Okay, so I saw a new nurse. I quickly hated her as I do new people. I didn’t exactly trust her, and I hate that she judges me whilst simultaneously knowing that she has to in order to figure out what went so wrong I tried to kill myself. She said some things that had me (admittedly, wrongly) fuming. For example, “when you anticipate a down, you make the down happen”. ‘So it’s my fault’ I thought. She doesn’t think I have Bipolar Disorder, she mentioned anti depressants and ‘Emotional Dysregulation’ which, if severe enough is basically Borderline Personality Disorder. We’re starting Distress Tolerance Therapy which is used for BPD and PTSD clients.
Truthfully, I was pissed that she could meet me once and assume I’m some over reactive, moody child. I couldn’t sleep thinking she thought that about me AND I’d have to see her again. But then I looked up the symptoms. And if I was honest with myself, it made sense. I just hate having to accept the bad bits about me, after all, I don’t act out all the time. However, actions or not, the feelings that I have are still making me feel like shit, and maybe if I have BPD the feelings don’t even need to be there.
It means accepting I’m not always the calm, studious and fun loving, adventurous person I think I am. It means I’m quietly fuming and trying not to let it out because I know I shouldn’t be angry. It means accepting that I fall out with my friends too often if I’m not the centre of attention. It means I still have serious abandonment issues that I try to bury and it means I’m incredibly impulsive.
I resonated a lot with the idea of ’emptiness’. I tell people a lot that I feel bored with life or myself, that I can’t really figure out what exactly would make me happy. Sometimes I don’t feel like a person, I feel like a stranger that no one can understand. I change my mind a lot. Especially about my future. ‘I want to go to University to study Physics. I’m crap at Physics. I want to study English but I hate essays. I’m great at essays, English it is. But I love Physics. What about Maths? To be honest, I dont even want to go to Uni, I’ve always wanted to be a police officer. But I couldnt be a police officer but Ive always like animals.’ And then it goes back to Uni. I’m even more cofused about career prospects.
My friends and family have basically gotten used to my impulsive actions. How I change my mind. How I bought the car because I felt bored. How spending money makes me happy. How I binge eat. How I fall in love with a guy because he looks at me. How I hate the guy because he looks at me. Those things can be funny, or just my personality. But the more serious things are harder to ignore. I think I shield my friends from it by keeping them at a distance. I don’t tell them about my personal life, and I rarely express any annoyance because it escalates too much. But my fosterparents and other family members see it. Me yelling to be left alone, and then crying because I’m lonely. My need to control; worries that I’m going to be left, or abandoned. Actions to push people away. A self-fulfilling prophecy. Whilst I have gotten better, I don’t act out .. as much.. its still there. I still shake with anger at times, despite feeling like a relatively non-angry person. For example, a teacher was 15 minutes late th’e other week for a study session and I left angrily and almost in tears. It quickly passed.
Whilst I think I’m overcomplicating it at times, I’m just a sensitive and anxious person. Or I’m just depressed, I also recognise a irrational, ‘walk on eggshells’ annoying part of myself that leaves me and others extremely tired. Mood swings that I perhaps misinterpreted as Bipolar. Small fights escalating into me needing to leave in order to not be left. My suicidal tendencies because I can’t handle the rollercoaster at times. I’ve always been called sensitive and sometimes I wonder if I’m allowed to feel the way I do. Was killing myself even justified? Not as justified as a normal depressed person I guess.
I can be moody, judgemental and hard to get to know. I’m constantly terrified of scaring people away. Whilst I love my friends and family, and cry at every soppy movie I find it very difficult to empathise with issues that friends tell me about because ‘theyre not as big as mine’. . I feel guilty about some of my reactions. And angry that sometimes its not my fault. I don’t want my issues to be an escape goat.
I guess there are some benefits to my personality. I’m loyal and ‘spontaneous’ but I worry that there’s more bad than good. Feeling numb one moment and then overwhelmed with emotions the next. Obsessions that can’t be put aside no matter how many times you try to distract yourself. Sleepless nights with never ending thoughts, and then being so depressed I do nothing but sleep. It feels I’ve had every issue. Every trauma. Self-inflicted and imposed. Body issues that pop up out of nowhere, throwing up, self-harm, suicide, depression, anxiety, foster-care, alcoholics, drug addicts, physical abuse, sexual abuse.. The list goes on and on.
I don’t completely know whats wrong with me. I function well sometimes. I had a really good spell after the counselling with CAMHS. I was told that because I couldn’t technically be diagnosed with a personality disorder, there was time to prevent it ever occurring. But if anything, I feel bad habits creeping in. I’m not an idiot. I know sometimes my thoughts are irrational but at times they feel so true. And attempts from others cement them even more.
I am good at being private, solitary and looking put together from afar. But even my friends know that under the surface there is some serious crap, and I think they feel protected when I don’t share. I would like to be able to let people into the positive parts of me without eventually consuming them in a negative self absorbed wave of problems. I notice my initial relationships begin well, but as I fall apart, they do too.
I don’t want to be dislikeable, in life or in this room. I try not to be. I’m tired of not knowing how to control my feelings. Pushing them away and ignoring them until I cannot cope.
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I recently lost a close relationship with someone with BPD, someone like a sister to me, one of my best friends.
The pushing away was the issue, and the self sabotage spilled over into my life. She kept sabotaging the relationship until my support system gave me no choice. Now she’s gone, but I think about her, about BPD every day.
The worst part is manipulation. I don’t think she even knew she was manipulating all the time, but it is real. It’s true of other people with BPD, that desire to control expressed as manipulating others. There’s a significant image problem, the lack of true self means that they would become what they thought I wanted them to be. That’s part of the seduction, and I don’t mean sexual.
It breaks my heart because I know how deep the issues run, the trauma related symptoms and the fear are in reaction to horrible things in their past. Yet, there seems to be an attraction towards abusive personalities. Again, this is dealing with the two people I’ve known best with BPD.
No matter what they might know, their dysfunction persists and making self destructive decisions is too attractive. The people I’ve known have attracted other sick people, as well as people with a strong helping instinct. Monogamy has been hard, specifically for the friend I lost. She puts people on a pedestal and then reverses that and hates them when the “favorite person” fails to live up to expectations.
DBT appears to work, I hadn’t heard of the treatment that you’re talking about. It takes a committed treatment provider, because I know plenty of therapists who want nothing to do with BPD clients.
The biggest issue was the suicidality. Because of my background, I take threats of suicide very seriously. It kept getting worse, and she had a method, motivation and energy to carry it out. It isn’t the same as depressive suicidality, where the desire is there but not the energy. Anxious suicidality is a different way; the desire is there, the energy too, but no plan. The anger and the disassociative episodes were issues as well. She’d get into these mood/episodes and I wasn’t even sure who she was, it was near psychotic rage combined with a lack of awareness of consequences.
These things are terrifying to live through, I’m currently in therapy dealing with the scars from her departure. It is worth remembering that other people hurt too, and I know she knew that when she was moderately stable.
Hopefully that helps. I know stability is possible with therapy, but it’s a tough road.
I definitely recognise a self- sabotaging tendency, but I don’t feel it is ‘attractive’? I have definitely pushed and pushed many people away to the point that whilst I have the feelings I try hard to suppress them, however a huge argument arises with my fosterparents when I finally crack into an irrational, emotional and I suppose manipulative conversation. This usually happens in the depths of my depression or when severely stressed.
To be honest your comment scares me. I think I have something called quiet BPD which means I internalise and ‘punish myself’. I find I tend to not vocalise my anger, especially with friends knowing it will pass but would turn into something massive if spoken about. I keep my friends at a distance which helps. With family however it can seem childish when i throw strops or get angry. I lash out at times and often say hurtful things and run away, isolate or harm myself. These episodes dont happen often, but often enough to recognise BPD symptoms.
I dont know what you mean by suicidal tendencies that differ from depression. I’ve been diagnosed with Depression and anxiety which I think were pretty accurate diagnoses and both together have meant suicidal attempts. Whilst I dont doubt that BPD might be the cause of my suicide attempts, I am strongly against the idea that it was done out of manipulation. More feeling not needed in the world. I did however call a friend and the ambulance myself, ‘a cry for help’ action perhaps that meant it was taken less seriously.
As far as I know, Distress Tolerance Therapy is apart of Dielectic?? Behavioural Therapy which I assume you mean by DBT. I wonder, could I just have emotional dysregulation and still be carrying out this therapy? I feel strongly that I project BPD symptoms and the nurse won’t tell me. I’m worried that therapists dont like to work with BPD patients? Why is that?
I didn’t mean to frighten, and keep in mind I live in a world that terrifies people. It’s one of the things that I’m growing to understand about myself; things that repel others fascinates me. It’s the same with BPD. I’ve talked to every mental health professional I could about it, which is how I know the distaste some have for it. That also is of great interest to me, I can try to understand but I can’t internalize the decision, just not how I work to turn away from a challenge.
I mean by it being a different suicidality from depression and anxiety that it presents differently. One thing I’m trying to understand about contrasting my own experience with others is differing presentations of various disorders, and within them. I would guess that the trauma element, and the anger makes my experience with BPD suidality different. The most brutal experience with that had suicide presenting out of anger, which is different than the experiences I’ve had with depressive suicide. Long term depressive people run out of options, out of hope. There is a passive nature to depression that is different than the assertive desires present in BPD. Again, generalizations and diagnosis are imprecise. A person can be any number of things, and those things may conflict with accurate understanding of disorder.
Yes, Dielectic Behavior Therapy is the one I’m familiar with. It comes in with a response plan for family members, and that is my experience with it. We’re instructed to validate emotions, empathize, express the value the person has towards us, express intent to help/ investment in solutions, and propose rational solutions including confronting thinking errors. There was stuff in the books I’ve read about understanding what makes BPD tick, why it works the way it does.
The key issue regarding self and others is the perceived lack of identity by the person experiencing Borderline. The personality trait associated with borderline is Mercurial, with dramatic traits sometimes showing up as secondary. The mercurial nature is the changing attitudes and desires, and that leads to a lack of identity. In the most recent case she clung tight to that diagnosis, and used it as a shield against criticism of poor behavior. I’m not certain if that is common.
Mood/affect is like weather. It might rain today, and such I might be sad today, feel lost today and so on. Personality is like climate, I live in a temperate/wet climate, such my personality is dominated by conscientious and aggressive personality styles. I’ve talked to some mental health people and they are commonly high in conscientious personality, it is dominant to them. Part of this is environmental, being methodical makes a good health professional, as does a desire that things be done the correct way.
The greatest conflict of two styles is Mercurial(the extreme of which is borderline) and Conscientious(the extreme of which is obsessive personality disorder.) The borderline individual is changing, and fascinations pass and interests change. They struggle to hold to a single thing long enough to get through therapy, and therapy takes a significant amount of time especially to challenge a deep set ideas and beliefs. Meanwhile the typical therapist is steadfast, diligent. They struggle to empathize with someone with this disorder. They are afraid of the consequences of managing a suicidal episode poorly. It’s end of career if they mishandle a suicidal threat. For a conscientious person end of career is literal end of self, there is little that someone can do to frighten such a person more than to threaten their career. The proper reaction to a suicidal threat in session sometimes means checking in the patient against their will. For the therapist they lose control at a certain point, that point being when the threat to harm self or others is credible. The borderline personality holds some people in high regard, but when let down devalues them severely. They feel betrayed when their therapist has them put in an inpatient hospital.
I lost my best friend, someone I care for with a diligence and love that is hard to resist. I lost her because she threatened herself, and gave me no good options. She pushed me away so hard that I could not recover. It hurts in a different way to understand that she is already actively replacing me, it is in her nature. I think about the parable of the scorpion and the wolf. The scorpion says to the wolf; “See, here is a stream, let me ride on your back as you swim, and we can both reach the other side.” The wolf responds: “You are a scorpion, surely you’ll sting me.” To which the scorpion responds;”Why would I do that, if I sting you we’ll sink and both drown.” Staggered by that logic, the wolf agrees. The scorpion climbs on his back and he begins to swim across the stream. Halfway across he is stung. As he begins to sink he says:”Why did you sting me? We’ll both drown.” The scorpion replies; “I could not help it, it was in my nature.”
Who knows what is innate and what is changeable. I hope and pray for you and others that there is hope and that treatment will help. Treatment helped me, but some challenges are harder than others even with good coping skills.
Before considering BPD I felt like such a fraud. Lying to everybody about how well I was doing when truly I was a wreck. Constantly trying to not look upset or annoyed, never wanting to be that dramatic and self centred person whose having another crisis and knowing I’m failing spectacularly. Burdening and exhausting my family who get the brunt of everything and making my friends suspicious whilst isolating myself from them.
I have also read that people with BPD feel completely different around different people. It’s weird to think I’m not the only one feeling that way. Constantly trying to please, knowing that family are the only real ones to see any angry fits. Friends knowing the confident, spontaneous, sometimes moody and self centred person. Other’s seeing the teachers pet. I am constantly putting myself down, wanting to do everything right and so am seen as a people-pleaser. When in a good place its hard to ever think I can be so irrational, I am considered pretty smart but I think most would call me dramatic and sensitive even if I truly cant see it.
I feel so empty and out of place, at times feeling so separate to my identity. I had a crisis the other night. I remember telling myself ‘you are feeling emotions. you are thinking such strong thoughts and your brain is exploding. Imagine one day just being dead. How is it that you can be living so deeply and then one day not at all.’ Its hard to explain but I constantly battle feelings of numbness and being overwhelmed. The silence of death seems completely impossible, why do we even have the capacity to think when eventually we will all just think nothing. It seems like a waste.
I had a future planned out and it was really simple, I was going to kill myself the day I turned 18. Sadly, I am now 24 and forced to be alive on this day. I always thought as long as I didn’t hurt anyone else with my weapon, why would it matter if I shot myself? I’ve always been completely alone, I’ve never had an enjoyable moment, and I live in a very terrible town and a lot of creeps who follow me around.. I don’t remember when they started following me around but it is FREQUENT.
Whats are u guys talking about?
I guess I’m just sharing my response and my experience, what you said about the future you had planned for yourself. You know, just showing you how great you are doing compared to some like myself, I guess it doesn’t really answer your question much.
I dont mean to be ignorant but I find it strange that you think Im doing well compared to you? Im despairing about possibly having an abusive diagnosis.
The war, never took place, the battles, and holy angels, never arrived. Now, the story, progresses, and moves, on. I suppose, that, Gaia, will someday, finally, finish the work, as described.. for us.
No offence but what does this have to do with BPD?
To clarify, this answer is more related to your reasoning about why you think you have BPD than BPD/having BPD. That said, i can understand why the person that saw you (a nurse? shouldn’t you be seeing a therapist?) got to the conclusion that she did: she wants you to deal with the symptoms instead of labeling yourself into a justification for them. FTR you can only diagnose BPD after adolescence, and even then it can be easily confused with other conditions (like mood disorders, biological unbalances, etc, can’t remember all of it atm since it’s like 6 am).