I’m a smart girl. I love animals. My grandma is my favorite person on the planet. I love trashy reality tv. I’m good at doing hair and make-up. I’m a waitress and I get along with almost everyone.
My name is Kati. Yesterday, I came to the ER suicidal, because I have Borderline Personality Disorder, and it has ruined my life.
Borderline Personality Disorder(BPD), which affects about 2% of the population, comes in two forms: classic and quiet. Mine’s classic. It sits on the border of neurosis (depression, anxiety, etc) and psychosis (schizophrenia, etc).
In short, I’m one big mixed bag of mental illnesses.
It’s basically the inability to regulate my emotions – so what is a minor irritant to anyone else, is overwhelmingly agonizing for me to the point where I can’t function. BPD is usually shrugged off as bad behavior, or being “too sensitive”, So I’ve written to summarise what I go through, and show people that this isn’t something that I choose, I’m sick.
Generally, borderline symptoms can include:
* deep feelings of insecurity
* fragile sense of self/low self-esteem
* fear of abandonment
* impulsiveness (sudden urge to self-harm, commit suicide, drink, take drugs, practice unsafe sex, etc)
* contradictory feelings
* uncontrollable anger and/or mood swings
* the constant need for affirmation and attention
* feelings of emptiness
* idealizing or devaluing other people
* intense outbursts (what I call “episodes”) of anger, depression or anxiety
* psychotic outbursts (seeing things and hearing things that aren’t there etc)
* difficulty compromising or seeing reason
* inability to control emotions or thoughts
* Black and white thinking, everything, and everyone is either good or bad.
My condition went undiagnosed for well over 5 years, probably even longer, that is when symptoms first started to show. I experience all of the above symptoms, including social anxiety and depression, I struggle with complex PTSD. and I also battled and overcame an eating disorder a year ago.
That was my issue: I have battled several mental illnesses, but never seemed to get better, because we were treating the wrong thing.
From age 13 until 21 when I was finally properly diagnosed, I was told I had bipolar 2 disorder. Any kind of treatment or medication I had never helped, and I always wondered what was wrong with me that I couldn’t get better. People with BPD often struggle to form and maintaining relationships of any nature, especially with those closest to them. It is not unusual for BPD patients to “push people away” or attempt to do so, when, in reality, they are terrified of being alone, but don’t know how to express it. Makes no sense, right? Welcome to borderline personality disorder.
My mood can change like a light switch: fine one moment, and the next, overwhelmed with anger or sadness, uncontrollable crying, bursts of intense anger, impulsive harmful divisions, dissociation, and so on.
I can’t explain why I do this other than I lose all control of my conscious thought. Some days I wake up and I “just can’t do it” – I cannot bring myself to think or feel enough to accomplish basic tasks like taking a shower. What may seem like simple everyday tasks for most people, some days with me is like trying to move mountains. I missed so much school growing up, between being in hospitals, and just not being able to deal with it all. I couldn’t work for the longest time because I couldn’t handle simple job requirements: lots of strangers, lots of noise, lots of stress, and high expectations of me. I have screamed at the people I love the most that I hate and blame them for everything that is wrong in the world. In reality, I don’t mean it at all. I have burnt, scratched, and bruised myself on several occasions growing up as a coping strategy – I’d rather hurt myself than someone else, and there are no other means to release the agony and anger I’m experiencing on the inside.
I see my conscious as three stages:
1. I’m normal, focused, rational. Can communicate properly.
2. I know I am behaving badly, irrationally, or wrongly consciously, but I can’t control it physically. Willpower and reality aren’t functioning normally.
3. I am completely out of touch with reality, I cannot “grasp” any thoughts or emotions, and the only way to deal with the internal trauma is to cry, scream, hurt myself, the list goes on. When this happens, when I get bad, dissociation kicks in and I become numb to everything.
It has been noted that BPD is usually the result of trauma or abuse.
In my case, it was sexual abuse when I was very young. We’re still trying to get to the bottom of it, and I go to therapy weekly. People may see my behaviors as overreacting, unnecessary, etc., which honestly, it is. What they don’t see is that I have no control over what I am experiencing. On social media, I often post pictures all dolled up, looking happy. What people don’t know behind these pictures, is how I haven’t slept or eaten properly in days. That I just had a 4-hour mental breakdown. How I have daily migraines from the stress.
These aren’t things I intended the world to know. But this is what the world needs to see – because yes, I am the Kati that loves makeup and watching shitty reality tv, who loves animals, and has an entire universe of love inside of her to give. But I’m also the Kati in this hospital bed, looking at scratches and bruises I inflicted on myself, who feels nothing but guilt for the things she’s done and people she’s hurt as a result of this illness, who hurts on the inside and is clutching desperately at the walls trying to climb out of the pit she’s in. I’m doing this because this is my last chance; I have no choice but to get better.
Some things do trigger me to have an episode (though I’m still trying to identify and learn to manage them), including:
* any time I perceive that I am being abandoned
* loud noises
* crowds of strangers, especially when I’m alone
* people engaging in behaviors I find irritating (I overreact to them)
* being reminded of something that troubled me in the past
* perceiving that I am about to receive bad news
* Having plans canceled last minute
* Being ignored
* lack of sleep
Sometimes these episodes aren’t triggered and happen randomly. Sometimes I just get bad, and there is no real reason behind it.
BPD is turning nothing into everything, is knowing you’re being irrational and not being able to stop regardless, is suppressing breakdowns for fear of making the person you’re talking to have to take care of you when they really don’t want to.
It’s thinking someone doesn’t care about you anymore because they made a new friend. It’s automatically registering new people as a threat. It’s a fear of abandonment and rejection. It’s being able to shift from ‘I love you so much!’ to ‘I don’t give a fuck, I hate you, I don’t even want to talk to you’ and back at the drop of a hat.
It’s finding identity in a drastic hair change, and then feeling unsafe and desperately trying to fix it before you have to go out. It’s seeing someone you adore and trying to be just like them because you have no idea who you are. It’s waking up and trying to be a new person every day. Cut your hair, change your makeup, gain weight, lose weight, and never feel quite yourself.
It’s comprehending ‘love’ as ‘pity’ and wanting to rip yourself apart if their tone is all too casual when your friend or love interest is returning compliments or affection. It’s regretting saying anything about your mood and desperately trying to turn the conversation around while simultaneously NEEDING to get it out.
It’s wanting to bleed yourself dry as opposed to crying in someone’s arms because, at least then, they don’t have to clean your wounds for you. They won’t hate you. They won’t be annoyed.
It’s the constant battle, every time you get upset, of, “Is this worth being sad about? Is it worth talking about? What’s worse, talking about this or hiding it? If I tell them I’ll bring them down and I’ll guilt trip them and they will resent me and it will all be my fault. If I don’t, I’m a liar, I’m manipulative, I’m untrustworthy.” It’s being suicidal as soon as any minor inconvenience happens.
It’s wondering if you’re faking your symptoms. It’s turning nothing into everything. Overthinking. It’s disassociating and feeling like a ghost for days. It’s feeling like you aren’t real, and then wishing you weren’t. It’s fear, a lack of self, and about a million different thoughts running through your head at all times. It’s trying to live for the people you love as opposed to yourself. It’s being trapped in your own mind.
I have hurt myself, I have hurt other people, I have made impulsive decisions that have changed my life forever. I have had ups and downs. Every day is a battle for me and it will be for the rest of my life. If you have someone in your life with a mental illness, do not hate them for it. Chances are they already hate them self enough for everything they are doing to themself, and all the pain they cause you as well. Be as patient and as understanding as you can because none of this is easy for anyone involved. Most of the time, we just need someone to listen without judgment, and/or wait until the episode passes. Like a panic attack, the only thing that will stop an episode is time. There’s a lot I’m still figuring out at this stage. I’m going to therapy weekly and on medication, and working on myself and finding my own happiness, finding out how I can make myself feel okay. all I want is to get better, and that’s the reason I will.?