I talk about my experience with BPD a lot on here, and I follow a lot of fellow BPD sufferers on twitter, who talk about the symptoms very openly on their social medias which spurred me to write this post on 'embarrassing' symptoms that aren't talked about. There are the main 9 symptoms that are well known on BPD, but alongside those come a lot of other things that can be hard to talk about or open up about, so I thought I'd share some for you guys. It's also still Borderline Personality Disorder Awareness Month so thought I'd share a few more BPD posts with you guys to support it. (
Here is my first post for awareness month!)
1. Feelings With Sex and Rejection
With BPD comes impulsiveness, and with impulsiveness comes promiscuity, and in many cases (mine included) sex is something used to feel self-worth and in control of your life. When someone says no to having sex with you, this can feel like the biggest rejection of them all, you are therefore worthless and filled with self-loathing. Many women with BPD face the stigma of being hyper sexual, as some of can become sex obsessed and need to be intimate with someone a lot of the time to feel.
2. Random Disassociation
Another embarrassing trait is disassociation, especially when it happens randomly. You could be sat amongst friends, sat in a meeting, with family etc and then suddenly feel yourself disappear and become numb and feel as though you aren't real. Disassociation can be scary at first and especially when it comes and goes in random bouts, but it will always end.
3.Paranoia With Friendships
With BPD comes paranoia, especially around our loved ones. I find myself asking my friends "am I annoying you?" "am I bothering you?" frequently in panic that I am annoying everyone I speak to and my friends don't really love me and are just putting up with me. It can be extremely frustrating when you are having these paranoid thoughts and can also I imagine be frustrating for the other person but reassuring someone with BPD regularly is always important and useful.
4. Flaking On Plans
This is one for all mental illnesses, but often you can make plans with someone when on a high or a good day and then when it comes around you may have come onto a low and suddenly not be able to make the plans and having to cancel last minute to recuperate and spend time alone, which is perfectly acceptable but you can feel intense guilt for cancelling as much as you can't help it.
5. Impulsiveness
Impulse control is something that doesn't come easily to people with BPD, when we're on a high or a low we can use our impulses to try and cover our emotions and make questionable decisions, such as promiscuity as mentioned before, drug or alcohol abuse or gambling. Personally mine was a little less dangerous, shopping. I would shop online whenever I felt sad and spent all my money on makeup and clothes I didn't need and feel more sad when they arrived and It didn't make me happy.
6. Obsessive Behaviours
When we like something, we tend to obsess over them. This is another symptom that can mean people with BPD often get misread as on the autistic spectrum, we become obsessed with objects or individuals or anything very easily for a long time. For example growing up (and the same time I came out as bisexual as it happens) I was obsessed with the model Cara Delevigne, I had posters on my wall, she was all of my background pictures, and all I spoke about. For a long time and currently it is cacti and plants, I have everything cacti themed in my room and always buy them. At the minute I'm also having an obsession with mental health, I research it for blog posts obviously but I love reading about it, talking about it etc. It really can be anything that you become obsessed with.
7. Centre Of Attention
Sometimes we may want to do everything to shy away from attention and hide, and other times we can accidentally make ourselves the centre of the conversation, we don't always mean to do this as an attention thing, but sometimes we are trying so hard to fit in and be part of the conversation that we accidentally one-up people in conversation, it can be difficult and cause us later embarrassment and cringe but it's accidental.
8. Over sharing
Over-sharing is another 'trying to fit in' symptom of BPD, we try so hard to make conversation and fit in and be 'normal' that we tend to accidentally over-share and get a bout of word vomit. Then once you've started over sharing and realised you've done it, you do it more to cover it up and get stuck in a vicious cycle. This can also happen in the form of over-texting someone, we get so wound up that someone is ignoring us and hates us and is fed up of us we try and take it back what we've said by keeping on texting. It's pretty annoying for us too.
9. Rejection
We do NOT take rejection well. This is one of my most embarrassing traits, I can't take rejection in any form. I once got rejected for a job after an interview before my diagnosis and spent 24 hours in a depressed slump sobbing profusely into my pillow about not being good enough, not being wanted and being overall worthless - drama queenz. This can come in terms of any rejection, from a partner not wanting to have sex with you, from someone being too busy to see you, from someone not putting a 'x' on the end of a text when you put one, all sorts of stuff can feel like a deep personal rejection. This can also then lead to being 'clingy' and needing more attention, and you get stuck in a cycle again, when my boyfriend isn't at mine or near me (we live in different cities) and he's say too busy for a phone call, I can end up feeling deeply rejected and end up over messaging him and get stuck in this cycle and he has to tell me I'm being overly needy to remind me.
10. Explosive Anger
A lot of people with BPD think that they have anger issues before getting a diagnosis, myself included. We get told we have anger problems that need to be helped, and I have been called 'volatile' by many professionals, because of my easily tipped anger. It could be the simplest things on a bad day, I've told my mum to fuck off just for having left her coat on the stairs before - I am the worst person to be around on a bad day seriously. We can turn into very different people when angry, and be unrecognizable, I've had episodes where I've sworn and shouted at loved ones and not even remember what I said because it's come from a deep anger side of me inside. This can fill us with great shame and embarrassment and be very painful to deal with. Even when I'm sat on my own sometimes I get randomly filled with anger and have to let out a scream or throw a pillow or do something therapeutic.
11. Numbness/ Lack of empathy
Now this is going to contradict with my next symptom, but sometimes we are so filled with overwhelming emotions that we turn numb and suddenly lose our empathetic ways. My mum used to say I could be so cold hearted, and this was usually when I had a sad/bad day and I don't want to talk or be around other people, I can seem incredibly cold and mean spirited and say I don't care about anything when in reality my brain is already so full it could burst and I just can't take anymore in m head.
12. Overly Empathetic
Like I said, although we can go numb and empty, a lot of the time we are extremely empathetic. It's a common stigma that we are unlovable and can't love others, when in reality we feel everything for people. We are often 'empaths' which means having the ability to perceive and feel the mental state of someone else. Often this can happen to me when I'm just reading a book, I recently read a book about a girl with deep mental health issues and all I would do when I read about her struggling was sit and cry, I could feel her pain deep within me and just resorted me to tears every time. This can also happen with films, other peoples pain and everything in-between, when other people are sad I find it difficult to soothe them as I can always feel their pain and end up getting upset myself.
13. Not Taking Care Of Yourself
This is something that comes often with depression, but on down days, it can be hard to do the little things like getting out of bed, getting a shower, brushing your teeth. These things can be easily forgotten about when you're feeling depressed and you end up just sitting there in your filth moping about. It can be embarrassing when someone tries to help or visit you when you haven't washed in 3 days from being in a depressed duvet burrito.
14. No Identity
One thing we with BPD can find most embarrassing is our lack of identity, I want to write a full post explaining this but put simply, we don't often know who we are and can find ourselves taking our identity upon the people we are around, so a funnier, happier, perkier kind of person around the people we spend time with, this can also come from taking upon their personas too and almost becoming them to feel at one.
15. Overly Sensitive
Another worst trait of mine and one I find most embarrassing is how sensitive I am, a lot of this comes from my empath side, When I feel someone else's sadness this can make me incredibly sad myself and I end up crying for them. If I am ever shouted at or given any sort of constructive criticism I will no doubt start crying, it is impossible to ever tell me off or tell me something you don't like that I've done without me crying, I am basically a faucet most of times waiting to blow. It could be something so silly as seeing an advert for starving kids and If I'm feeling particularly sensitive that day I'll just bawl my eyes out.
Hope anyone else with BPD has been able to relate and anyone else has learnt something new about BPD and how we work and the sad things we get up to. As usual leave any comments below and like and share!
Meg x
