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My name is Bonnie, and I have borderline personality disorder. If you don't know what this is, allow me to elaborate. Borderline personality disorder is a mental disorder characterized by unstable moods, behavior, and relationships. Symptoms can include emotional instability, feelings of worthlessness, insecurity, impulsivity, and impaired social relationships.
To get more in-depth with this information, it looks something like this- fear of abandonment, people with this often feel terrified that they will be left alone, unstable relationships as stated above, unclear or shifting self-image, impulsive and self-destructive behaviors, self-harm, extreme emotional swings, chronic feelings of emptiness, explosive anger, and feeling suspicious or out of touch with reality-which basically means that you struggle with paranoia or suspicious thoughts about others motives. Those are the 9 basic symptoms of Borderline personality disorder or BPD for short.
Now, these symptoms can vary between people and in different intensities. For example- I really struggle with the fear of abandonment, healthy relationships, not feeling how people generally feel or mean when they talk to me, impulsive needs to speed and spend money (I do pay my bills first), emotional swings, and not so nice feelings about myself or no self-worth rather.
There are also some common co-occurring disorders to go with this disorder. They can include depression or bipolar disorder, substance abuse, eating disorders, and anxiety disorders. For me, I have depression and anxiety. I do take Zoloft for depression and can usually deal with the anxiety on my own. This is the basic outline of BPD to help you understand a little bit about what it means. I would like to tell you how it really affects my day-to-day life and how I cope and how the people around me deal with my mental disorder. It can be quite challenging at times for them and for myself.
This will be a day-to-day blog or diary of some sorts about it. I hope that it can help someone else who may have this to not feel so alone or to help someone understand how a loved one with BPD can be. And it's just really a love letter to myself and my loved ones. My therapist will be very happy that I'm doing this because it's always a good idea to write down how you feel every day so you can read back on it and help yourself cope with it.
There is no cure for BPD but you can help yourself manage your symptoms so that you can function in your everyday life, and to not have the people around you run away. Yes, it can very much lead to that.
You may be asking how one person can develop BPD. Most mental health professionals believe that it can be caused by a combination of inherited or internal biological factors, such as traumatic experiences in childhood. It's also important to know that you do need to seek professional help if you think you or someone you know has this. It's not something you can diagnose yourself. Since BPD can come with other disorders as described above- it's extremely important to seek help. Treatment can vary with therapy and medications.
So, there's BPD in a nutshell. I hope you are still with me and decide to stay with me through this journey of self-discovery and finally being able to fly free. It may not always be pretty and I'm really putting myself out there. There will be people who may not be able to relate and may judge. And that's okay. This blog isn't for them. So grab a cup of coffee, tea, soda, milk, whatever your drink of choice may be. For some, it could be a shot of tequila.;) And let's fly....
