I am going to do something I usually don't do and get personal. This past week has been pretty damned rough to get through and to the outsider looking in, what they see is a happy person standing in front of them. What they don't know is this is a lie. To even type what I am about to type is difficult to do because I all want to do is hide it from the world. It will in fact take several minutes before I even type it as I'll sit and contemplate whether or not to actually type the words. Which is part of the problem.
What many people don't know about me is that I am a person diagnosed with what clinicians call borderline personality disorder. Some of my closest friends who are in fact few and far between and sometimes to me don't exist at all don't know. To the ones that do know, the response when I tell them is generally the same. They always look at me and say "well, that explains a lot" as though they somehow can understand. The truth of the matter is they can't understand. The even more truth of the matter is that people who don't have it can never understand just how deep it goes. I don't even fully understand it and I live with it everyday. I constantly struggle with who I am and something always triggers an episode. The episodes can range from anything to feelings of extreme anger to severe depression to loneliness and emptiness. Where I get really truthful and something that only a very few select are aware of is that I have seen a padded cell from the inside.
One of the most common traits of a borderline are the mood shifts that happen suddenly and without reason except in the mind of the borderline, which are very often imagined. The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) lists 9 criterion which are used to diagnose Borderline Personality Disorder which I'll put below.
1. frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5. 2. a pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.
3. identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.
4. impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating). Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5
5. recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior
6. affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days).
7. chronic feelings of emptiness
8. inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights)
9. transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms
Now the thing about BPD is that it covers such a broad range that it is diagnosed more often than it should be with a patient only having 6 or sometimes very few of the criterion. I was diagnosed with BPD after meeting all 9 of the criterion for the diagnosis. This diagnosis was not handed out easily as many psychologists like to avoid it due to it's broad range. The diagnosis was only given after checking my personal, family, and relationship history as well. My psychologist certainly was not going on just the criterion and would at times intentionally set up triggers for an episode to further help with the diagnosis. A borderline sees things only in black and white with no gray area of any kind. To a borderline, someone is either all good or all bad. In other words, a borderline either hates or loves someone, there is no in between, and these feelings are far more intense than that of a "normal person" My psychologist would often do either good or bad things or more truthfully what I perceived as good or bad to trigger this emotional response. For instance, during my stay in the "hospital" he told me I would be allowed to leave the next day and when the next day came, he did not let me leave. He did this purposefully to test my emotional range. The day he said I could leave I praised him to everyone, the following day when he said I couldn't, I expressed my anger and subsequent hatred of him outwardly. I mention this not only to show the steps taken for the diagnosis but also because this is an example of what life is like for a borderline. It doesn't stop. Ever. Meds don't help, at least in my case. It's a struggle everyday and I have to deal with it everyday. I have to force myself out of bed and have continually have to find a reason to go on.
Borderlines could be described as the perfect people to represent the "self-fulfilling prophecy". We fear abandonment, and will do anything to prevent it from happening. Our attempts to prevent it are generally the cause of the abandonment, either real or imaginary. Or any some cases, we abandon people before the can abandon us. As stated at the start, I have been having a rough week and suffered a few episodes, I've lashed out at coworkers for no reason, avoided my friends, ignored many of them, and this worst part of it all is that I can't even begin to attempt to explain why. The biggest thing that gets me as well is that I struggle to understand all of this, but at the same time want someone else to understand as well. This is the real struggle.
I also do this so that perhaps others who are dealing with what I deal with everyday or who have friends who are dealing with it, this will help them to understand it better. At the very least, watch this video. It certainly deeply effects me and in someway helps.
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