So my last post on the '15 'embarrassing' symptoms of BPD' went down extremely well as my most popular post to date, and thought I'd do a spin on that continuing with BPD awareness month and have a look at 13 positive traits of people with BPD. There are always going to be stigmas and misconceptions around any mental illness, BPD especially, so I like to remind myself of these positive aspects when I'm feeling particularly down about it.

1. Empathy

This is one that made the bad list, but I wanted to also mention it here. We may be so empathetic that it physcially hurts us, but that also means we understand people's pain, we truly feel it for you meaning when we say we understand, we mean it. We understand people's sorrows no matter how small and feel their pain with them.

2. Loving

Because we have such intense emotions and feelings, when we love someone, we love them HARD, this does have have it's negative connotations of obsessive and clingy, but we when we love you, we mean it. We would do anything for our loved ones and really would go to the end of the earth for someone if they needed it from us.

3. Extreme highs

With extreme emotions comes extreme mood swings, these can be difficult to deal with but it also means when we are on a high we are elated, we feel everything rushing through our veins and truly do feel the happiest possible. We try and do everything we can in this time, and think we can do more than we are able but god loves a trier!

4. Creative

With a lot of mental illness comes creativity, hence why art therapies are so popular and important. Idle minds are not good for BPD and so a lot of us tend to be very arty and creative, a lot of people I know with BPD are fantastic at creative outlets like sewing, knitting etc. Personally my creative outlet is my bullet journal, I use it when I'm sad or happy to forget about how I feel and just enjoy doodling and creating something that's truly mine.

5. Compassionate 

Because a lot of us have felt a lot of pain in our lives, we want nothing but to help others and are very compassionate. A lot of us take on careers where we can help others, I myself am in support work for people with mental health issues, and know many people with BPD who do similar care careers.

6. Easily Excited

With BPD comes our extreme emotions and so we can find ourselves in an almost child-like state when it comes to excitement, being filled with happiness and joy is such an experience for us that we feel it a lot stronger than other people, and we are infectiously excited about things, even it's for someone else.

7. Relate easily

We feel a lot of emotions in ourselves, and therefore we can relate to nearly every emotion and every situation because chances are, we've felt it. We feel so much that we can relate to any problem and able to put ourselves in other people's shoes and see the problems.

8. Passionate

When we decide to take on something, we can easily become obsessed, and this transpires into great passion about a new hobby or task to complete. I recently have had an obsession with my bullet journal and doodling in it and filling it in with nice pages, and I am passionate about it looking it's best and looking after it. We are also passionate about other people's ventures, we believe and see the best in the people we love and are passionate about what they and we do

9. Loyal

When we love someone, we love them hard. We are very loyal both in relationships with romantic partners and friends, we would never want to hurt anyone and can again become almost obsessed with people, meaning we are very loyal friends and would never leave your side.

10. Aware

With BPD tends to come a lot of self-awareness, both of people/things around us and of ourselves. We can sense when an atmosphere is off or if someone is feeling something odd in a group. We can know instantly when something or someone is wrong or not feeling right, it's almost like a tangible feeling inside. We also can be very aware and very logical thinking, and able to think through situations to find a conclusion by taking in every aspect around us.

11. Spontaneous

12. Relatable

Because we have been hurt so much in the past and experienced so much pain, we can relate to nearly every situation for someone else, and also can put ourselves in their shoes easily and are very good at reassurance. People can easily relate to us as we make ourselves that way.

13. Resilient

Another reason we have experienced so much pain, we are resilient and know better times can come. BPD causes a lot of major mood swings meaning we go up and down very quickly and very often, so we know it gets better and have often endured extreme pain and suffering too.

I hope you guys enjoyed this more positive post on BPD, if you have any other positives to add please leave me a comment below!

Meg x