I haven't posted for a while because to be honest sometimes I just don't want to think about the term BPD or talk about it or be it. Sometimes I feel like too much emphasis is put on having what they call BPD. I don't like the effect this diagnosis has on me let alone the Borderline Personality Disorder itself. So, I took a break. I found I just had to avoid it for a while 'til I knew I was ready. This week I got a very big encouragement from someone who read my posts ( see comment from Rahul ) You first need to read his comments to understand what I am about to say next, so I will copy and past what he said and post it in red. This is what Rahul posted in my comments. I read thru all your blogs and it was difficult to stop my tears. What you have described is shockingly similar to what my wife of 4 yrs seems to be experiencing. It took me a long time to really understand why she does what she does, why she feels what she feels and it was really frustrating. I was putting my best foot forward but she was always unhappy, fighting and saying hurtful things. I am thankful to Internet that I started researching trying to understand her and now I know a little better. I have read thru lots of information on Internet. But I think sharing with you would really help me help my wife coz you can relate to her feelings more than I can right now. I want to reach a level where I would be able to relate and comfort her and may be ease her pain a little. At the same time I want to maintain my emotional well being as well so we don't break down. I really admire your strength and willingness to understand yourself and set up a path to healing. Will share more in times to come. You bring inspiration to me and I am really thankful for that. I wish you all the best. So Rahul, I may not be able to write a full post as yet because I still feel like I want some time out from BPD blogging. But I certainly feel so encouraged that having a problem like this isn't all bad news if it can help someone else. If I can actually be of use to someone else within this crappy diagnosis then that gives me some hope that not all is lost. The end. Sorry folks, will try again later. This is the best I can do right now

God bless

Eve

Just a short catch up this time

Have you ever been known to cry and not cope with the general community if they are rude? It's as though it is personal to me. Not that people have it in for me, but I have this sense that I deserve this treatment because for some reason, I just do. I notice every little thing that people say and do to me and it can crush me deep to the bone. Even if someone is rude to me on the road or not smile when I smile at them. I find I can think about these events, what others would call minor and wonder what I may have done wrong? oscillating from hurt to anger. I was at the medical center last week and in the waiting room, a girl and I made eye contact. I smiled, she frowned. Do you know I haven't been able to let that episode go? I felt really mortified underneath, I felt bad, like I did something wrong to her and she was angry with me. Did I look at her wrong? Did she just take a disliking to me? Was she jealous? Do I look bitchy? I mean who cares? I can sometimes go through the day picking up what everyone must be thinking and being very sensitive to their response toward me. I have to be loved or liked most days. I must admit this is just one of the moods I can wake up with. Then on another day I may be full of confidence. So the example scenario might happen only sometimes. Then tomorrow there will be a new struggle and the next day? Well having BPD can be a lucky dip with me. Mmm I wonder. What will my mood be today that I have to battle with? What thoughts will I be struggling with today? Other days its as though BPD never existed and it transcends into never, never land. Oh well at least it makes life interesting, NOT! I could definitely think of more fun ways to do life! I still can't believe that this isn't normal for everyone to feel this way? Sometimes I wonder what it feels like to be someone else who doesn't have a mental disorder or illness. I may never know though maybe 'cos I do. Although I hope for a full recovery it is early days. We'll see, I'm not expecting miracles overnight, but I am expecting a miracle of some kind 'cos I have faith! and I'm also willing to put in the work that may be necessary in finding those keys to health and happiness. I have to believe they are there somewhere. I comfort myself with the thought that I'm not alone in this struggle. Just about everyone on this planet struggles with something, mine just happens to be Borderline Personality Disorder.Its a not fun prognosis, but that's just the way the cookie crumbles I guess? Thanks for listening again and please comment it would really make my day!
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Also scroll down to read some other recent BPD post. Thanks

BPD- The journey inside my mind during an episode

I've noticed that there is a direct correlation between Love and my incredible need for it, as much as there is for air, when talking about BPD and it's symptoms. Especially, but not reserved for when dealing with my significant 'other' and our interpersonal relationship. It's as though my world and my emotional stability pivots around this HUGE and life threatening need and my very life depends upon it. Being diagnosed with high functioning BPD can be tricky. I've noticed that I can sometimes actually think to myself to a large degree that, "it's gone! I'm normal again ! I must have been cured by this beautiful love I've been feeling and experiencing with my partner. Then all of a sudden in the blink of an eye it can all come crashing down and I can fall headlong into a sea of terror and hurt and confusion and pain through some event that is catastrophized in my mind that I'm no longer loved or wanted. This insecurity can come upon me so quickly, as though coming from behind with no prior warning. My security can go from being total to being threatened every time my love line is broken or should I say perceived to be broken, or if I'm not getting a clear message that I am loved and heard and wanted. It can happen for many reasons that are common to relationships that others seem to cope with better than me. I used to think that everyone felt like this in their relationships? So easily terrified and afraid that I am no longer wanted anymore and maybe I have never truly been. But I'm beginning to realize that this is me, this is something that others don't necessarily go through really, at least to this extent. They may go through similar feelings but the intensity is often reserved for us BPD sufferers. Wow, I should get a tattslotto ticket! lucky me! What to me has been normal for as long as I can remember is quite unusual as a matter of fact, or so I'm told. Apparently the average human being doesn't feel those intensity's like I do. Hooray, now I know why I've always felt different, like I'm from another planet. Take me back to the planet I say! Oh my goodness, imagine a whole planet of BPD's?
It's difficult because having a BPD diagnoses is like no longer being able to trust my own voice, or the voice I've always known. The one that says, It's them!! they are the enemy!! they're doing this to you!! hurting you, making you feel insecure, unloved, bad! The voice I've listened to my whole life. The voice of pain that justifies my huge reactions has to be really assessed from a BPD point of view now and that can be very confronting. My pain is so monumental that I can be just so sure it's them that's making me feel this bad and that I am the victim of their wrongdoing. This doesn't mean it's not real! It may be blown out of context or proportion, yes! but it is very real to me. It is so real that no one can convince me otherwise at the time I am experiencing this attack as I call it.. I guess the starting point is realizing where the pain is coming from and often it's from inside. It may have even been there a very long time. It may be a little child's voice. One that wasn't heard so long ago that I don't recognize that child's pained voice anymore. I shut her voice out so often that it's easier just to blame. It wasn't really my fault, I had to shut her voice out back then just to conform, stay safe. Was I ever really safe? Besides who ever listened to her anyway? She wasn't worth listening to. Or was she? So I project my pain onto someone else, often my significant other, or it could be a work colleague that has been bothering me for some time. Once again making me feel dis empowered maybe? Of course this is just a hypothesis or a scenario. I'm not suggesting that every voice of pain is from my childhood but I am simply speaking what is common to me. This voice at the time of pain really is deceiving in a way. It isn't very intelligent, logical and certainly has no self discipline. This voice has been trained through much practice to recognize pain and scream it out at 1000 decibels. So loud! that I can't necessarily hear any voice of reason or logic. To not react to the pain would be like having my hand scorched on a hot plate and being made not to react again like always. Be good, sit down, shut up, stay quiet! But I am an adult and now I know I have a right to be heard and be heard I will! that same voice is demanding! There can be no more denial, I am angry at denial. I was crushed once and won't be crushed again! Does this sound familiar? Or is it just me that has these feelings? These experiences? How hard is it now to have to believe that this isn't happening? How must those I love feel when I have these out of control and often profanely expressive outbursts? What must I look like to them? I'm yet to begin my journey of recovery but I'm really looking forward to gaining new insight and skills into how to deal with these intense feelings and temporary moments of lost insanity. I want stability, I don't want to be afraid of losing anymore loved one's over this disease that follows me around and has reaped so much havoc in my past. Destroyed so many wonderful, potential relationships and/ or opportunities. I'm sure if you have an interest in BPD you will relate to some of this.

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Also scroll down to read some other recent BPD post. Thanks

After living in my feelings for many years.....

After living in my feelings for so many years it has been really, really, hard but I have experienced both positives and negatives because of being like this. So my take on life is that if I embrace the positive aspects and be thankful that there are some very positive things I can get out of this whole troubling mental disorder they have a name for, and if I can somehow reach for the help I need and begin to work on the negative things and turn them into positives, then I can have myself a win, win! All sounds good, not easy but doable,or at least I have to try my best. Let me elaborate more. When I mention positives and negatives I will begin to share what I see as the positive aspects that have come out of having BPD . It has developed a search inside me for answers and that search has developed a great self awareness. I have dug deep within for truth and clarity and also learnt to hear what my feelings are speaking to me, not just have them swimming around leading me this way or that! This has and is taking a long time, It's not an overnight experience. The art of 'self' is quite a life long journey. When I have seen counsellors and professionals they have always remarked almost in awe at my self awareness, I guess that's why they call me high functioning BPD. I don't think I always was, only when I began trying to help myself. Also through seeking answers I have developed a lot of knowledge about how humans think and act and how intricate our souls are. It has become an interest and a study that has inspired me to learn more and more not just about myself but psychology in general and spirituality as well. I don't think that I would have taken this path had I not had to and yes I did have to or I would not have survived I believe. I really had to become my own counsellor so to speak since I never could find anyone who fully understood me. There was the odd person here and there but never anyone who really called what I was experiencing something tangible like when my psych first said " I believe you have BPD " when I was 46 years old. That's a long time to not know what is wrong with you and feel yourself become progressively worse over time. Wow! it hit me like a ton of bricks for a week, I went from crying to relief then crying again. I became depressed and then was able to cope again or at least stumble along some more like always. Before that I never had any answers to my specific condition but I knew there was something definitely going on and so did everyone that knew me. It was quite embarrassing and humiliating and still is to be honest. So before diagnoses I was desperately seeking some answers f because of pain, suffering, and bad circumstances repeating in my life and how I dealt with them. I felt pushed toward self help and understanding and in the long run I found great benefit out of it. It still didn't solve everything but I took the edge off at least.
Another positive I see that has come out of having BPD is that through suffering a lot and having to find the answers for myself meant that I often went without understanding or a great deal of validation or comfort from others. That in itself is definitely NOT a positive but it did bring out some positives in the long run. Well, firstly I became very angry and hurt because it always felt to me like more of what caused my condition in the first place was being done to me again. This reinforced my pain and hurt. But then I began to turn the situation around and meet a lot of my own needs. Not because I am a super powered positive thinker, but just in order to survive. I had to stop sinking into despair. Through self awareness and self validation, self understanding etc. I sought my own comfort that I felt others weren't giving me and never really had. This didn't fix the pain of being let down again by others, inside there is still some bitterness I must admit. I felt pain that no one around me seemed to want or be able to do what I saw as obvious, like caring, and what I feel I so often do for others. I so often want someone to listen, understand, offer comfort, validation. But I have had to come to the conclusion that I believe that the average person is ill equipt to do what I may see as obvious. Either most of us don't have the capacity to give because we aren't having our emotional needs met firstly ourselves or it could also be that The BPD personality is so often so highly explosive and demanding emotionally that often people protect themselves or just switch off. This to those of us who suffer with BPD is just more rejection and abandonment, repeating the whole cycle of hurt again. Because having BPD symptoms and behaviours are normal to us and we only know this world we have experienced we can often wonder why others don't seem to know or understand our level of emotional pain. We ask ourselves "don't they feel it too? then why do I react differently to most, why am I so highly strung? why do I get so angry and upset and even want to die?why can't they just understand and heal my pain?" Any wonder so many of us self medicate, we have to get pain relief or comfort from somewhere and since we don't know where and we so often can feel so very alone and have a history of feeling not nurtured etc until we can learn to understand ourselves a lot more and have more positive strategies in place such as diagnoses, a level self understanding & understanding for others and their world as well to somehow take the focus off us this can seem our only option. To me it's very hard to realise that not everyone thinks like me, feels pain the way I do. That isn't to say others don't feel pain and pain is only something that BPD'S feel. I can only speak for myself and for my level of pain or my pain threshold. The way I see it is that if I don't seek and reach out for the help available then on the story goes, one more hurt added to the list, one more reason to feel intense pain, one more disappointment and even one more reason to give up on life and not want to 'do' life anymore!

Labels, Alphabetical Achronyms. So what turns on it?

As I have said this diagnoses is very new to me, well in the bigger scheme of things at least. Having existed for 46 years without knowing that what made me feel different and troubled and prone to depression amongst other things was something they actually call Borderline Personality Disorder. I've gone through the trials and tribulations of misdiagnoses and still no relief to finally come to a place of rest and peace. Almost like arriving to a place I've never been before after a really long trip, but strangely feeling like I know this place, I think it's home? I sit down by the fire place on the rocking chair of life, rest, and think back on the journey for a while. Then begin to feel the fire warm up my bones and soothe my aching limbs. Unusual metaphor I know but nevertheless this is the feeling I have. So although people don't generally like the stigma of a label, this for me has it's plusses. I somehow feel more known in a sense, understood, even if by myself alone and doctors, not so much family (although if they come on board with support the journey becomes so much lighter) & validated for the symptoms, not imagining that there is something wrong but unaware of what it is and if everyone is like me, I don't feel so unheard and lost, even frightened!!

Far out! Why didn't they have a list of these cool terms like Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) back in my day? In this world of Alphabetical Acronyms, labels & tags for all these seemingly new mental conditions it certainly raises a few questions as to whether it's all gone a bit overboard. Do I think it has?Well if you ask me, I don't think so, this is what I think. The world is in a very sad, sick state. This is not a put down of our potentially beautiful world , it's a proven fact! But in the midst of this seemingly morbid fact I think that there are positives coming out of the problems. What I mean to say it is this. Maybe it could be seen as a good thing that at last there is wide spread acknowledgement at least amongst a growing number that there is a need for wholeness mentally, spiritually and physically. The fact that this is being addressed now is to me fantastic. In one sense the world has probably never been so sick, but let's look at the half full cup scenario for the moment. Let's say that the doctor appears when the patient is ready. Put another way, maybe the worlds mental health is in such a bad state that the studies have been more prevalent since these problems have arisen in the world on such a large scale. The half full cup mindset says to me we are living in privileged times really as far as knowledge, studies, technology and health advancement. We have the opportunity to make the most of this. So really we can always look at things in two or maybe more different ways. Personally for me my prognosis and even 'label' if you like of Borderline Personality Disorder is funnily enough a great relief in one way, because I can now see and understand myself and my past and actions in a greater way and more importantly endeavour to heal and learn and move forward with all the help and knowledge this new information offers me. I have also had terrible times of sadness realising and grieving that it wasn't noticed earlier. I also feel a bit sorry for my self. Sorry for self is not always a bad thing, it can be used for the purpose of grieving so as to move forward. Isn't it funny how we have self imposed rules about feeling sorry for ourselves? We all do it but pretend we don't. Sometimes when I reminisce I feel sorry for the little girl that suffered back when I was a child, the one without the diagnoses that was so often misunderstood as just being naughty, the frightened scared little girl that didn't have her own peculiar needs met. Its hard to know what came first, the chicken or the egg, genetics or adaptation to life, nurture or nature? Was it in me from the beginning, the predisposition to have a mental illness like this and then because of my environment made worse? These are all the questions I can begin to ponder, ask myself, maybe even seek to answer. Doesn't matter I'm home, I can begin to heal by understanding about BPD. Knowledge gives power they say. This knowledge of my diagnoses have definitely given me power to change and to become the best I can be. It might be a journey, but journeys have to start somewhere. Funny, sometimes I think about me as a child, almost as though she was someone else, like a dear, cute and lovable little girl I want to reach out to with compassion and love. She wasn't someone else, she was me, but she was long ago, so in a way she is detached from the now. I comfort her for the pain she felt. It helps a lot! I find this positive and nurturing. We all have our own methods of self-help.

In the beginning there was Eve................

Mmmm, so that's what did it 'ey? THE CURSE OF THE APPLE!! Wish it was that simple but clearly there is a little more to this situation than that.

I think I've introduced myself enough over the course of setting up this blog. If you havn't already read about me scroll down, there is plenty to read. Summising you have, then as you know I'm Eve (hence the corny apple clip-art). I'll run through it all quickly again just to familiarise you with what I'm doing here. Well I'm 46 ( 47 in November arrrgh!) and have only recently been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). By the way my partner I believe has Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD) not to be confused with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and I'm about to start Dialectical Behaviour Therapy ( DBT) program, not to be confused with Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) so I pretty much am familiar with the alphabetical acronyms of the psych world (not to be confused with psychics or physics lol) Ok typical of a BPD'r, I'm getting silly and hyper now so I'll settle down and take you on a journey into my life. Lucky you, hehe NOT!! People have often said to me, "Eve (not my real name, so it's gonna take some getting used to) Why don't you write a book"? My reply being " No one would believe it, they would say it was too far fetched" lol ! A bit like days of our lives or some other sitcom that is just way too unrealistic, well that's been my life! and believe me it's real!
Wish I could laugh along with you. Unfortunately I'm quite serious. I wonder are there others who are reading who can relate to this? ..................