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? ..................