QUICK NOTE: I wanted to put a trigger warning just in case any readers are sensitive to mental health matters. I talk about my diagnoses through the years, Borderline Personality Disorder, and a brief mention of suidical thoughts.

I’ve been officially dealing with the mental health world for a while now. Everything hit the first breaking point my sophomore year of high school when I ran away from home. I didn’t make it very far and I wasn’t gone for more than a couple hours before I was found, but that’s where it started.

I was put in therapy and diagnosed with a type of stress disorder called “adjustment disorder.” I was with my first therapist for a short period of time before switching to someone else because the first one just wasn’t effective for me. However, before I left that first therapist, I finally started figuring out that therapy was only effective if I opened up honestly. So in some of our last sessions, I opened up about how I was feeling and about my suidical thoughts. She helped me cope and switched my diagnosis to Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder.

Then after a few more years of therapy and medication (and a few hospitalizations), I learned my diagnosis had slightly changed again. I had been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. In fact, my therapist at the time said I was practically a textbook case and he spotted it in our first visit.

Once I found out that I had BPD, I dove headfirst into research. However, my research method was using the internet, so that wasn’t necessarily the best decision. The internet can often have very strong feelings on the subject of BPD, so going straight to the internet to “find myself” was a terrible idea (but everything is clearer in hindsight).

For those of you unfamiliar with BPD, I’ll give you a couple ideas of what it entails. According to the Diagnostic and Statistics Manual of Mental Disorder 5 (the dsm-5, which is the go to book for diagnosing mental disorders), BPD is “a pervasive pattern of instability in interpersonal relationships, self-image, and emotion” (verywellmind). There are several trademarks to BPD, but the most common and frequently mentioned are severe emotional reactions (or overreactions), a deathly fear of abandonment (real or imagined), and intense impulsivity. Of course, the specifics of the disorder will manifest differently in each individual, but the framework will remain relatively the same.

If you want a good video to watch, and you have 30 minutes to spare, I’m going to link a video from Anthony Padilla’s YouTube channel. In this video, he interviews people that actually have Borderline Personality Disorder, and they give listeners/viewers a pretty good picture of BPD. It’s a pretty good video, and even though each individual’s personal experiences will be different, these interviewees give a pretty damn good synopsis.

I am fortunate enough to have a wonderful support system in my life. I have never been vilified for the things I suffer with, and I have never been made to feel like I should be ashamed for feeling my feelings so strongly (rather, no one besides myself has made me feel like this). But for some people with BPD, this is how it is. Some people are made to feel like the bad guy simply because of the coping mechanisms their minds have come up with to deal with feelings they feel so strongly.

If you’re still not quite understanding BPD, I’ll give you one more analogy. Picture two cups. One cup is about 10% full, and the other is about 80% full. This is the level of emotion a normal person feels versus a person with BPD just on a day-to-day basis. Now picture something/someone pouring 50% more water into the cups. Now the “normal” person is feeling 60%. That’s a considerable amount more, but still within a good coping range. However, the person with BPD is now over 100% because of the same emotions/stress/event. It’s not necessarily that they can’t handle the same things, but the mind of a person with BPD is already feeling so many emotions (many of them primarily negative) all the time. It can get very intense.

The tricky part with BPD is the comorbidity of other disorders. Because of my BPD and the way I have lived my life, I’ve also been diagnosed with Anxiety, Depression, and a form of Bipolar Disorder. This is not to say that I’m completely unhinged, or that I’m losing my mind. It just means that my mind is dealing with a lot most of the time, so I come across a little intense sometimes.

A big thing that I’ve had to work on is realizing that not everyone that crosses my path will understand. A bigger thing I’ve had to realize is that no one has the obligation to accommodate me just because I have a couple emotional needs. Most people are more than understanding and willing to help, but I’ve had to humble myself in the sense that I should not expect people to go out of their way to make me comfortable. It’s definitely appreciated when people do that, but I’ve had to learn that sometimes I do simply have to “tough it out” and “make it through.” I will say this is not often the case. More often than not, people are able and willing to make small changes to help me feel more comfortable in an environment/situation. Like I said earlier, I’ve been very fortunate to have a wonderful support system in place.

Borderline Personality Disorder can be very complex sometimes, but that doesn’t make the people who deal with it any less worthy of love and respect. Just because they feel a lot of emotions doesn’t make them weak. It just means that they experience the world differently from someone who does not have BPD. But the people that deal with it are still here. I’m still here. And I’m never giving up.

Link to Source on BPD:

https://www.verywellmind.com/borderline-personality-disorder-diagnosis-425174