"My Story"
Personal Stories

No new stories will be added to this section. However if you would like to make a contribution you can send in your story to to be included in my new book about the borderline personality disorder.

Please be advised that some of these letters can be a trigger.

Story #36

Where really to start is the question....most of the time people tell stories when it's raining or when there is a general depression in the air. Though I might be wrong about that, since I'm telling this stupid tale right during a happy summer day. Oh well I always go against the odds. I am 14 years old though I must admit I forget. I wasn't sexually abused and I might of been neglected as a child but I have no idea mostly because I refuse to tell anyone that I have a problem. In fact I'm always the good girl, really. Always the one no one suspects or believes when I get in trouble.


My mother was 18 years old when she had me and my father was the same age. They were happy until my mother started treating him badly and my father left me and my mother. He had to get away from her and I don't blame him and I know he probably didn't take me with him because it would be hard to take me from a family that he thought might love me or appeared to care. My mother partied and I sat at home with various family members who took care of me. In essence my family reminds me of what people view animals to be like. They care on some primitive level that they will take care of their young but nothing else. I was a quiet fat little baby who was smart but little did they know or care to try to try to teach me at an advanced level. I possibly could of been smarter than what I am now but a dream is a stupid reason to be upset with your family but I still am angry with them for that. After my mother finally settled down into life she began trying to knock some sense into my head. I was a very bad child and I have a feeling I would of grown up a horror if she hadn't done the things she did. She used to hit me when I brought home bad grades from my pre-school, first grade, second, third, fourth, fifth and before that when I was bad. I still remember that time I sat there singing to myself trying to stop crying in front of her because she beat me so hard that I couldn't stop crying and because I had done something what I can't remember. Oh, by the way if you're wondering she never left bruises or anything that would show up. Oh no, she knew better than that. I at one point wanted to tell someone what she was doing when I was younger but she kept telling me "Do you want me to loose you?!" and then it was followed by a slap or being hit. She always hated how I cried afterwards and usually would hit me just because she felt she had to give me something to cry about.


My school life was no better. My friends all suffered from depression because of the stress of school life and at home. I never wanted to go to the school my mother sent me to. It was called Corpus Christi it meant something like body and blood of Christ. I still wonder if that was fate or doom that it felt that the name of my horror would have to do with God...I never let anything go and I was never happy at school with those people. When my friends invited me to their houses I couldn't go because of the fact that they lived so far out and they eventually stopped inviting me which hurt. My grades were horrible because I was so depressed and oddly enough no one challenged my brain. I understood everything they taught me on some level and somehow I knew they were all horrible teachers who didn't teach anyone anything. 


They told my mother I seemed depressed and that I should see somebody. My mother didn't have the money and thought it was stupid and I was just lazy. I suppose I was and she also got on me because of my weight. I always was fat and my mother tried to apply theories she saw on TV to try to 'fix' me. They never worked. At that point I became so faithful to her because of fear, I started hearing her call me when she wasn't. My mother encouraged this 'new' me and I stooped to lying and hiding my grades. Now I've become such a good liar to her that she probably can't tell when I do lie or when I don't say anything to her. I tell her the truth a lot because she hates liars and I am a liar.


Finally I got out of Corpus Christi because my grades were so low that my mother wanted me to try a public school. It was Timberlane and they told me to see the school counselor. My mother finally noticed I was depressed but I couldn't tell them what was going on because if I did I would of been caught at home. So I told them little things and finally the year was over and I was free. 


I went to Luther Jackson where I met the people who are the closest things I have to friends and I finally met my second side who was always a part of me and we were just so one that it was hard to tell us apart. It's name was Doom and it has been the nearest thing to a friend I've ever had. It's always there and it needs me and I love that feeling of being loved by something even if it was the existence of that little bit everyone that know their going to die or the fact that the world is going to eventually go up and well we could go on forever. I found out that I was a sadist and that I, well, always hated people. Everyone asks why I say that because I'm people, but I'm not. I'm one of the few people who isn't a person, I'm just me. I don't like the human race because I know that all my pain comes from them but I also know that somehow I don't want them destroyed or at least so dead they can ignore my pain. I want them to feel my pain. I asked them to listen to me but no one ever does they always assume I'm just a mean person and that nothing is wrong with me. 


Doom has been the only thing stopping me from probably doing more damage to myself. It was Doom that finally made me take a test on myself to see what mental disorder I had. I did take a test on-line and out of three times I always came back Schizo and BPD. No other disorder just those and I'm not going to a professional because that would mean being drugged and Doom doesn't like drugs, they scare it and I know they are addictive. Doom probably could be considered that little voice in my head but I also know that I talk to myself a lot never out loud because that would mean I have a problem. Doom is currently sleeping in my pain and writhing in it's own. I introduced it to my friends and they didn't see the point to it and they wanted nothing to do with it. Doom is a wreck because of that and I want it to feel better. It's the only thing that takes care of me when I feel bad and I have to tell someone, it forces me to. It had never hurt me and it laughs at the examples of it being a figure of my imagination. It's not going anywhere and I know that but I can't stand the pain it brings but it also brings love and some hope. My friends hate it and I've been told I have BPD and I'm a Schizo, there is nothing either of us can do to help each other and the pain bottled up through the ages of trying to keep myself happy enough not to be caught are going to eventually catch up with us but hopefully I can stab them off until I'm dead and if there is an afterlife I'll have plenty of time to think about my actions, heaven or hell.


Just recently I have noticed that my friends aren't my friends and I don't know why I even bother but I want to help them. My friend Lauren yells at me for being so self absorbed and saying bad stuff about myself. I don't know why but I've thought about suicide several times but I always am rational enough to not continue with it. I have many ways of doing it as well because no one knows what I am, how much pain I'm in or about how Doom feels and how they've treated me. There are so many knives in my house and I'm pretty good with a blade....I already have scars on my hand. They're from my favorite knife and so small they look like paper cuts but they're not and I'm pleased by them and I wish they were bleeding and I'm not done yet. I have decided to make them into a design. Which also might make me a masochist. Either way whether I have BPD and Schizo or not, I had to tell someone and since I have all the symptoms of BPD and Schizo I thought I'd write my story down.

Story #37

Innocent. The word to describe most children, and in my case, I suppose I was not like "most children". I had my young little heart broken before I could even conceptualize the problems I was facing.

My father and mother divorced when I was three, because he was abusive to my mother. There were many cockroaches in South Carolina, and my mother despised them... so one night my father smashed a cockroach on her face and tried to make her chew it. It was alive. That was only ONE of the reasons they divorced. So anyway, we lived in South Carolina until they divorced, and then my mother took me and ran. We moved to Ohio. Unfortunately, we couldn't leave the painstaking and critical familial past I had known for three years.

My grandmother had to move in with us when I was a child. She has severe Histrionic and Dependent Personality Disorder. Stubborn as a mule, she insisted that my alcoholic uncle move in with us from the age of 3 1/2 to the tender age in my life of seven years old. When my mother was a child, she had emotionally abused her so bad about her appearance, that my mother had developed Anorexia from age 11 to age 27. It was sporadic, with several hospitalizations. Fortunately, at the age of 27, she became pregnant with her only child, me... and she began to recover from Anorexia.

My grandmother basically did the same thing to me. Grandmother let Johnny, my alcoholic uncle, take all of our money... even though we were going into debt. Johnny wasn't helping any. He was physically abusive to my whole family, and threatened one night when I was four to throw me down the stairs and let him commit suicide.

You must understand, alcoholism runs in our family. So does heart disease, cancer, and manic-depression. Johnny was also a manic-depressive, making matters worse. So he slouched around, threatening suicide, taking money... drinking alcohol, screaming and yelling.

"But I love him too!" My grandmother would say if my mother would ask for him to leave.

So verbal arguments began to occur frequently. After Johnny was kicked out of our house, my grandmother became solely dependent on ME. I was forced not to be a child, but to have a reverse role. To be a caretaker for my "sick" grandmother.

Thus, like I said earlier, my innocence had been taken away.

Grandmother would make me stuff my face. She did it to me when I was a baby. I had colic for God's sakes! She thought I was crying because I was hungry. I wasn't. She stuffed my face.

When I was older, she called me fat, pig, stupid, lazy... and I wasn't. She even got to the point of calling my ten year old FLAT CHEST (because I was even maturing until I was 13!) huge boobs! That was ridiculous.

And if I didn't do what she wanted, she would hit me. Severely.
Paddles, sticks, shoes... you name it. She would hit me repeatedly.

My mother was in the midst of having a nervous breakdown. The same thing that happened to her as a child from her own mother was happening to me. She became violent, aggressive... verbally and physically... even to the point of dragging me upstairs by my hair once and throwing me into my room. (When I was older, she would later try to strangle me after giving me a black eye because "I was the cause of all her problems)."

I had an added twist to all this.

When I was four and a half, I began kindergarten. I was an intelligent child... highly. When I was three, the people at my preschool wanted to test my IQ. Of course, I was three, so my mother disagreed.

Kindergarten went by ok, although most of the kids didn't like me because I was "intelligent", "talkative", "disruptive", and "emotional".

In first grade, I was victimized. A boy, in my grade, named Chris began to severely psychologically abuse me. Like I said, I wasn't fat, but I spent so much time obsessing on it, that most people would hurt me because I was vulnerable to that topic. So at first, he was just calling me fat. Then he called me ugly. Then he told me I had no friends. And that's nothing compared to what would happen to me because of him in eighth grade.

I was emotionally abused and sexually harassed by him from first grade until eighth grade. I didn't even tell anybody until seventh grade because I was afraid that I would be the one who got into trouble.

In second grade, I was hurt so bad by him... he literally made himself vomit because he said I was so ugly I made him sick.

I must be ugly, I suppose, even though people tell me I am beautiful. I listened to the jerk all those years.

But anyway, my grandmother deteriorated and totally depended on me and then she broke her hip and we threw her in a nursing home because we just couldn't deal with her.

I was eleven. I became severely depressed.

The one woman who had abused me so bad, was one of the only people that I felt I couldn't live without.

I was used to it!

And in seventh grade, the boy Chris egged my house. Here is a list of what he said to me that year:

"...Hey, I've seen your mother down at the corner to get money to get some food for you to stuff your face with..."

And there were more hurtful things than that, that I don't want to say at this moment.

I got petrified at the thought of going back to school after seventh grade was over. I finally told this to my mother. She told the school and they didn't do anything about it. She told his mother he egged our house and threatened to graffiti my driveway. She didn't believe us, but made him apologize. I rejected the apology.

In eighth grade, he made fun of me because I was "a tattletale, I ran to my mommy..."

He began to sexually harass my friend and I. I was having severe mood swings... feelings of rejection... loneliness...
You could have called me having manic symptoms... but instead of being euphoric, I was having extreme mood swings. I threatened to kill myself, and even attempted twice.

And I took a razor blade to school, and Chris was provoked by my presence... when he abused me I said that I swear to God if you touch me or my friend again I will kill you"

He told on me. Who's the tattletale now?

I was suspended, and then expelled from the eighth grade.
But, luckily because I had a great record and a 4.0 grade point average in the past, they only kept me out a month and then let me come back under contract and probation.

I went on to the ninth grade luckily. But it was hard getting there.

I was finally hospitalized. I had been expelled, I was almost to the point of insanity... I was trying to kill myself, I would lock myself in my room, I was basically a Satanist, and then a vampire, and then my boyfriend of a year broke up with me because "something is not right... something is really really wrong..."

I was admitted to a psychiatric institution and diagnosed with Bipolar I Disorder with Bulimia and Attention Deficit Disorder. But because I was such a rapid rapid-cycler, having around 6 mood swings daily on average... they dropped the diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder.

I was released, and diagnosed as a Severe Borderline Personality with co-morbid Depression, Bulimia and ADHD.

I was put on the wrong medications, which made me gain weight, because they thought I was bipolar... and after a year I finally got off those.

Now it's been a few years later. The most tragic event in my life turned out to be the most eye-opening. I'm now on the right medications, have lost weight and am back to the small size my tall frame was in before, and I am actually attempting to take care of myself.

I didn't mention self-mutilation, which I finally did stop as well. I am trying to have better control, even though sometimes I think it would be better to pull out the razor. But what does the razor hurt? Me! And I don't want to be hurt anymore!

The bulimia is almost under control... I have the extreme case that nobody ever likes to talk about. I will recover from that eventually, because it is possible.

Story #38

When I was seventeen I learned the power I could hold with a man by having sex with them. I have never had a relationship other than a sexual one, though for me they were always more than that. I ended up having twin daughters when I was eighteen. I have been trying to raise my daughters the best that I can, as I am raising them with very little help from anyone. They are the only ones that I have ever felt that have truly loved me, a love that I don't feel I deserve. All I have ever wanted was to be loved and to belong.

When I was eight, I wanted to die. I was thinking about suicide before I knew what it was. I started cutting when I was nine. A little slice here and there, nothing ever major. When I was sixteen I looked forward to getting my drivers license so I could run the car into a support column on the highway, or into a semi truck. I drove very recklessly, I didn't want it to be an obvious suicide. When I was in my early twenties I started overdosing and cutting again. The only thing that made me make the phone calls when I felt myself slipping away was the thought of what my suicide would do to my daughters. Even now as I sit here and write this, I want to stop the pain. However, there is only one way that I know will stop the pain for me. Medications only work for a while, and I am getting tired of taking all the medications that I do. I am tired of changing meds every time that I build up a tolerance to them. Sometimes I think I am doing more damage to my girls by exposing them to the violence of my mood swings. I have never hit my daughters, but I never know when I will no longer be able to walk away when I am angry. The anger I feel just boils over sometimes, and I do not know why, or when it will do that. Sometimes I get to the point that all I see is red. I am tired of always yelling and wanting to hurt myself and others. I am tired. I am tired of everything, of living, of the pain. I am not sure how much longer I can use the thought of my daughters growing up with a mother that killed herself, to keep myself from doing it. All I want is for the pain to stop.

No one around me seems to understand what I am going through, no matter what I try to help them understand. No one around me seems to want to help. I don't know how much longer I can go on like this. My last attempt was a very serious one, and I know that my next one will be a successful one. I am at the end of my rope and don't know how much longer I can hang on. Something is going to have to give. All I have ever wanted was someone to love me and take care of me when I need to be. Being hospitalized is no longer an option for me. I cannot take my girls with me when I am in the hospital, and I have no one to help me with them. I don't want to hurt anyone, but I can't stand the pain much longer. I don't know what to do anymore, and don't have anyone I can turn to that can understand and help. I know that I have to fight through this down time, and that tomorrow will be another day, I am no longer sure I want to make it to that day. Even in the present, I live in the past. I cannot comprehend the future. I live day to day, sometimes minute to minute, and right now second to second. I have learned to live life one day at a time, and the future for me is what lies ahead in the vastness of the dark tunnel ahead of me. Every time that I think that I see a light at the end of the tunnel, it ends up being a glimmer of false hope that quickly goes out when I get so close that I can feel something besides the loneliness and pain. Hopefully one day soon I will find the help I need to get out of the tunnel and into the light. The walls of the tunnel are starting to collapse onto me, and I am not sure if I will be able to get out before the tunnel collapses completely. Right now I just exists, I want very much to live, but don't know how.

Story #39

i feel very surprised to find myself writing this today. i am 37 years old and the mother of 3 teenage boys. i was diagnosis with bpd 2 years ago after attempting suicide. my soon to be ex-husband used to laugh and call me "Sybil" (famous multiple). my mother and step-father always warned perspective boyfriends that i was very "moody". thru all the craziness that has been my life, i have went to school and become a nurse and work 40 hrs. a week and basically raised my kids alone (for better and much worse). My first memory is of being 3 or 4 years old and "playing" tent with my 3 older brothers. i was always teamed with our oldest brother (his choice). he fondled my genitals and rubbed his penis against me to his and my satisfaction. he never physically hurt me; he taught me to have orgasms by age 6. he also promised never to do it again after each time and said don't tell. this went on at least once a week until i was 14 years old and told a school counselor who called my mom. we all met at home and they told my brother to stop or he would get into big trouble. it never happened again and it was never spoke of again. i felt wrong and guilty and abandoned again. did i forget to mention, my parents divorced when i was 6 and my mom quickly remarried? i have probably been closer to my step dad then anyone in my life. my dad became an alcoholic and sexually molested me at least twice. my dad also began buying beer, wine and cigarettes for me and my friends when i was about 10. by age 12, i was drinking, smoking cigs and pot, and doing LSD and stolen valium.

i began having sex with other people, boys and girls, at 8 or 9 years of age. i didn't have actual intercourse until 14. i also did my share of abusing. i used boys and dumped them before they could ever leave or hurt me. i have lost count of the number of people i have been sexually involved with. to me, i thought sex meant feeling good and i guess love. but, i don't think i have ever felt love. did i also mention that my mom cheated on my step dad and took me along as her cover? she is also a habitual liar.

i have "accidentally" overdosed 5 or 6 times. i tried to kill my self 2 times. i have been in therapy numerous times; what better why to get out of class? i have felt crazy for a long time with violent mood swings where i fought with my #3 brother to the point of broken bones and i used to beat my 3 sons when they were little for spilling milk or peeing their pants. I have been sober for 5 years until last week when i got drunk with my 16 year old son. i take Zoloft but it doesn't seem to be helping much. lately, i have been hurting myself by punching myself in the face, giving myself black and blue eyes and then making excuses about where they come from. i have also caused knife wounds to myself . i can get so depressed that i will stay in bed and sleep for days, without eating or drinking. then, i get so manic, that i will do the paperwork for 3 people at work.

i took the telephone to bed with me the other night because i felt very sure i was going to kill myself ; just in case i wanted to call out for help instead. most days i don't know what keeps me going except biology and my children. is there help for me??????

Story #40

I am 29 years old and a mother of 3 I've been divorced for 6 years. I cant remember a time in my childhood where it was ever happy my Mom gave me to my great grandmother at 2 days old my mom herself was mentally ill, as a matter of fact her and my father met in a state metal hospital, she was a mess while I was growing up she gave all her children away. I don't even understand why she had us, I was pretty lucky because I had my nanny but my brothers where not so lucky my one brother was put in a children's home and raped his whole life by the workers. he eventually went nuts and got hooked on heroin and got murdered at 27.

Which brings me to my first episode with my illness. I still remember the day, as if it where yesterday I went to take a nap and when I woke up my whole life changed from that moment on, I think I must have had a dream that triggered some unconscious state in my memory. It would take me many years to get to the bottom of this and it robed me of 5 years of my life and my marriage. I really could never pin point what was wrong with me I just knew I wasn't the same anymore I was empty inside alone no matter who was around. I was emotionally unavailable for me kid ( I only had 1 at the time and pregnant with my second) My mind was constantly racing with thoughts that made no since. Just constant bad feelings I wanted to die the only relief I had was when I would bite my arm and at that time I had never herd of people who harmed themselves for relief of inner pain I never cut I just bit until I would bleed, but for that one second I was normal sounds pretty nuts huh...I tried to tell my husband but he said get over it you where a kid as matter of fact I tried to talk to my mom and she said the same thing I would come to find out 2 years later that the dream that I had was about abuse I had endured, (It took hypnosis to figure out)

When I was 4 my mom and step dad lost there house which happened all the time because he would drink all their money, anyhow she came to stay with me and nanny and went into one of her spells where she would pull her hair out and bang her head into the wall or window and cut her arms all up by punching through the windows. anyway she put me in the children's home and I was rapped by 2 of the workers it is pretty horrible so I will not explain the event that took place that day but it ruined me. and now looking back the signs where all there.

At 12 the state made me go live with my Mom and step- dad and I was brutally beat and emotionally abused until I was 15 then I meet my ex- husband and moved out only to get pregnant at 16, then when I was 19 I was raped by my best friend boyfriend and I never told her I just thought she would think it was my fault so I never said a word. god I can just go on and on and I still haven't got to the bpd, maybe I should just write a book! Well I just want all of you out there to know that it can get better if you really try and be completely honest with your therapist and yourself. I still have very bad days but they a few and far between the nightmare are still there once and a while but I get through it. The only problem I still have is trying to fit in with others I am very pretty and have been popular my whole life according to the way it looks to everyone else but on the inside I am still a misfit I cannot keep friend and still can put on a mask for any situation I just want to be one, me, just me but who am I? It sucks because I can be anyone I want smart, mean, tough ,nice ,ugly ,sweet ,or a total bitch ,I can be a liar or a thief its like 10 people in me but yet I know i'm not multiple personality! at any given point I can switch and I hate it I just want to be me. Until know I never even knew anyone else had this illness and now I don't feel so all alone but I still don't know anyone personally to talk with that would understand me.

and we have no support groups here and I can not find a therapist who will deal with a borderline, i've basically worked threw allot of my issues but I still need help!! I hope some one can relate to me and maybe gain some hope from me I am doing pretty good for the most part and have a very good relationship with my children I wish I could go on because there is so much more to tell but I don't have the time. good luck to all

Story #41

My story starts out young, as I promised myself I would remember everything. I knew I wasn't crazy when I was a kid, but my family tried to make me believe that I was. My parents were never happy with each other. My mother got pregnant with my sister and had to marry my father. She resented being his wife and being our mother. She always said she hated kids. I always wondered "why didn't she give us up for an adoption or have an abortion"? I felt like I was the cause of her unhappiness. My mother had an alcoholic mother who lived upstairs. My grandmother suffered from alcoholism and depression. I remember seeing her depressed when I was a kid, but I couldn't do anything to save her. She starved herself to death when I was 12. My father never wanted anything to do with us kids. He wanted me to be a boy. they even painted my room blue.

While I was in the first grade, I had an abusive teacher. I had started school when I was four, and think that I wasn't ready emotionally for it. I suffered from a learning disability and had to be transferred to a new school with new kids. I had special educations teachers up until the 4th grade. I never fit in. I was the misfit. I was stupid, ugly, nerdy, gross etc. and often teased. I had no release from the teasing when I came home, as I was emotionally, mentally, and physically abused by my family.. I was always overly sensitive. Cry at the drop of a hat. They sensed this and would have fun with it. They would tease and taunt me and laugh at me when I would punch myself in the face. They would call me a moron and a fool. When I brought my homework home to ask for some help--I was a moron, idiot, stupid--according to my father. My mother would says things like "you make me sick" "I wish I never had you" "you are crazy" I couldn't understand what was wrong with me. I had wished that I was never born. I was the cause of everyone's unhappiness.

I had a sister who was 4 years older than me and she didn't like me either. She used to beat me up, and my mother would give her permission to do so. I had no one to protect me. As far as 8 years old, I remember thinking of ways to kill myself and end the pain and misery. I tried hanging myself with bed sheets on the closet door, but I would stop because I got scared.

When I was nine, I started seeing a therapist for depression. I was just so depressed and did not want to grow up. I knew growing up would be a bad thing. So, from nine-on I have been depressed--that is 20 years. of battling depression and suicide attempts.

The emotional abuse hurt me so much, that I needed a release. I would do self-destructive things--pull my hair, punch myself, bang my head against the wall, scratch myself--etc-- anything to relieve the emotional pain. I tried to think of ways to make my mother love me. She would use mind games on me. Manipulation, guilt trips, silence treatments-etc. I yearned to be loved so badly. I wondered why God made such a bad person like me. My own mother couldn't even love me. When my mother and I were alone-she would physically beat me, pull my hair, punch me, and whip me with a belt. I just sat there and let her do it. My father was out gambling, so he didn't protect me. My mother was full of rage and anger. I felt like I was the cause of it.

When I was old enough to date--14, I jumped into a relationship. He was my night in shining armor. But, I felt like I didn't deserve him. I didn't deserve to be loved. When my parents tried to prevent us from seeing each other, I took a bottle of pills. My mother had to go to work, and was mad that I did this, because she had to leave. My father was mad, because he was in the middle of a Football game. They made me vomit up the pills. The next relationship was for 3 and a half years- He was physically abusive towards me and cheated on me. I didn't think I would find anyone better. I had fears of abandonment. If he doesn't love me-then I am nothing. He dumped me for someone else and I began starving myself and cut my arm with a knife. Then I became promiscuous. Looking for attention anywhere I could find it. I manipulated people with sex. At least someone knew I was alive at that of moment of having sex. I decided that I would be good at sex, because that was all that I was worth. I ended up being pregnant three times with all of them ending in abortions. Almost every relationship I got involved in had to do with my partner being an alcoholic. For some reason, I am a caregiver. I nurture people, and forget about my needs. If I have a good relationship going on, I ruin it on purpose. I sabotage good things. I got into drinking in my early 20's and had a problem with it. I attended AA. I've attended Alanon too, as my mother is an alcoholic.

I have been hospitalized at least 5x for suicide attempts. Each attempt worse than the one before. I have drank charcoal so much, that it was becoming my regular diet. I had a nasogastric tube shoved up my nose. I've been in 5 point restraints and have broken free. This last January, I cut my wrist open and needed stitches. I almost died, because I overdosed on pills. I've been in the psyche ward 3 times. I've been on almost every antidepressant this is, with none of them working. Now, I am on 60mg of Celexa, 10mg. of Pamelor and 25mg of Seroquel when I need it. I've been less depressed, but I am having flash backs of childhood. Now, I have a chance to be married and I don't know how to handle it. I don't know how to be loved and I'm afraid of abandonment. I'm glad this site exists. I don't feel so alone anymore. Where there is a will, there is a way. Us BPD people are survivors. Keep the faith and believe in yourself.

Story #42

I was adopted. I always knew that. It was a part of who I was. The urban folklore in the wealthy suburb in which I was raised tells that I was left on a doorstep when I was 9 mos old and wasn't adopted until I was 3 yrs old. I don't know about the rest of the world, but I actually remember being 3 yrs old. That first Christmas with "the new family" just weeks after being adopted, feeling alone, unwanted, unloved, listening to everyone else having a good time because they all knew each other, being the outsider, not fitting in. Most folks I know can't seem to remember before age 10 or so.

I've read some of the stories here and I sit here wondering how I ended up with BPD. I wasn't sexually abused. I don't think I suffered any traumatic stressors. Perhaps my therapist is right - maybe BPD *is* genetic. Either way, I did manage to find a few commonalities.

As I said, I was raised in a wealthy suburb where everything was perfect - the lawn, the car, the house, the decor, the family, the child. I grew up with "children should be seen, not heard" and "don't ask for what you want, wait for it to be offered to you." I grew up with an absent father who was constantly working to keep up with the Jonses. I grew up at the hands of a mother who was extremely jealous of me because she had five miscarriages and resented the hell out of my father bringing home an adorable little girl, personality formed, to make Insta-Family. I was renamed Joy because I was "the joy of (my dad's) life" and boy did I suffer for it.

If I played with the dog the wrong way, at age six, I was made to write out "I will not tease the dog" one hundred times. If I dared complain I was bored or there was nothing to do, I was given a comb and made to comb out the fringe on ALL of the oriental rugs in the house. If she determined I was getting underfoot, I had the thrill of alphabetizing the canned goods at age 11.

Look out when I rebelled against my teacher mother (but not mine nor at my school) by not turning in 18 homework assignments in fourth grade. I got the wooden, spiked meat tenderizer applied to my butt - 18 times on each side. Boy, was I howling but that only got me "If you don't knock it off, young lady, I'll REALLY give you something to cry about!"

Many years later, she and I had a lengthy discussion on neutral turf when I was about 19 wherein she admitted her jealousy, admitted she was a horrible mother & never should have been a mother and that I was taken from a home that had more love than the one I was brought into. It meant a lot to hear those words but it didn't stop who or how I was.

Even though most of the physical and emotional damage came at my mother's hands, my dad absolutely adored me and because of that and the town environment, I tried SO hard to be perfect so I could get his love - not his gifts. When I was a sophomore, he was headed to Parent-Teacher conferences at the private, Catholic, all-girls high school I attended and he asked me what grades should he expect. Trying to hedge my bets, I underestimated on purpose so that, just in case, hopefully, when he saw higher grades, he'd be really proud of me. Boy, did THAT backfire! He started screaming at me about all the money I was wasting at the school that he didn't really have but he busted his butt to make sure that I didn't lack for anything, yadda, yadda, yadda.

He stormed out and I lost it. I agonized, sobbed, wailed, moaned for an hour before I took the bottle of (whatever headache pills were in the cabinet.) And then I got scared, called a friend, had her mom take me to the hospital, swallowed whatever that brown goop was & spent the rest of the night barfing.

That wasn't my first bout with suicidal feelings. I, like someone else mentioned in their story, was double promoted. I started kindergarten early & skipped second grade because ... ready for this ... my mom had done the same thing. I was being drilled on multiplication flash cards at age 5 and punished when I got them wrong. Because of the acceleration, I was always the youngest in class, the freak, the oddball. It's painful to walk into the third grade classroom and have everyone stare at you because they just KNOW you're a freak and you're seriously intimidated by all the older kids and don't know any of them.

It's hard to start high school at age 12 and still be the tallest one in your grade. It's even more idiotic to think that someone would be ready to go away to college at 16 - which I, of course, screwed up royally, flunked out in three semesters and wasted $10,000 of dad's money - which, as I was reminded, he didn't have but he busted his butt to make sure I was never wanting for anything. Talk about growing up with guilt complexes on top of perfection expectations - no damn wonder I'm a neurotic mess!

Along the way, I managed to battle alcohol addiction, sex addiction and food addictions. The DUI at 19 helped me sober up. Waking up on my 21st birthday with some guy, that ordinarily would have repulsed me, helped me stop sleazing around - although at age 28, I've been with less men than my age but only because of two relationships lasting 6 yrs wherein I was with only one person. The food addiction was addressed during a rotten experience with an HMO that decided, after ten psychiatrist sessions, I was "cured" but they recommended ongoing group therapy in OA (Overeater's Anonymous.) That was a joke! I figured out at those meetings that there was WAY MORE to my problems than just substituting food for feelings.

As I was waiting to for my wedding ceremony to begin in 1994, I can still feeling that I should be nervous, reminding myself that there wasn't anything to be nervous about because I didn't really love or care about him. And yet, I married him anyway because it was what was expected. We were a GREAT co-dependent couple! I was the steamroller, he was the doormat. My wish was his command. We were both passive-aggressive to the Nth degree. It was doomed to fail. I joke about it now but it took us a year and $45,000 to get married - 60 days and $600 to get divorced.

Nope, no kids, thank god. Since I was 12, I've always known that I'd never have kids. I'm too messed up to do justice to an innocent child. And then there's the whole "I don't really LIKE children" thing. Seriously, this decision is probably the best thing I'll ever do in my life - save a life.

Oh, along the way, I've made just about the worst decision I could possibly make and still be alive. I've chosen to be with the wrong men as punishment to myself for being imperfect. I've quit jobs without having another lined up and almost ended up homeless. I've been fired from more than one job because of my temper and impulsivity - neither of which are good in Human Resources. I've made financial management decisions that led to bankruptcy. I've up and moved three times trying to chase down happiness in the hands of another - failing to realize that I could run away from the situation but never from myself.

There are days when the only reason I'm alive is because of my dog - he doesn't care for strangers and if I died, he'd be put to sleep because no shelter would be able to place him. I place my entire existence on that little guy's head and rarely do I decide to live because I WANT to.

I've never been a cutter. I don't get into the physical self-abuse. I'm more emotionally self-destructive. I test every single person in my life. I allow VERY few people into my inner circle. Lord help them once I do because I test the hell out of them. I have been manipulative, lied, cheated, stolen, snooped, spied, stalked ... you name it.

I've spent twenty-five years learning to be the perfect BPD. I just got diagnosed with what I call "BPD x 2" - bi-polar and borderline - about two months ago. It was a blessing to know what was/is wrong with me. It's been a saving grace to know that I'm not the only nut bar in the world. It's nice to know that "I have reason to be."

I still battle the black-and-white thinking. I still battle my abandonment & rejection demons. I still have mood swings, although not as severe thanks to the meds. I still am impulsive and temperamental. I still expect myself to be perfect and beat myself up beyond recognition when I fall short of the mark.

BUT, as my therapist equated it, one can't go from couch potato to Olympic-class athlete overnight. I can't wipe away 25 yrs of learning, practicing and perfecting in two months. I recognize my BPD traits more and more now that I know what they are. I am TRYING to re-train how I operate. I am TRYING very hard but at the same time, each time I stumble during my training, I hurt people I deeply care about tremendously. It gets discouraging and it helps to know that there is at least ONE person in my life that is there for me consistently - my therapist.

However, I recognize that the insurance may change, circumstances are fluid, life is filled with chance and change - I could lose that at a moment's notice. I need to get to the point where I can do this on my own.

As I'm writing this, my life is in a gray area right now. My relationship which is almost at the one year mark is in serious jeopardy. I love, respect, cherish, admire and enjoy this man tremendously but he's made it clear that my unpredictability and impulsivity is driving him nuts. He's taking time to figure out if he wants to invest any more of himself in this. Three months ago, I would have been climbing the walls, gotten drunker than a skunk & gone out driving, or been threatening suicide.

*I* am seeing improvements in myself insofar as I'm not doing ANY of those things. I'm calm and somewhat accepting of the situation. I've made my feelings and desires clear to him but have accepted that he may very well come back to me say "I've had it, no more." IF that happens, I'll deal with it then. I won't over-analyze this, as is common in BPD. I'm learning, but slowly. And it's the slowly part that's driving him nuts.

Oh well, that's my story "and I'm stickin' to it!" I DO believe there is hope. I DO believe we CAN overcome BPD. I DO believe that, given the right therapist, the right support system, the will, desire and determination to overcome BPD and become who we want to be, we CAN be better. We CAN be world-class hurdlers in our own right.

As I'm fond of saying of late ... "it ain't easy bein' green."

Story #43

I am almost 30 yrs. old and am having a mid-life crisis. My depression began when I was 9yrs. old and I sought therapy for it. I didn't know why I was depressed. My family called me the "drama Queen". They would tease and egg me on, because they liked the way I overreacted. To me, it was real torment. I had a learning disability in the first grade, as I had an abusive first grade teacher. I was molested by a stranger at the age of 6. My grandmother starved herself to death when I was 12, and my mother tortured me mentally, emotionally, and physically. My whole family tortured me mentally and emotionally. I began having suicidal thoughts at the age of 9, and even acted on them. Physical pain was better than emotional pain, so I would punch myself, pull my hair, scratch myself, etc. Yet, I still knew that it was the family who were "crazy", not me. I knew the abuse was wrong, but there was no one to protect me. I would cry myself to sleep every night, wishing I was old enough to have a man come and save me. Hence--"looking for my rescuer". I got teased at school constantly and came home to abuse.. I never had any peace of mind. As I got older, it got worse--I got involved in a very physically and mentally abusive relationship which I was in from 16-20. I thought I deserved it. "I was no good". and the Fear and issues of abandonment would come into play--which lead to anxiety and panic. Always grasping for someone, anyone to love me. I then turned to burning my arms with cigarettes, cutting my arms with knifes, and drinking. When that relationship ended, I was almost dead. I became anorexic and started starving myself, just like my grandmother did. I've been on almost every kind of antidepressant know to man, along with antianxiety, antipsychotic, and mood stabilizer drugs. I am an alcoholic, an adult child of an alcoholic, a co-dependent, have major depression with suicidal ideations, borderline personality disorder--did I leave anything out? I probably did. I have been hospitalized for 5 different suicide attempts. With each attempt getting worse each time. I was last hospitalized this past January for slicing my wrist open and overdosing on pills. I now have a lovely scar. I choose alcoholic and emotionally unavailable men all the time. If I can make them love me, then I am worthy. I have become promiscuous and am able to disconnect my spirit from my body. Somebody knows I'm alive if they are having sex with me. I am afraid to be loved. I don't know how to be loved and sabotage good things. I am my own worst enemy. I am currently on 60mg of Celexa, 10mg of Pamelor and 25mg of Seroquel when I need it for anxiety. I am a survivor. I graduated from college with honors. I also graduated from Nursing school with honors, and I am a very good, caring, and loving nurse. This disorder is not our faults. We do not need to keep robbing ourselves from good things. We deserve good things in life now. The torment is over. I stand up for myself now. I am very assertive. I still believe that I have multiple personalities, but it is not my fault. I can feel each personality taken over and feel that it is my defense mechanism. My boyfriend wants to marry me, but he is manic-depressive and in recovery from alcohol. Yet, he knows all about my problems and still loves me anyways. I don't have to pretend with him. I'm just aging anxiety, because I'm not used to being loved. I hope I don't sabotage this one. KEEP FIGHTING EVERYONE. THIS DISORDER ONLY MAKES US STRONGER AND MORE LOVING. My thoughts are with everyone who has this disorder. And, I LOVE YOU.

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. 

Story #45

Hi! My name is Kristin and I'm 22 years old. I was diagnosed with bpd when I was about 16 years old. Since then I've been through hell and back. My parents thinking they were helping me sent me away a lot to treatment centers. I only grew worse, and then the day I had been waiting on came, [when I turned 18 ] I was thinking, good no more being sent away. This is when things really started getting bad. 

I was drinking extremely too much and smoking weed. I was in love with this asshole that was using and abusing me. I started living on the streets in my car because I wanted to see this man who was might I add 13 years older than me.

My parents wouldn't help me in any way because they couldn't see me like this and they didn't want to help me fail. I was so mad at them for not helping me. 

The drinking led to arrests for drinking under age, and as you see now I was doing the same to myself that my parents did to me. I spent 6 months in jail for these arrests which literally drove me crazy. All I wanted to do was die. I was mad at the world and at god. Also since I was 13 I had tried to kill myself on many occasions. while I was in jail I tried to kill myself and to make a long story short while the abusive guards were restraining me from hurting myself one of them fell and broke her leg. I got charged with a felony and was facing 8 years in prison. I took a plea bargain and only did 10 months. 

While I was in there something in my head just changed. I don't know how but I was tired of living the way I did and wanted to succeed at something. I know god had a lot to do with this. He is the only thing that could turn my horrible way of thinking around and I had a lot of people praying for me and most of all I was praying for myself. I just got out of prison a few weeks ago. I am on no medication and so far I am feeling great. So there is hope for everyone out there suffering. Don't give up!!!!!!!!!!