my life in the past and thinking about even what I do now, I can see the patterns and it's not a good feeling knowing that all these thoughts and behaviours which I thought were normal, actually aren't. And who knows what else I do.

I can't really stop working for financial reasons but I feel like I can't continue not being able to focus either. Something will have to give, and I hope I can just get my focus back soon. Are you working at the moment?

Oh martial arts is good. I've been meaning to start boxing because I get a lot of anger bottled up inside which usually gets directed at myself, so boxing would be a good outlet. What kind of martial arts do you do?

Do you mind if I ask if you exhibit any of the dissociation type symptoms?

James

[calamity]

BPD. Trying to live with it is hell sometimes. Right now I'm having a typical overreaction to something that happened a year ago. Or did it really happen? In my mind it did.

I don't want to be BPD. I was sort of diagnosed (perhaps I'm in denial) about 3 months ago. The other night I almost told my boyfriend - but chose to keep it secret still. Any way just cos I'm now diagnosed-ish, doesn't mean I have changed as a person, so really it's none of his business

Any way back to the now. Right now I'm on the edge of a total melt down. I've tears streaming down my face, and I'm hiding from the people who make me feel like I'm worthless. Having BPD means I don't really know if that's what they think of me, but in my head that's what I'm sold on. So I'm just anxiety-ing panicky attack-ing on the couch hiding while the people basque in the glory of beers and long weekend fun 😞

I hate it, this BPD

[james1]

Hey calamity,

Welcome to the forums! It really is hell living with it.

It's always the relationships that we get massively caught up on and it sounds like you really struggle with that too.

You're absolutely right that it doesn't change who you are, but I think it's worth having a chat to people close to you about what it means. I say that because they may misunderstand why we do the things we do. For example, I pushed my now-ex away for fear that they would push me away and leave, and it seemed better for me to pre-empt it. Of course, she was never going to leave and it was all in my head, until I acted... that's when it all went downhill. If I'd known and had the conversation previously, maybe things would be different.

Have you got a psychologist or psychiatrist still that you see? Did you want to talk about what you're still struggling with from a year ago? I don't know if I can help, but my psychologist has been working on something called Schema Therapy with me, and one of the things I try to do is log when I feel overwhelmed, so talking about it could be a way of "logging it" in your mind.

James

[calamity]

Hi James

Thank you for the welcome.

What happened .... A couple of times my boyfriends family have talked about 'his birthday' last year. Um .... I don't recall him having a birthday party .... so that means he hid it from me, but he didn't have a problem with me paying for his things, giving him presents, doing his mountains of paper work, etc etc etc. I don't get why. We spend and were spending everyday together at the time. So it just solidifies my thoughts that they hate me. Pathetic this is ...but it's causing me to unwind.

You don't tell people you love them, and then treat them like they come from a giant dispenser of paper towels, just to wipe your hands on and discard at your will.

So in my little bubble of deciding what isn't and is social justice, I now have the subject of my newest obsessive compulsive behaviour.

I really really really don't like being this way, don't want to be this way, and am so exhausted with this stupid little game of,

'I'm so changed, I'm so better, I see psychs and do minfulness and it means I'm normal now'.

But it's just a front, because the same stuff is still going on inside my head, and I'm still doing all the bad stuff I always did!

I wonder how the 'people' will take my mindfulness crap if I put some on now!