Hey Everyone,
This is my first time posting in a forum as such, so please bare with me as I attempt to articulate what's running through my mind.
In 2015, I was told I was exhibiting characteristics of Borderline Personality Disorder, or BPD. It was during a week-long involuntary admission to the psych ward that mental health professionals, for perhaps the first time in my life, were giving me the attention and concern that I hadn't previously experienced with the diagnoses of depression and anxiety; almost as though I needed to be protected from the possibility of developing this disorder. Nine months later I was officially diagnosed with BPD after a suicide attempt. And it was after this official labelling that the treatment I received, not only from field professionals but from those closest to me, became a "tough love" fiasco, if existent at all. The stigma associated with BPD is abysmal. I am manipulative. I am an attention seeker. I am a burden on society. I am the definition of evil itself.
It's now the beginning of a new year, and I'm sure as many of you have experienced, with this revelation comes both hope and fear. I want nothing more than to move forward with my life and be happy, however the events of the past still haunt me, and I know from previous experience that when I begin to make that climb into the light, I'm struck down by the darkness. It's almost cyclical. The year starts off fine, I begin to invest in hope, I take the chance and begin to believe in myself, and then crisis tears those beliefs to shreds and I fall back into the shadows. I'm all alone in my recovery, and yet I don't have to be, and here's where it gets tricky..
Initially after the diagnosis, I was put on medication, assigned a case worker, invited to participate in dialectal behavioural therapy, and given a chance to eliminate this darkness that I always succumb to. And yet I resisted. I didn't want to go on medication, so I never picked up my prescriptions. I worked with my case worker for three months and then one day called to close my file. I signed up for DBT but never turned up. I fell back into the darkness and embraced its hold on me. It's as though I am incapable of change, no matter how many times I'm given the chance. I want my happiness, but I don't want the help. I am alone because I CHOOSE to be.
My life is just a paradox of contradictions.
I'm not sure what I was hoping to get out of this. Perhaps just a moment of clarity.
Thanks for listening.
