People with Borderline Personality Disorder Speak Out

Caution: These letters include triggering material.

Smile, he tells me
And I force one just to appease him
You are such a pretty girl when you smile.

Wipe that smile off your face this instant
And I force the smile away
You look like a smiling idiot he says.

I love your smile he says
And I smile down to my toes
It makes me know you want me he leers.

Smile, he says
And I force one just to appease him
As your therapist I recommend smiling.

I am a 51 year old woman who has suffered from bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder since teen years, but was not diagnosed until 6 months ago. I am the poster child for early intervention! My entire life could have turned out differently if I had known about this illness earlier. I wasted time in college, in jobs, and in relationships; had I known about this illness sooner, I may have been a more healthy individual. But I am glad to be picking up the pieces now. I now am writing my first novel and work in a library full time. Medication and therapy has saved me, literally. A brother and two first cousins died from this illness. I hope to live to be a very eccentric old woman! 

I'm 21 years old and was diagnosed with BPD 2 months ago. In some ways the diagnosis has been a relief, because I don't feel like I am the only one in the world out there that acts this way, but on the other hand when I hear how little hope there is to "cure" it totally I feel worse. 

My father is also mentally ill, but not in treatment. He took me from my mother when I was just two years old, so I have always felt like a motherless child. I have attempted suicide three times, most recently in 1998 which led to a stay at the hospital. 

I am married now and have a 17 month old daughter. I moved always from my home about two years ago but I am miserable even here. It followed me again, it always does. I have tried a lot of different meds. I recently found out I am pregnant again so I am no longer taking anything. 

The past six months I have "felt" the meaningless despair come back. In the morning I wake up with such a feeling of helplessness that I don't know what to do. It's like I walk around with a sign on my head that says "you handle it-I am incapable." 

Working has always been difficult. Since the birth of my first daughter I haven't worked. I am in school for social work and I hope one day to have a normal 9-5. I love being at home with my daughter, but when the depression sets in it is SO HARD. I think the worse part is the isolation and loneliness you feel but can't seem to come up with a solution to ease it. My prayers are with all of you. Will you please put me in yours?

This the 1st time I am going to express my self to others because I feel safe that now one knows me. The feeling I have when I am hurting is like a cancer that is eating away my life. It is a silent pain that I won't share with family members or coworkers. I feel that not even my children like me and the only reason they come around is because I am their mother and they owe it to me, I got of the subject I feel and think that at least if you have the real cancer they can cut it away and get chem-o and get better. But with this cancer I have it just eats away my life, it's a silent pain and a slow death. I just keep questioning myself what can I do different so that I don't feel so alone and unworthy of life. Am I the only one that feels this way?

What is it to be a "consumer" of the mental health system in Quebec? From where I sit tonight, it is to be your own social worker, psychologist and physician. Two nights ago I tried to take my own life with the very pills designed to improve it. No - I'm lying. I didn't want to die - only to find the help I so desperately need. What I got was a pair of ambulance technicians and a pat on the head. I was left alone again and I mean alone. The ambulance dispatch doctor promised/threatened to call my former psychiatrist and tell him what had happened. The psychiatrist has not had his secretary schedule an appointment for me and is never available for my calls repeated calls.

The CLSC (a community resource designed to help lower income needs as far as mental, physical and financial assistance) refuses to see me until I have "wrapped things up" with the above mentioned former psychologist. The psychology outreach program of the nearby prominent hospital can not tell me how to go about finding a social worker other than those offered by the CLSC. My doctor, after referring me to an overbooked psychiatrist could give me no other telephone number other than the CLSC. Its like running around in a maze with no exit.

I got into the system expecting to be taken over and looked after while at the same time being gently pushed back into the world. Instead I have been drowning; screaming for help while everyone on shore covers their ears and smiles.

I see now that it will be me alone to heal me, to listen to me, who makes sure I am not turned out into the streets to beg and who protects me from my own devious plans. I am afraid to be alone because of all the harm I inflict on myself but alone I must also learn to care for and about myself. Finding a support system among friends and family is a struggle - among professionals a joke. Don't wait to be rescued for the rescue will never come. Learn to swim.

I was diagnosed as borderline about a year ago. I didn't want to be, I knew it was coming. Like most others with BPD, I had a hard life. I hated myself. Then I felt guilty for feeling that way. I wanted out. I wanted it all to end, to go away. But it didn't, it got worse. I felt worse, I hated myself more. I buried myself in those feelings, and the only way I felt away from them was to create false securities all around me. An imaginary wall of safety that ended up making it even more horrifying in the end. I wanted to be loved. I imagined that I was. I let myself be taken advantage of. 

Everything started to hurt. Everything became so painful. One wrong comment, and I was in tears for the rest of the day wondering why everyone hated me so much. Wondering what I ever did to deserve this. I couldn't understand, in fact, I still don't understand. How much of it was real? How much of it did I create in my mind? How much of it did I encourage? How much did I provoke? 

I know how much it hurt. I know how much they didn't understand me. I know I got away. The people who I thought I could never live a day without, were the same people who took my soul from me. And they never even knew they were doing it. They thought they were helping me. They thought that they understood. They still think that. 

But now with them gone my life is easier. I'm not afraid to fail anymore. I'm not afraid to care. This hurts them more because they can't understand why I am happy without them. I still feel guilty now...but only sometimes. 

I wrote this because I know that there are so many people who feel like me. And we aren't crazy, we aren't selfish, we're scared. And it's hard to see that it could ever be  better. I have amazed myself at what strength I have inside of me. I never thought I could be so brave and so determined to do anything. I still may be a far cry from the NON-BPD individual, but I'm alive. And I'm here, and I'm struggling, and I'm me. And for the first time, I'm proud of myself. And I realize that I am the only person in this world that can make myself happy. 

I still get down, I still cry, but I know that it is only temporary. I know that I have that strength to make it better. And if I start to doubt it...I pick up my DBT workbook, I cry, I read it, and I move on. God bless you Marsha Linehan! 

i've come so far 
i feel so lost 
where's the pain coming from 
why does it chase me 
what did i do 
why is this me 
how can i escape 
where do i go 
i'm tired of running 
i'm scared to look back 
i'm frozen fear 
i cannot move forward 
how will this help me 
who do i call 
eneryone's tired of hearing me bitch 
i have nothing nice to say 
my life is shit 
oh well, what are ya gonna do. 
i'm gonna stay away 
i'm gonna like myself 
i'm gonna be happy 
just me 
happy 
with myself 
i think its working 
thank you 
the end 

It is a relief to know 
I can't just 'snap out of it'. 

It is a relief to know 
I inherited deregulating emotions. 

It is a relief to know 
I had a right to be unhappy. 

It is a relief to know 
I am not alone. 

It is a relief to know 
There is hope of a better quality of life. 

It is a relief to know 
There are folks out there who care. 

It is a relief to know 
They write books to help others understand. 

Thank You from the bottom of my heavy heart.... 

LuvMe 

Hi, I'm Liesbeth and I live in the Netherlands, and I'm so glad that this sanctuary exist. I like to say thank you to Mary who wrote a beautiful poem about a dragon. And I like to thank Marsha Linehan for bringing her therapy to my country. I did the therapy for three years and I start to see the things I have to work on. 

Please everybody, see the little girl inside of you. She needs your attention. It will take a lot of pain and tears, but she has to come out of her hiding-place.

Again I will thank Marsha Linehan for her work. I reed her book every day and with my therapist I work hard to try to make my life better.

Excuses for the errors of language, but I wanted to say how I feel. Lots of love and courage to everyone who suffers from Borderline.

Liesbeth. 

I'm 30, diagnosed when I was 15. I've ignored therapists since. My Doc at the time was trying to convince me I'd been sexually abused when I was younger, which I knew was absolute garbage. That isn't denial, it's the truth, I wasn't abused, but he was trying to hard to push a diagnosis on me that would "fit". Guess he didn't pay attention to the 25% who felt abandoned as a child... that's where it started, and I know it. The rest of his diagnosis was pretty much right on, but my thought has always been to treat, not delve into the past to have some sort of catharsis... it doesn't work that way, at least not for me. He didn't treat except to give me meds and keep me in a mental hospital, which I detested.

Stopped the meds.. haven't been to a therapist since, as I already stated, and no suicide attempts since, no self-inflicted injury either. Had a panic disorder for a while after someone attempted to rape me, put myself through immersion therapy with the help of a friend, shucked that off too. My thinking is that I REFUSE to be held down by a disorder or a diagnosis or some sort of pre-conceived notion of how I "should" be, based on a set of symptoms. 

I am not merely a bundle of personality traits to be written down and then labeled, I have the power inside of me to change how I react, how I feel. My mother told me to use my intellect (which, this is the first time I have stated publicly, is not inconsiderable... 163 Stanford-Benet, but I normally don't like pretentious idiots who throw their IQ around like it means anything but a measure of accumulated knowledge and swiftness of thought... had to mention it here because it does have some bearing, as I'd bet all of you are also right in that range...) to fight the emotions that threatened to overtake me. 

The stance that "BPDs don't have empathy for anyone else" is pure unadulterated garbage. It is a learned, slow process of training oneself to think of something besides oneself. We are all born selfish and shallow, none of us, not even those diagnosed with BPD, have to stay that way, much as everyone else around us tells us that "that is the way you are". Garbage. 

WE decide how we are. WE decide how we are going to react. The pain is incredible, absolutely.

Relationships are rocky, life is a painful, bewildering array of loss and deceit. The idea is not to immerse oneself in a continuing morass of excuses ("I can be this way because of my diagnosis", or "I am just like this"), but to continually try to better oneself, one small step at a time. And it's one hell of a battle, BPDs I have met are some of the strongest, most incredible people I have met. We are, in the truest sense of the word, survivors. If anyone can take on the battle of bettering oneself, of a slow reduction of pain, of a single thought here and there that might accept the possibility that your loved one can screw up and yet not leave you, that you CAN put yourself in their shoes and feel how they might feel, one SMALL STEP at a time, it is BPDs. 

We are not stupid, intelligence is a factor in BPD, as I mentioned above. We can use our intelligence to overcome this as well. Do it your own way, but I promise you, if you hold on, even through the absolute worse, hellish, unreal moments, the small other moments of pleasure, of Heaven on Earth, will be yours. Think of it as I do, if it helps... the most horrible times, the nightmare times at 3:00 am when you are alone with your thoughts and your closet door is unlatched a bit and your friend upset you and you're wondering if your outburst at them will drive them away, all that is in your head... you are on a small dinghy in turbulent waters. Your thoughts are making the boat sway to and fro, you feel as if you might be sick, or cry, or cut yourself, and all is hopeless, HOLD ON. Because, I can promise you, not immediately maybe, but it WILL happen, that big old cruise ship full of food and lights and fun will come to you later... it DOES get better. 

It also helps, I believe, to develop a crutch. A psychiatrist might disagree with me, but I've done this alone for 15 years, with NO SUICIDE or CUTTING attempts, so I do feel qualified enough to say this. Develop your peace crutch. Think of the most soothing, pleasurable activity you can. Mine was cross-stitch. Yours might be something else, just make sure it's not self-destructive. Think of it in detail.. for me, the floss going in and out of the cloth, a soothing, still motion, creating a beautiful picture. Now create that thought into a package, a totem, if you will. When the despair sweeps over you, take out your package and unwrap it. If the anxiety becomes so bad you disassociate, take out the package, and do it, mentally (this prevents you from having to carry your totem everywhere.. you can't cross-stitch and drive, trust me..) It DOES work, but you must, first, yourself, be willing to work and to fight.

That's it from me, a small message of hope here, a real message for real people. And because I CAN feel empathy, I cried for a lot of you, I pray for all of you. You are the strongest people this planet has to offer.

I was recently diagnosed with bpd. I spent a month denying it, ignoring the thought that i now had a label on me which would make people see my in a more  horrible light. But eventually, I accepted the truth-it wasn't hard, I've been sick for a long time. 


For three years I found solace in my wilkinson double edged razor. It was the easiest thing I have ever loved. It took away the pain, and it was there when I needed it, unlike the friends I'd had over the years. Looking back now, I see a very scared person, which I still am to a degree, although now I'm trying to stay alive. I never did before.


I try to forget, but I have so many scars that serve as a constant reminder of my own irrationality. I try to fit in now, but i still have to wear long sleeves and trousers. I still have to HIDE. 

Well I've not been officially diagnosed with BPD, but I'm sure that if I'm not DSM level borderline I certainly possess the majority of its features. And through the many postings and websites, etc. that I have read I see myself reflected so clearly that it's quite frightening. In fact, I believe that this explains quite a lot about my entire life, the way I have always viewed myself (to greater and lesser degrees at different points in
my life), the way I have let myself be taken advantage of, the reasons why my family find it so difficult to deal with me, and the list just goes on and on.


I'm not as self-destructive as many of the people whose stories I have read, at least not through cutting and repeated suicide attempts. But then again, aren't I equally self-destructive? Since I was a child, I have always been compelled to pick my scabs and let them bleed. The bigger, the better. I sort of drool (funny, I know, but that's the somatic sensation associated with this) even now as I think about it. In fact, I still rather enjoy picking a nice juicy scab (sorry, I know how gross that sounds *l*). But that's just the tip of the self-destructive iceberg. Let's get more serious. Drinking and drugs. Promiscuity. Several bad-for-me relationships. Lots of suicidal ideation. One drunken razor-slashing on the wrists (tiny scars). Recklessness in other areas of life. All done in my early 20s, something I thought was just a phase in life, but which I now see was symptomatic of something deeper.


Then there's all the abandonment. Or perceived thereof. Men and women. At 32, I have only one true, loyal friend and I'm glad to have her. Yet I do not have the network of friends and relationships that so many people seem to have. I have never had that, even though I have tried to surround myself with people. I have always felt a lack, and I still do. I wonder why it seems like people don't want to be my friend. And the people who do seem to want to be my friend, I sort of assume that they're doing it because they feel sorry for me.


I have been in and out of therapy offices off and on since I was about 20. I have never felt like it was ever doing me any good, and I quit every time. I am back in therapy now, and I'm still not convinced that it will work this time, but at least I think I'm on the right track now. One reason why maybe it didn't work in the past is because I was misdiagnosed. I've had therapists ask me if I heard voices (I am NOT psychotic!). I've had them wonder if I was bipolar. Depressed (which I am). AD/HD. Sound familiar folks?? Oh yeah, and as for myself, I've often wondered if I had OCD or even Tourette's syndrome. I live in a state of chronic anxiety. Sometimes it's not bad at all, but when life stressors occur the anxiety gets overwhelming at times. 


I've always felt a bit unbalanced in terms of my ability to cope with life stress. I know that family members have worried about me sometimes, but I hide things from them as much as possible. I just don't want to have to deal with it. I think that I am lucky in a sense because my childhood was relatively stable (at least at home). Some peoples' stories just make me cry out for their pain. And yet, I have known for a long time that I never quite felt the attachment to my mother that I should. I feel guilty for it. I love her, but I don't. In fact, sometimes I hate her guts. I don't think that she was always there for me emotionally, and I needed her to be perhaps more than the average person. 


But let's talk about the isolation and simply horrible treatment I suffered at the hands of my schoolmates! My exboyfriend thinks that I have a "chip on my shoulder" about the way I was treated as a child, and in a way I do. But he thinks that I need to just get over it. We were kids. Kids are kids. But boy were they cruel. They saw that I was different, in that intuitive way children have. They enjoyed the intense reactions they got out of me through their taunts. I never fit in. I was always the one that got the tricks played on.


And so sometimes I view my life as a series of dirty tricks. Even when good things happen to me, when they go bad as they inevitably do, it's just another dirty trick. I don't like myself. I know I should. I'm well educated and people tell me I'm funny and attractive. The life of the party. The center of attention. Except when I'm feeling down and ugly, then I isolate and withdraw. 


Well, this post is more of what my story is all about, in case there are people out there who are searching for answers just like I am. I hope it can help somebody. I know I need my own help. People tell me I need to find what makes me happy. I don't know what that is yet. Every time I think I'm finally happy, something happens to make it all disappear. But maybe, just maybe, I will be able to learn how to soothe myself, find that balance which is so lacking right now, come to achieve a state of inner peace and acceptance of myself. These are my goals in life. Easy for some people, but not for me. I still hope. I haven't yet turned into a lonely, bitter old woman although I worry that will be my fate. Yet I hope. 

Hi I am 19 years old and i have had bpd most of my life .This past year has been the hardest I have been in 9 hospitals I missed my birthday and christmas .nothing helps it bothers me cause i know i don't have the normal life of a teenager i have alot of trouble dating cause i get so attached way too fast and when they leave me i just get more and more scars from cutting my arms the hardest thing is looking in my parents eyes and knowing they don't understand why i hate them one minute and cry the next for someone to love me i recently found a awesome boyfriend and this past weekend we moved in together but as much as i love him the pain is there or should i say the fear i don't eat or sleep i am so worried he is going to leave me i need help really bad and don't know who to turn to so i am asking everyone who reads this pray for me and ask god to give me the strength to make it through thanks you 

hello everyone my name is joann. i am 33 years old and work as a psychiatric nurse. i was quite adapt at dealing with bpds on an inpatient unit, and god were they difficult. always, always finding things to hurt themselves, and ultimately because of agitated behaviors would end up in restraints. it was always a long day at work when a bpd was in rare form. 

anyway, i was getting ready to get married in 2 months when weird things started to happen to me. big time depression, angry feelings that wouldn't quit, and those horrible thoughts of hurting myself to relieve anxiety. the flags were there i just chose to ignore them. take a pill, see a therapist, get married, have kids, make money and be happy. wrooooooong!!!!! 

2 weeks after i got married i was admitted to a psych unit for a suicide attempt. for the first time i saw what it was like to look out from the inside of the QUIET ROOM. there i was exactly what i hated most, angry, self mutilating, depressed, unmanageable. the docs told me i was bpd and let me tell you that did not sit well. i tried everything to prove the label wrong. only to prove them right. long stays in the hosp. no responsibilities, with a tremendous power to AVOID anything that was emotionally uncomfortable. even my poor husband whose life changed in a day. state hospitals, local ers, private hosp and even out of state hosp, nothing helped. nothing. 

i was alone. i was so alone and so very angry. lots was discovered in my times a the hosp, childhood things, the death of my mom when i was 15,relationships i had, coping skills i so very much lacked. therapist after therapist, day programs, community living, lots of MEDICINE.. 

i look back now and i say to myself what the hell happened? this of course being 9 years later. i finally found DBT and a therapist who who taught me that being bpd wasn't a defect in my makeup. there were reasons and answers to my pain. there were survival skills she taught based on Marcia Linehan's Dialectical/cognitive behavioral therapies. don't get me wrong, things were not a bed of roses, and i put her and myself through some really bad times. But, we are still moving towards mental health and a somewhat more functional life. 

i have got lots of stories, lots of battle wounds, but i am still here. i am back at work after years of disability, and when i see a patient with bpd i remember me how i was before and how i am now. 

i finally can see their pain and hear their cries. i don't of course allow the behaviors but i can now offer something more than just medicine. i can offer HOPE.

all my hopes and thoughts of encouragement

I am alone and yet not alone. There are the ones who came before and the ones yet to come. We all have the fight before us at all times. I am drawn to join those already gone, done in by their own hand. I am also drawn to those who will come. I want to tell them to fear nothing except their own black thoughts. There are some here and now. We are slowly finding each other and are reaching for the understanding that only we can give. All in this group fight the same battle and yet each fight is different. Even though we don't know why we have to fight we fight endlessly to get further down the road than we were before. Some of us live, some exist and some don't exist or live. We call and reach out for help from the humanity around us and only get hit for our troubles. The surrounding humanity makes no sense to us because they call to us to reach out for their help and then turn on us and tear us to bits. We have started to band together so that we can see each other and help each other fight our battles. Alone we fail but together we press on and start winning some of the battle. Eventually, we will make our voice be heard throughout the world just because of our number and unity. We will press on through much to get to the little. We will go through the little to get to the love. When we get to the love there will be no stopping us. We will uphold our honor and our code. We are the Borderlines of the World. 

Sometimes I can't stop crying. Everything in my life and in my mind feels like it's imploding and killing me. I cut myself so I can stop crying.

My first grade teacher was a hypocrite. If I cried, she punished me and sent me out in the hall. Then we all went to music class to sing a song called, "It's All Right to Cry." I hated that song. I hated that teacher.

Therapists ask me, "Who do you trust? Who can you cry in front of?" The answer is still, "No one." No one wants to hear me cry. No one wants to know how I feel. Some of them claim to want to know. As soon as I trust them, they flee like the wind. One even went to another continent to get away from me. Out of one side of his mouth he said, "You need to trust us and tell us how you feel." When I caught him in a tired and truthful mood, he said, "Everyone is tired of you always talking about your problems."

If I cry, people hate me. If I cut myself to stop crying, they hate me. I can't win. Lately I've been cutting the ring finger of my left hand. No one will ever put a ring on it, so I may as well decorate it with some scars.

Maybe there is hope. Maybe it'll all be okay in the end. But not tonight.

Reading all of these true stories here has given me an inkling to share my own. I'm 24 now, going on 25, and was diagnosed with BPD four years ago. All of my life I have been a shy creature...afraid to do a lot of things but wanting to so desperately. High School years were terrible for me, so I created a character that would laugh a lot and tell a lot of jokes so no one could get to the real terrified me. My College years just amplified that persona, and drew me into a terrible depression after a party gone wrong. I've been hospitalized, and treated with many anti-depressants and anxiety meds...but well, I've chosen poetry as more of a release these days. It doesn't leave me with the Euphoria that I felt on those medications. Here is a poem I wrote last year about the cycle I know I go through, and probably many of you go through too! 
"The Demon Within"

There is not a day it doesn't come
The webbing falling down
The pictures fading from my mind
Silence the only sound 

Happiness does not remain 
The walls turn crimson red
The knocking sound continues
My conscious fills with dread 

Whispers float around the room
Yet I am in the space alone
Time drifts by so slowly
My body turns to stone 

Like the mirror on the wall
An image appears ahead
Try to make my body move
But it just sinks like lead 

She shouts with bitterness and hate
Things I cannot dispel
Her voice shrieks so loudly
I fall into my hell 

I cannot run or hide from her
And so I take her in
Suffering through another night
The demon under my skin 

My night continues filled with rage
Hating every sin
I hurt, I cry, I hate myself
I guess I let her win 

I awaken in the morning time
To another bitter day
Time to act the part again
Keeping her at bay 

I wonder what I'll tell the man
Who thinks he holds my heart
I fear one day this demon
Will tear the both of us apart 

And I'll be left here in my cage
Waiting for us to reunite
Thinking about what it is I need
For me to win this fight...

...Like I said, it's a constant struggle...but I manage. Thank you all for sharing your stories; it's nice to know I'm not the only one out there!