For my first proper post on here I thought I may as well dive straight in.. I want to use this blog to raise awareness on issues as well as help others, and BPD is something which isn't as widely known as it should be, so this post is more of an insight into what it actually is. In late 2017 when I was 19 I finally got my official diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, a PD which affects your ability to regulate emotions, keep stable relationships and cope with intense mood swings. I'd always known this was the case, but getting a diagnosis of BPD can be extremely difficult, firstly I was told I'd have to wait til I was part of adults mental health team as doctors can be reluctant to diagnose til you're around 20/21, and secondly I was told I just had depression for a long time, despite insisting there was something more.
So what is BPD? For those of you who don't know, it is one of the most common personality disorders, and is described as "mood disorder that affects how people interact with others, and affects 4 key areas, emotional instability, disturbed patterns of thinking, impulsive behaviors and intense but unstable relationships with others" it can often be confused for bipolar, but where someone with bipolar may experience weeks or months of highs and lows, someone with BPD can change from extreme happiness to extreme depression in seconds, and this can happen multiple times a day.
There are 9 main symptoms, and you have to have at least 5 to gain a diagnosis. These are;
- a great fear of abandonment, and you are willing to do anything to stop this
- intense emotions that change quickly (e.g going from happy and confident to suddenly feeling sad and self-conscious)
- not having a strong sense of who you are (e.g taking on a different persona around different people, making drastic appearance changes to feel "you")
- difficult to make and keep stable relationships - this could be romantic or just friends
- feelings of emptiness
- impulsiveness - e.g using drugs, spending recklessly or binge eating etc
- self-harming or suicidal thoughts
- intense feelings and bouts of anger
- experiences of paranoia or disassociation (e.g the world/you not feeling real as you have disassociated to cope with trauma/crisis)
This makes having BPD hard to associate with other people who also have BPD, as people can have any combination of the above symptoms, personally I have experienced all 9 in my life as have most people with BPD, and learning to cope with all of them is important step in recovery, as well as noticing when and if you do the above things too.
Put in simple terms, for me, having BPD means that I frequently have bouts of paranoia, mainly taking its form as thinking people don't like me or don't want me around in their life, thinking I'm being talked about etc, which can make friendships difficult, and I find it very hard to trust and believe people if they are nice to me etc. I also have extreme mood swings, so I can experience a bout of mania where I am totally ecstatic, this is usually around friends or new people, and I lose my impulse control, so I will drink too much, spend too much money, decide to get a new tattoo, change my hair, or anything, and after a few hours at max I will suddenly feel very empty, very sad and need to get home and be on my own to recover. I am lucky to have people around me who understand when this happens and can get me out and help me but when you don't it can be very scary and very overwhelming, leading to panic attacks or even suicidal thoughts, which is a specific blog post I want to focus on in the near future.
I have my good days, just like anyone with a mental illness, and at the minute I haven't had a bad episode in a few weeks, but the problem with BPD is knowing just how hard and fast this can change. It could take seconds for me to suddenly crash and my mood be completely different, rendering me unable to speak to people, unable to get out of bed and unable to cope with the day. But that's okay too, I have my bad days and I have times where I'm so low I don't know what to do with myself. But healing isn't linear. Recovery isn't a straight line and you have to go through the phases sadly, which I intend to share on this blog as raw and as honest as it feels in real life.
I hope this has opened a few eyes on what BPD is and maybe even resonated within some people that maybe this is something they're going through too, as always feel free to contact me or leave a comment and share.
Meg x