Story #44

I'm pretty sure I had an amazing childhood. I had an incredible imagination and spent a good deal of time in the woods outside my home, pretending. 

My mother was the stay-at-home type and had my younger brother to look after. He had a lot of problems and was always getting in trouble; I was the responsible one. At an early age I was doing things on my own. I was proud of this. I was also labeled as "gifted and talented", having tested into the sixth grade range when I was in the second. So academics became more important for me over time. And I began putting a great deal of pressure on myself -- not just to succeed, but to get the perfect grade. For a while, particularly during my childhood, this worked for me. Then it didn't.

I started getting really depressed when I was in the seventh grade. I found myself crying a lot. I kept this hidden, however. Crying and depression were signs of weakness, I thought. It was around this time that I noticed the pain my mother was inflicting on me on a daily basis as she put me down 
constantly, yelled at me, made me feel like crap. I soon realized that she'd always been this way towards me. She was extremely narcissistic (in the pathological sense). She constantly seemed disgusted and annoyed by her children. By her side I felt small yet fat, dirty, and in the way of things. 

My father was away on business trips all the time, and with some noted exceptions, he never really seemed to care what happened in the family. He was just aloof and paid the bills. I never really figured out whether he was faithful to my mother or not while away on his trips. My father made me feel sexually nervous and self-conscious in my adolescent years. I guarded myself when around him. I still don't know why.

When I got the opportunity to go to a boarding school, I jumped on it. I told my parents I wanted to pursue my academics, but it was more than that as I wanted to get the hell out. I needed to be someone. Trouble was, I didn't 
know how to BE. I'd always relied on awards and honors and test scores to define who I was, and when I failed to get my usual A's at boarding school, I started to get really depressed. Really, really depressed. 

I had a suicide plan; I daydreamed about it all the time. I felt so desperately alone there at school, and yet I never gave up. For some reason I stayed, probably because of the promises people had made about being able to get into a good college upon graduation. Four whole years I spent alone, feeling empty and yet filled with hatred towards everyone. 

I felt rage towards my mother and pretended she was dead, because it made me feel better. I hated the people who didn't seem to know or care that I existed. I hated my body, my gestures, my emotions, even my presence. I was constantly looking for a way to "knock myself out" as to sleep only until I could manage things again. 

I abused a lot of over-the-counter drugs and had a few dangerous incidents with drinking. I told myself it was just the age I was at. I told myself things would get better.

But things got way worse, until eventually they got better. In college and for some years afterwards I started drinking alcoholically and abusing drugs; I was promiscuous, at least until I got raped while characteristically placing myself in an unsafe situation; and I started cutting myself as I did it when the emotions became too much for me, when I couldn't calm down, when I felt angry at the world and at myself. I was filled with self-loathing, anxiety, sadness, guilt, regret, and feelings of abandonment. 

Eventually that stopped when I realized how physically scarred I was becoming. There was a stint of anorexia and bulimia, lasting only about six months, where I lost thirty-five pounds. Then I became very tired.

I overdosed, on purpose I suppose. Well actually, it was more of an impulse, I didn't think about it. I had a horrible night at the hospital and then I decided that things needed to change.

I hooked up with an incredible therapist, someone I could really talk to. I'd tried previously with no less than twelve different therapists, but this one stuck, perhaps because I'd begun working harder. I was able to trust her, which is a rare thing for me. I've worked hard, and my life has really  changed. I really had to reach inside and find my voice (which I thought I'd lost) and use it to talk things out. The booze and drugs and sex and all the rest are behind me now, as is the desire to hurt or destroy myself. 

The only hurting that takes place now is in therapy (with the aforementioned therapist), which is always followed by relief and perspective. I have been on antidepressants and a mood stabilizer, which have seemed to help. And I write a lot. Now, at age 25, I am in graduate school studying to become a therapist, something I've always wanted to do. It takes real guts to go there from the place I'm coming from. Believe me, I still get nervous about it at times. But I do feel in control now, and my life has become about as "normal" as it will ever be.

I cringe at times when I hear people talk about Borderline Personality Disorder in class as there is still so much ignorance surrounding it even amongst soon-to-be therapists. I myself had a terrible reaction the first time I was diagnosed with BPD some years ago as I thought it was a terrible life's sentence handed out, just one more horrible thing to have happen. But then I educated myself. I wish society knew more. 

There really is life after diagnosis. My experience living with BPD has made me more open to those around me. I make sure not to label or classify people, as I know from experience how horrible it can feel to be objectified in such 
a manner. 

It all comes down to this: I have a history, much of which is not pretty. I will probably never truly live life on an even keel as others might, but this is the life that has been dealt to me. I know what it's like to be sane, and I know what it's like to be mad; I am gifted in this way, and no one will ever be able to take this away from me.