My Identity

Many people without BPD feel identity loss and issues, but a core symptom of BPD is a lack of an identity and ensuing identity crises. A good sense of identity is knowing who you are and where you belong in the world, knowing your place so to speak. A stable identity is understanding you can change and you still remain the same person deep down, and is made up of your beliefs, opinions, personality and who you are as a person.

So someone with BPD may struggle to have a stable sense of self, they may struggle to understand who they are and this often leads to clinging to our labels to understand ourselves, putting ourselves into little boxes to understand who we are.

As a kid I always wanted to be a writer. I wanted to own a big country farm house, have a stable family life and tend to animals on my farm, I wanted the perfect life and the perfect career and basically become the next Jacqueline Wilson. This then changed a lot, and landed on tattooist. I read everything about tattoos, I watched shows about tattoos, I researched and drew tattoos, everything I was was surrounded in this sense of self of who I wanted to be. This cycle kept going on for a while, nurse, mental health nurse, therapist, and onto smaller things like being a girlfriend, a good friend, a good daughter.

We put ourselves in boxes labelled to help us feel, help stable ourselves out on even ground. As a kid with an eating disorder I put myself in the box labelled 'anorexic', everything I did was surrounded by my eating disorder, I read about them, I read books about people with anorexia, everything I did was to lose weight and be the thinnest, that was who I was. Then I recovered, and I had a period of recovery where I felt very lost, I was no longer the thinnest, I wasn't the illest, I was fine. Until I picked back up a blade to feel myself again, I had to feel something and feel like someone again, so I went back into my mentally ill ways. Then I was put into the box 'depressed'.

Currently, I've put myself in many boxes, picking out the personality from each box and deciding what costume to wear that day. Am I girlfriend Meg? The happy, upbeat and in love version of myself? Or am I best friend Meg, am I the funny, witty , sarcastic Meg who tries to make people laugh and fit in? Or am I depressed Meg? The Meg that can't get out of bed today, and mopes around waiting for someone to fix me?

Getting my diagnosis of BPD helped me find a sense of self, helped me to understand I'm not crazy, i'm not losing my mind, I have a condition and the symptoms that come along with it. I am Meg with BPD, I am Meg who people don't see, the one who experiences melt downs, depressed days, but I'm also Meg who is a daughter, sister, auntie, girlfriend and friend, the witty, sarcastic Meg that I let people see.

Finding my identity has been hard, and will continue to be hard for a long time I imagine, I have times where I feel like I have a stable sense of self, and then I'm on my own and I think, who am I? Who would I be without my condition? Who would I be if I didn't take medication? There are so many versions of myself that already exist and yet I struggle to understand what would it be like if there were even more. Still now when I'm not around my friends or my boyfriend I sit and become sad and think who am I without the people around me?

You see, with BPD, we are trying so hard to find ourselves, to understand what kind of person we are and want to be, that we become the people around us. We take on their personalities, their humour and their jokes, even their lingo and make it ours to feel as though we know who we are, when in fact we are clutching at other people's identities trying to mould it into our own.

But this can also be a good thing, it mean we can be a chameleon of sorts, we can mould and change ourselves into the people around us to fit in, we always have conversations starters ready, and we know how to make other people feel comfortable by becoming them. It also means we have many opinions and beliefs and so many personalities and different personas to take on, we are filled with opportunities to take because of how different and flexible we can be, we can fit and mould into anything we want.

It's hard, and it doesn't make a lot of sense but there are good parts to this illness, and this is what I want to focus on too as part of this blog, because god is it hard. A lot of people who also have BPD have told me they read this blog and so I just want to tell you all, you're not alone! I hope this little ramble made sense and was at least an interesting read, as I'm having a bit of a down moment and thought I'd take to my blog to get it all out.

As usual, like, comment and share and let me know your thoughts below!

Meg x