I'm actually a freak.
Or atleast, i feel like one.
I got diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder on Thursday.
Wait, why am i evening mentioning that?
I'm told to suck it up and put up with it, so i should do just that.
Although, it doesn't actually matter anymore,
because i know no matter how much i try to fight everything in my own mind,
that i will end up giving up, because it's what i want, and for the first ****ing time in my life,
i'm going to do something i want to do.
Because i'm selfish like that. Yep. That's me. Selfish, heartless, bitch.
You sort of wonder what the **** is going on in your mind,
when you sit here for 40 minutes cutting up steri-strips.
They shall come in handy later this evening, no doubt.
Better to be prepared, correct?
I bet everyone laughs at me for doing pussy scratches,
or is it the fact i laugh at myself for doing pussy scratches?
In which case, "I'll show me"!
Indeed.
This evening plans consist of hugging a glass of sloe gin,
and taking my nightly temazepam (or two, or three..or maybe four),
and hopefully, *hopefully*, that will be enough to get me some kip,
to stop me head from processing thoughts.
Wait. My head doesn't process jack ****. That's the problem.
How long is it now i've gone without sleep?
****. I've forgotten.
Is it me, or is it cold?
Mmm yes.
This is probably the most pointless thread i have ever made in the entire duration of my membership.
Freak.
Just rambles. Rambles, rambles, rambles.
All those plans i made when i came out of hospital 6 weeks ago (is it bad that i am counting the days?) are still firmly in place,
and i am overjoyed with that. It's the only thing keeping me going, because i can't go now. I need to do it for the day i planned. Yep.
All fool proof.
Harhar. My friend made me laugh actually. Well. Unintentionally of course, because it was meant in a serious way.
But she said "Laura, i know next time you attempt suicide, it will be over for good".
I have no idea why it made me laugh. Maybe it was a nervous laughter, or, a happiness laughter? Because someone actually understands the need i feel to get the **** out of here.
I don't know what to say, but I would really ****ing miss you if you ever did anything/succeeded in an attempt.
The depth of a cut means NOTHING. Regardless of what you do it with and how big/deep it is, you are putting a sharp object to your skin and harming yourself with it. Isn't that bad enough already?!?! [This is coming from someone who also does "pussy scratches", as you put it].
Diganoses, at the end of the day, mean jack ****, except for the fact that your team/psychs etc will be able to help you better.
i don't think you're a freak at all. i think you're hurting really bad, just like the rest of us. and none of us are freaks so neither are you.
getting diagnosed with something like BPD can be a bombshell. i remember when i got it. you're there, stumbling along for years in the darkness not knowing what the hell is going on (and nobody will tell you) then suddenly - bam. you're told you have BPD. and it's a serious illness. it's long-term and it's complex. it's hard for people to really tell you what BPD is, i think, because it's so complex that it's different for everyone. and treatment is different again. i've known of my diagnosis for almost three years, and spent a year of that living with people with BPD - and i still don't know what BPD really is! because everyone's different.
when i was in residential, all i was really sure of was that people with BPD are really f*cking brave. i mean really. the things we go through and the emotions we have to endure. people with BPD are survivors, they fight against the odds because usually little support is offered from services.
i still don't know which parts of me are BPD are which are *me*. when i was first diagnosed i hated the diagnosis and kicked against it. it gets easier after time. it also gets easier when people tell you that it's not your fault. something like between 2 and 15% of the population could be diagnosed with a PD, so it's really common. it's just for some people it's more interfering and enduring.
it's okay to feel however you feel about having BPD. give yourself time to get used to it, talk to your GP and whoever else you trust, and read up a bit about it. though, no matter which books you read on BPD, your feelings are still your feelings and they're still painful and real. if they fit, or if they don't fit with what the professionals say, that's okay.
i hope that now you have the diagnosis that your treatment will move on from here. there was some legislation that came out a few years ago entitled "Personality Disorder: No Longer A Diagnosis of Exclusion". it sort of means that services can't just turn people away because of the diagnosis anymore. it didn't work that great when it came out but i think it's slowly slowly improving and understanding about it is getting better. the government are becoming more focussed on the need to treat personality disorder as a serious mental health problem, and i think there will be some new legislation out next year to back this up.
sorry i rambled. i really rambled. it probably wasn't helpful, but i hope some of it made sense.
Seeing yourself as a freak is actually part of the borderline state of mind. Does that make sense? Borderline mind says you're a freak, to maybe protect you from the pain of your vulnerability and loneliness. It 'hurts less' to that mind set, to bully you, rather than feel the acute pain and sensitivity.
You're not a freak.
I know how it is to feel like one, though.
Remember that such harsh self perception can come from a lifetime of emotional invalidation by others, a legacy of deep pain.
Meh. Hope i didn't upset anyone.
I was just rambling, anything negative i said was towards me, not anyone else.
Mmmm. BPD may just be a diagnosis, but it somehow means more to me than that.
It explains so much **** that's happened right from my childhood through to now.
And that's just..a head **** in it's own right.
When my CPN gave me some reading material, we went through it ourselves. There was a list of what BPD sufferer's usually suffer from. It did state not all BPD people will suffer with everything on the list, and i got upset because i couldn't find ONE thing i didn't suffer with..and i wanted to. I wanted to find something that i could go "Oh, i don't suffer with that", but i couldn't, which led to more distress on my part.
And whirlpools - you're right in regards to not being able to find out who YOU are. I feel exactly the same. How am i to seperate what's BPD and what's me, when i don't even know what's me to begin with!??
I waited so ****ing long for a diagnosis, and now i have it..i would do anything to take it away again.
It just confuses matters. It makes my mind play tricks on itself. It makes me want to curl into a ball and be ashamed of the person i am, because i SHOULD be. My whole behaviour over recent years is something to be disgusted at.
It's the confirmation that i do actually have a mental illness. That this isn't all in my head, and that it isn't just a bit of depression that will go away with time. I hate that. I hate knowing i AM actually mentally ill, and although i have the opportunity to get better, to recover, it will STILL always be there. I may beable to work around it, to find my triggers, to find coping methods, but it will still be there in 10, 20, 30, 40 years time if i was to survive that long.
I'm making no sense.
It's probably not helped by the fact i have no support network around me. When i informed my mother/father about it on Thursday i just got a grunt and a shrug. Yeh..cheers people.
It's just the fact they..took no interest in the fact there daughter has just been properly diagnosed with a mental disorder that made my mind boggle.
I feel so ****ing alone here.
And Katie - this part of what you said stuck out at me - Remember that such harsh self perception can come from a lifetime of emotional invalidation by others, a legacy of deep pain. That is exactly what i don't want to admit. When my mother read the pieces of paper i was given by my CPN, she wouldn't ever have picked that reasoning out, despite the fact it's most possibly WHY i'm like i am.
Her excuse was "Well, it's probably to do with you living on the farm and the age differences you had with your brothers, you were isolated". Bollocks is all i have to say to that.
Mer.
It's all so pointless. I can't be arsed to go through this whole painfully shitty process of years of therapy and meds to get me in a "reasonably" good state to live any sort of life.
The thought is enough for me to say "**** my plans, i'm going now".
*Sigh*
Sorry if i upset anyone, or..yeh i don't mean to. Sorry.
But thankyou for your replies. I appreciate the support.
xx
I know being diagnosed with BPD is really, really tough. A year ago I was going through what you are.
And for what it's worth, I don't think that person mean you should just suck it up and get over it. But I think you WILL get to a stage where you wont feel so hurt by it anymore.
I have a book about BPD which has really helped me to understand more about the illness, and the recovery prospects. I thought that BPD was a life sentence, but know I know it's not and that there IS hope for recovery.
"Not very long ago, people thought BPD lasted forever. In fact, that is one of the reasons BPD is called a personality disorder... However we now know that personality disorders are not stable. In fact, it's probably safest to assume that disorders like BPD will change (or even go away) over time. The idea that people may recover from personality disorders is relatively new and goes against common myths... Although mental health professionals once thought that BPD was a lifelong disorder with little chance of recovery, this beleif was basely soly on ill-founded assumptions and anecdotal evidence...and had no basis in scientific research.
Specifically there is now a lot of evidence that most people who are hospitalized with BPD will no longer meet criteria for this disorder after six years, One study...found that 35% of people with BPD who were hospitalized for psychiatric difficulties no longer met criteria for BPD after as little as two years. What's more, half of the former inpatients (49%) did not meet criteria for BPD four years later, and 69% still did not meet criteria for BPD six years later. In fact, over the course of the period, a full 74% of the patients who had started off with BPD no longer met criteria for BPD at some point during the study. Just as important, most people (94%) who had stopped meeting criteria for BPD never met criteria for BPD again during the rest of the study. The other important point to keep in mind was that this was not a treatment study, and it was not intended to examine the benefits of a particular treatment for BPD. Therefore, even though most patients continued to receive some form of psychological treatment over the course of the study, the kinds of treatment they received varied, and not everyone remained in treatment throughout the entire six years. In fact, some people were not in treatment at all. The reason this is important is that this tells us that even in the absence of a particular state of the art treatment for BPD, many people with BPD will eventually get better over time."
Firstly - a massive thankyou to all the support/hugs/information/love i've been given on here, i really do appreciate it.
control freak - BPD has always been known as such a controversial subject. I found the information you gave me on that book very interesting. However, i don't think i can think that positively, or atleast, not at the moment.
My bestfriend, who i met through here, got diagnosed with BPD 7 years ago. Although she is over the worst, she is still on meds and has her good/bad days.
I think, if people are lucky enough to completely overcome BPD - it's great. But i don't think it's possible for everyone.
I don't see how i..could have suffered right back from childhood with BPD (from memories/situations, that's what i've figured) but overcome it within a matter of years with therapy/meds..it just seems strange to me.
But the book is definatly interesting and i think i'll pop down to my local library at some point to see if they have it down there. It's definatly worth a read. Thankyou for the recommendation, i appreciate it :)
I'm still feeling like a freak.
I OD'd quite badly not long after making this thread. I don't want sympathy of course, and strangely..i didn't take the OD to "die", i just took it to shut the voices up in my head. (No, i do not think i suffer from schitzophrenia..)
I'm just tired of everything going around in my head, over and over and over.
If i even ATTEMPT to write anything down, i can't. My brain locks, and everything is left in there, fighting one another to be heard. It's actually doing my head in.
I feel so exhausted emotionally/mentally. It's just too much for me to take in. I'm not a sponge. I can't absorb it quickly. I hate it.
I don't feel safe. I find weekends awful for me. I don't know why, i can't give reasons because i actually DON'T know. I just hate weekends so much. And i know if i continue to take all these temazepam, i may one night soon take too many and not beable to stop myself.
I just feel like..even though this CPA meeting is being organised, that nothing will come of it. What are they going to say? Tell me to get therapy. That's helpful. REAL helpful. Where am i meant to go for this apparent therapy? How am i meant to get there? I can barely step outside my frontdoor without freaking out for god sake. That's why i've not had any counselling for so long, because there IS nothing in my area, and i simply can't travel.
I just feel it's all bloody pointless.
I feel like i've just done a massive U Turn, and i'm right back at the beginning again. New med taking - having to go through meds to find the "right" one for me. Therapy being suggested, but nothing being done, as i can't travel out of town and even if i was, i don't even think there's any free long term counselling places unless i pay private, which i refuse to do.
I feel like now i've been diagnosed, i will be shoved into a corner, given a bunch of meds, and that be it. Nothing will happen. I WILL be stuck like this for the foreseeable future, and i honestly just don't have the energy for that.
Meh. I'm rambling. Nothing makes sense.
Sorry :/
xx
I completely understand your anxiety, as this is something I have recently started to suffer from. All too often I felt like giving in to it and staying home because it was easier. My CMHT were actually quite unsympathetic but it gave me the kick I needed to do something. I got a voluntary job with my mum, we both went so I'd feel safe. Then the next week, she left early, then the week after earlier again. Last week I went completely on my own, and I did it even though before I went all I wanted to do was hide in bed.
Anxiety is something you can overcome. Even if you start by just opening the front door and looking outside. The next day you could take one step, stand there for a few minutes, and go back in.
I know how you feel, I truly do, but I don't want you to be overcome by this especially when something can be done about it.
I think Mind offer free counselling, it's worth finding out if they can offer you anything, even if it's out of town you can work at getting your confidence up leaving town.
It is all daunting, going through the process of trying meds again especially and struggling with this "life sentence" of BPD. I know that right now it is very hard to think you could ever be free of this, or even get to a point where it is managed, and it might be too soon to even start thinking about that. But even in a years time when things don't feel as raw, you might feel very differently, and feel ready to start reading the books and thinking about recovery.
At your CPA it might be helpful to mention everything you have said in this thread. If you don't feel able to have therapy in the community, would you consider residential treatment, somewhere like the Cassel perhaps? They offer a treatment package for people with personality disorders.
I'm aware that right now you probably don't want to consider most of the things I have suggested, and that's okay, but I wanted to suggest things for when you feel ready.
Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes but when you look back, everything is different…
you once called your brain a hard drive, well say hello to the virus.
control freak - (Sorry, unsure of your name) Cheers for your reply.
When i first had my suicide attempt in May '07, i continued with my job, pushing everything aside and just "getting on" with it (in my terms).
I stopped my nights out but i did continue to work.
I found some fake confidence and went for an interview for a new job.
Then my dad had a heart attack.
I developed severe mood swings, self esteem problems, and self image problems.
I hated my new job, i hated change but i stuck at it for nearly 4 weeks until i clashed with a supervisor (i was also a supervisor) at the place i was training at.
With my dad in hospital and my moods plummeting, when i took a few days off i went to the new store which we had to stock up (completely new just been built) and i was called in the managers office and told "I wasn't right for the position" - even though i clearly stated in both the application form AND at the interview that i suffered with severe depression.
I did get money when i lost the job, someone in the MH services wrote to them and said we would take legal action so they payed up (only 2 weeks wages).
On the day i lost my job, i went home and dissociated - all the doors to the house were open (it was November), i had litrali just walked in, collapsed on my bed, and sliced my arms to shreds.
Mum came home 30 minutes later - she'd popped to town - and found me covered in blood and started crying meh.
That's when i first encountered my GP, i'd seen him before but only about twice in so many years. I've not seen anyone else since.
I have pushed myself beyond my means quite alot, especially when i was with my ex partner and he'd come down to stay from Bristol (long distance relationship) as we'd often have to go out into town to get ourselves food for the week etc.
But as the months have gone on i've got incredibly worse. I actually lose days of sleep over the thought of just going to see my GP, because i am actually THAT scared of going out.
It isn't that i haven't tried the recommendations from people to take little steps etc, i have pushed myself so hard on so many occasions, but i actually find it physically/mentally/emotional impossible now.
I have tried everything in my power to get myself out of the house. I usually try to go to see my GP, as more often than not he likes to see me, but sometimes (often for 2-3 weeks, as i see him on a weekly basis) i have to put up with a phone consultation with him because i can't leave the house.
Even if i was to leave the house to say, town, that would be the limit for me. There is no way on hells earth i could travel outside of town, even if my mother/father was to drive me, i still couldn't do it. And, there's no way i could go on public transport on my own - even just thinking of it makes me have a panic attack.
I'd like nothing more than to do volunteer work, but it's out of the question, atleast for the forseeable future - and i don't even know if i will be around then, so i can't possibly comment on that.
I would like nothing more than to lead a relatively normal life, to go out and earn an income, to socialise, to have a job.
But, it's unrealistic of me to try and force myself to do something that is beyond my capability. I would rather throw myself infront of a moving vehicle than face the public, or talk to a stranger.
I won't even speak to another doctor, i only trust my GP. I beat myself up over just phoning my doctors reception to get an appointment, because i can't handle talking to a stranger on the other end of the phone.
But to be fair, that's why these plans are in place and they're completely fool proof, because there's no way that i will continue to put my mother/father in a position of caring for me. I'm a complete burden who should learn to suck it up and get on with it. But i don't, because i can't.
And as i've tried for many years to overcome this, it's just gone beyond patience. I just wanted somewhere to rant and vent, but it was stupid of me to make a thread, as it's giving others a false hope that i am "hoping" to get better, and i'm actually not. I have no hope, i don't wish to get better, i barely survive one hour let alone a day. I'm merely existing and a waste of fresh air, so there's no point - no, there really isn't any point in my being here. There's not a grounded enough reason for me to stay here, and it's doubtful anyone will find one.
I will probably delete this thread later, need to get around to saving things first.
Laura, recovery doesn't have to be a frightening process and neither is it something that "should" be accomplished within a couple of years, most sources i've looked at suggest a recovery (ie no longer a diagnosis) within five to fifteen years, so it's a long term aim, but certainly possible but it's not strange to think you might see improvement, if not recovery within a few years.
18.11 28.4 6.5 22.31
My heart just needs his smile, that i can't forget, like so melancholy a kiss.
just read your thread and dont think you should delete it as its always good to rant (not that i think you were ranting) and vent. lots better than keeping it bottled up.
as for thinking that your giving people false hope about you wanting to recover i dont think you should worry about that as from what ive read there's no pressure here to do anything that your not happy with and people will be here for you no matter what.
'recover' is not a good word, it suggests that there's some sort of dividing line you need to get over - there isn't, it's just steps in a process. You're great as you are and where you are, there's nothing to prove.
I hope this is an encouragement - I used to walk everywhere rather than have to speak to the bus driver to ask for a ticket (luckily I lived in quite a small town!), in the past few years I have travelled all over the world on my own. I would never have believed I could do that. But nothing was ever as scary as getting the courage to ask for a bus ticket in my home town. Hang on in there, it will get easier...
Hey hun, I've also been diagnosed with bpd (though they can never seem to make up their minds about it) and I know it's horrible, like they can sum up your whole personality in just one word. It's also invalidating, I find when people say 'oh that's just your personality disorder.' I was also told something on the lines of 'it'll be crap now but will probably get better when you're about 40' so I get where you're coming from completely.
I hope you don't mind this, but saw you said they told you to just deal with itpretty much, and that really pissed me off, that you should be left with such a blow to deal with on your own, so I looked up what services might be available to you (looking at your profile, I'm not a stalker honest, just wanted to help). I thought it would be useful to know exactly what is out there, and I've found some stuff for each possible area of cambridgeshire, if youdon't feel up to looking at them that's fine, maybe or someone else could tell you via pm or msn what there is. But know your rights. There are NICE Guidelines in the making, they shouldbe out January, I've heard.
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