People with Borderline Personality Disorder Speak Out

Caution: These letters include triggering material.

No new letters will be added to this section at this time.

Kicked out

Into a cold dark winter of a cold dark year
Into a cold dark world of cold dark people
A frozen sphere in an ice carved pinball machine
I bounce from frozen pillar to energy impoverished post
Propelled by frosty clappers through hideously hoary caverns I then
Fall down a chilled howling abyss only to reappear
For more torment in a wind shrieked snowy hell

Cast by freezing gales onto the peaks of cruelly crystalline crags
My perishing limbs can find no purchase
I�m picked up by merciless ear splitting winds
Like claws and am plunged through river ice
Carried along by chest crushing currents
Blood hardening in spasming arteries
My dying visions are of people playing on the surface

Dead but not dead
I tap unheard on frost rimed panes
Within cheery houses are happy people
Faces glown with firelight and love
I trudge away through desolate sleeted space
Through bitter night
My appointment to keep at the cliffs of despair

i know NO other people suffering from BPD. i feel alone. My name is Joanna and was diagnosed in January 1998 at the age of 17. i was hospitalized 3 times that month, and then february 13 (a friday) i was sent to a residential in Pennsylvania called Kidspeace. I was in denial....or maybe it was fear. i received treatment (medication and therapy). I was told NOTHING of what the disorder was really about. i was told there was no recovery. i felt dead. more depressed than ever. i was released in april of 98. they said there was nothing more they could do, and that i was to stay on medication and go to therapy if i wanted to be normal. I went home.....to a place i didn't recognize. my "great friends that i loved so much" had become druggie in the 3 short months i was gone. i was lost and knew i couldn't stay with them. i felt life was hopeless. then i woke up one day and realized "hey.....this is my life..... i'm gonna take it into my hands" so i developed my own treatment. i stopped all my meds and therapy. i finished high school, got accepted to college, dumped the druggie friends, developed new friends and cut the crap. i felt free. i still had a problem though, but i was in denial. a year went by....i wound up not going to college and taking a break instead. i held down a job, kept my friendships very non-intense and made a basis for a life. this past fall i started college, made MORE friends, and became whole. my happys are not highs....my sads are not threatening. i'm at peace and i'm not dead. Seeing the movie "girl interrupted" inspired me to delve more into my disorder. the more i learn the more i can conquer. i feel we are all victims. we didn't do this to ourselves, but only we can stop it. Don't ever let anyone tell you you can't be treated. and when you decide you want to LIVE, don't ever let anyone make you feel like you are already dead. We AREN'T dead. we are amazing people with amazing stories. don't ever be ashamed. we are all human in this world.

this is a story about she. Of course I hadn't heard about BPD at the time of this story. In fact I only was first seen for treatment 3 months ago. At that time they diagnosed me Bipolar and BPD. But I disagree i feel I am just BPD. But that doesn't really matter does it.

-One of the thousand stories of She-

She sat smoking a clove no where to go. The desert does that, its emptiness starts to change you into a vision of its own self. Until you open up to the life that is there. Not in Wal-Mart or cheap coffee shops where she always goes. She was an ocean girl who had dried up. She tried to think but some how couldn't, all she could do was mechanically pull the cigarette to her lips and

Inhale,

Exhale

She never knew where the habit for these sticky sweet scented cigarettes came from. But slowly she found herself always buying another pack to replace the one that she swore was her final pack. She wasn't addicted to the cigarettes themselves she knew she could go days without the desire for one. But some how she found the habit comforting. Even as she knew it was self-defeating to her depression.

"Depression", she said slowly out loud tonguing the word to some how taste its sound. She knew that the feelings for it ran deep inside herself.

Though the final diagnoses was far from complete. She knew deep inside that her problems were tied to the word. The thought of the diagnoses moved her hand to a blister that was on her arm. It was a yellowish brown, an oval shape. She didn't dare to pop the pocket, that sat on the inside of her arm. Instead she fingered it slowly pushing on the injury to move the liquid inside about. She usually ignored the damage after she had done it, but she felt compelled by this one. Even as she looked at it with disgust. She didn't know how she would explain this one. But she hoped no one would ask. People rarely ask you about the marks, they might stare or pretend to ignore them. But very, very rarely would they move to ask you. They either didn't care or found it to rude to ask.

SHE-

To all of you out there that feel like you don't know who you are, and like you are losing your mind:

WELCOME TO THE CLUB!!! Being a BPD myself, I truly understand. Every second of every day I feel like I'm holding on to my sanity and "calm center" by my fingernails. I go through my day at work trying to keep a lid on it. I know that no-one I work with wants to know what's wrong with me, or why I feel the way I do, they just want me to be there, smile, and do a good job. I am in my fourth job in two years, and this time, I will not let my illness take this job from me. It took a lot for me to admit that there was something wrong. I thought I was flying into screaming rages, throwing and smashing things because I lost my only son, at age 3, because I trusted him alone with my boyfriend at the time. I came home to find him beaten within an inch of his life, which he lost a half hour later in the hospital.

When I went into therapy two months ago, the doctor knew all of this. I was lucky that he recognized that my son's death was aggravating a problem that already existed. Since then, I have been reading everything I can get my hands on, and having my current partner read them with me. We have a beautiful little boy, two years old now. It is very difficult raising a toddler with this disorder. Sometimes when he does things, I want to lash out at him, and I do a lot of walking away. I would love to hear from other parents as to what they did when their kids set them off. Obviously, a child doesn't understand the way a husband or friend will. What can I do to explain to him that it's me that is being bad, not him? I don't know what to do!!

I'm 30 years old now. I just turned 30 years old 9/26/98. I never thought I would make it to this age. I thought I would be dead by now. I was abused as a child (mentally, physically and sexually) and neglected to the point that I was convinced that I was adopted or that I was an alien. I knew I didn't fit into that family of violence and abuse.

When I was 18 years old, my older brother told me the truth about my family: that my father was actually my stepfather, that my parents had told my real father to never try and contact me, that my Mom had tried to kill herself along with me (3 years old) and my sister (10 years old). He told me so many things, and it was things that I had suspected, but chose to deny. I think this episode is what "broke the dam" and set-off my enveloping rage, resentment, depression and self-hate.

When I was 19 years old, I called my therapist because I was cutting up my wrists again and didn't think that I could trust myself to stop this time. I was upset because an emotionally unavailable man that I was having a sexual relationship with had broken it off with me and I felt totally abandoned and used. My therapist had me check into a crisis center, where I stayed for 2 weeks. While there, the Doctor diagnosed me as a Bi-Polar and put me on Lithium.

I stayed on Lithium for a couple of years with no really remarkable improvement. For whatever reason, they never questioned my lack of progress. Gradually, they renamed me a BPD. I got the help of a very competent therapist who actually liked working with BPD patients! She told me the truth about my illness. She shared with me that many therapists did not tell a BPD that they were a BPD because they thought that it would make the dysfunctional actions worse or the patient would obsess. She shared my view that knowing my diagnosis actually helped me understand that I wasn't crazy or alone. She also formed a virtually non-existent self-help group for BPD patients of hers. Once a week, about six BPD patients met in her office and shared our experiences and problems. It was extremely helpful. She said that the reason therapists don't put BPD's together is because they thought that there would be a lot of competing and fighting. This simply wasn't true.

After going through experiences like being raped (twice), being arrested for a felony drug charge and getting married, I finally got the medications that I so badly needed. I had tried a lot of things since that incident with the Lithium, with not much better results. About four years ago, my doctor put me on Zoloft (200 mg) and Ambien (2 mg, to help me sleep soundly with less nightmares). When I have taken it faithfully, I am a totally different person. As a matter of fact, it is remarkable that I am actually more stable than most people when I am on my medication. Zoloft is "the glue" that holds my mind together.

Before the correct medication, I switched from minimum wage job to minimum wage job every 3 - 6 months. I moved as frequently and changed relationships at least as frequently. I went on SSI/Disability for a couple of years. I was miserable and couldn't see anything but the pain in my life. The only relief I found was either hurting myself or through my greatest talent: art. Through my artwork, I found a way to express the pain from the past and the present and I could do it symbolically so as I wouldn't feel threatened or vulnerable. I did my artwork for me alone. It helped a lot and got out a lot of anger. Most people describe my artwork as "disturbing". I love it when they say that because that means I am getting my message across! The experiences that I put on canvas were disturbing!

After getting on Zoloft, I settled down quite a bit. I stopped hurting myself physically. I felt more "together". I went through a rough period with my marriage, which eventually ended in divorce last spring. But I survived the divorce. When my husband and I separated, I got a really good job that gave me a lot of new skills. I make really good money as a bill collector. I learned to be assertive through my job, which is something that I never was before. I grew family-like roots at my job and learned to not fight authority (like I had so many times in the past). I got medical insurance instead of public assistance. I became a valuable employee. I was recognized by my supervisors and coworkers as a damn good collector.

Today, I am a much healthier person. I am currently enrolled full-time at a state university. That job that I got that was good? I still have it 1 1/2 years later! They like me so much that when I told them I would either have to work part-time or get a new job, they let me be a part-time employee (they only have about 3 part timers out of about 500 people) and earn the same money that I did when I was full-time, plus keep my medical benefits. I come and go as I please. I work about 24 hours a week. Last month I was asked by our Divisional Manager to be one of two representatives for our division on a task force to meet with Vice President of Operations and make important decisions about how our job is done. This was a landmark for me! I never was asked to input my opinion in anything growing up. I found it amazing someone actually found my opinion valuable enough and rational enough to voice it for the entire company! Then, the first of October, I qualified for another honor: I was inducted into our company's Presidents' Club. This is a group of about 30 collectors (the best in the company) and the company gives you a gold ring with an onyx stone in the middle and it is personalized. I am extremely proud of my accomplishments. Not only am I doing well at work, I am doing fantastic at school! I expect to get A's in all four of my classes!

My therapist tells me all the time how far I have come since she met me four years ago. I think that I have, too. But she is careful to remind me that I am not healed yet. I know this, and try to keep it in mind so that I don't "feel cured and go off my medication". I have went off my medication many times, usually because I run out & don't have time to get it refilled. Once, back in the spring (when I got my divorce papers in the mail), I was off my medication and I felt so numb and dead. I branded myself with a metal cross. It still hurts me to this day and is not healed. The most painful thing, though is having to lie to people about what happened. It is a huge, ugly scar. I usually tell people that I got it from working on my car (I DO work on my car, but the scar is diamond shaped, so most people think it is a little suspicious, but do not pry).

I am in a relationship right now with a good guy. He grew up in a pretty dysfunctional home, but was strong enough to survive, too. The last time I was off my medication (about a month ago), I was overwhelmed with things going wrong e.g.: my car was stolen, my best friend at the time did something awful to me so I stopped being her friend and she ended up getting fired because of some stuff she did to me at work, then she spread around my work that I have herpes, which I do have from being raped; a bunch of bad stuff was happening all at once, all when I was off my medication. So, my boyfriend told me he was still friends with this girl from my job (he used to work at my job)...they were just friends, which I know to be true because my boyfriend loves to talk and has a ton of friends; well, this didn't sit well with me because I think this girl is totally ignorant and I didn't understand why he should want to be her friend. It didn't occur to me that just because I didn't find her of any value as a friend, that he would anyway. It wasn't okay with me for him to still be her friend because I thought she was ignorant! (This is typical irrational thinking when I am off my meds)

I called him up at his job, yelled at him, told him that I wasn't happy in the relationship and maybe we should end it...blah blah blah. Even as I was saying it, I knew I didn't mean it and I didn't want to say it, but I couldn't stop myself! I hung up the phone after thoroughly making him mad. I called back about 5 minutes later and explained that I was sorry, that I have been off my medication and all the things that have been going wrong lately were taken out on him. He said it meant a lot that I apologized, that he thought I must have been experiencing something from the past, and he reminded me that he is not the enemy, then he said "I need you to be my best friend now." I felt so horrible! How could I be so mean to such a good guy? I didn't deserve him! He then said, "I'm not going anywhere. We are going to work through this together." It's amazing....as unexplainable as being a BPD is, he seems to know exactly how to react and what to say every time I freak out!

I think the things that have helped me the most are:
1) The right medication
2) A good therapist
3) Surrounding myself with POSITIVE, HEALTHY people
4) Realizing that nobody is going to save me but me
5) My artwork as a form of self-therapy
6) Time time time----this could be the biggest thing besides #1 & #2, I have been a BPD for 11 years now.
7) Realizing that I am intelligent, pretty, creative and a good person, I just have been through a lot of crap, but I WAS STRONG ENOUGH TO SURVIVE.
8) I am a firm believer in Karma. So, instead of getting revenge on someone that hurts me, I move on and let karma get them! I don't waste valuable energy on bad people anymore!

I realize how far I've come every time I see someone that is as messed up as I was. I see them all the time. I find it hard to believe I was ever like that. I am not trying to brag, I just want everyone to know that it IS possible to have a successful life, just like you could if you didn't have BPD. I am sort of mentally challenged, like someone that is in a wheelchair or can't hear or any other disability, but with some patience and lots of effort on my part, I can be the person that I've always wanted to be. And you can, too. Believe in yourself and know that everything happens for a reason. You are a strong person, much stronger than most people. And I respect you for surviving. Have patience.

It's easy to be gorgeous if you're wealthy,
it's easy if you're gorgeous to be strong
it's easy to find wisdom in that confidence and strength,
and it's easy to find friends if you happen to be wrong.

But it's harder to stay strong when you are weeping,
it's harder if you're hurting to be wise,
it's harder to locate the faults and fix them
and it's harder to stay sane amidst the bitterness and lies.

Life is never easy for the lonely,
it toils the soul, but can make it true
Just never give up fighting to be human
and you'll do the things you never thought you'd do

Death on the Run

Empty thoughts and Empty heart
leave the Lord no place to start
and Satan does his worst.

Malevolent thoughts form in a vacuum
the heart freezes and burns by turn
the mind refuses change.

Desolation wilderness resides within me
the bleak, the damp and moldy
remain in my soul
a repository for wild, rainy emotions
and All what All that is>
Empty and soundless

except for the relentless, driving wind sound
the sound of Death on the Run.

"In Stark Abandonment"

How does it feel to be a woman
and a child so deep within

In a world that sees only so far
nowhere where I have been

Pity it is that children are
as hidden from the world's stare

Pity more is the ignorant
neglectful way they don't care

To play is a child's term
but sometimes play isn't so friendly

Sometimes being grown up
denies the child that's here within me

A hunger to be held close
can be misconstrued in life

And it doesn't mean it's there
after years of being a man's wife

It finds no satisfaction or peace
but only to know ceaseless ache

BPD colors what I see in life
darkening the perceptions I make

Closing me so deep within
I see nothing but the fear of losing

Regarding the world as unsafe
yet none of this was of my choosing

A mind broken by abuse
knowing years of endless battering

Home came down in pieces
to a child left alone in it's shattering

Emptiness took residence then
and fearing stumbled into misconstrue

Then black and white moved in
shading most things with their view

Hope left in stark abandonment
but not without taking joy far away

For what does a lonely child know
when sadly, BPD moves in to stay.

It's well and good to quote Eleanor Roosevelt about no one making you feel inferior without your consent, but many people with BPD are in the public system and are dependent for their mental health needs on people who are prejudiced against them and are less likely to give them services as soon as they see that diagnosis on a file. What's really needed is education.

I look you straight in the eye
daring you to see what I hide
you came close, once or
twice
then only believed when
I lied
you pass on by while I
silently beg you to look
inside my eyes
to see the secrets and lies
look me in the eye, see my plea
just once before I die

this is for everyone that should have noticed that there was something terrible wrong. when I was in the 4th grade I spent many classroom hours puling hairs from my head. after awhile I had a scabbed over bald spot, then I began to pick at the scabs. it should have been apparent that this was not from a one time experience. when my caseworker finally showed up, I lied saying a boy pulled my hair. she never saw the scabs or scars, but then she never saw the emotional ones either. maybe she could have gotten me help then, and i would now be able to feel, love care. I am so very lonely but only choose people that hurt me. I hate being alone but only leave the house for work. i seek help but get none. I don't know where to turn. Outside looking in.

The Borderline Dragon

Imagine that your thoughts and feelings change suddenly with no apparent reason other than that they can and always have. Imagine that your brain shifts to thoughts of dying to thoughts of goals and planning for the future within minutes. Imagine that your fantasy is your reality yet true reality never matches your fantasy. Imagine that you have a conscious choice to live in either place. Imagine that all your achievements in the past, perhaps even in the past hour, now mean nothing; as if they never happened. Imagine that you are as distant to understanding others as you are often as distant from yourself. Imagine you are borderline.

The line is never drawn solid. It changes...altering perception. You never actually can "cross the line" because one never exists in your world. It has always been fluid. It relies on your present state, real or fantasy and you find yourself constantly guarding yourself against an invisible enemy. And, then one day, you discover the enemy all along has been YOU. Today is that day for me.

You learn that life is a right...not a flight or fight situation. Your brain understands this and comprehends and focuses on reality, yet the pull of your perceived state of emotion tugs and brings you down the drain. When you are your own enemy, there is no true visible target. You strike out against yourself in a world that you perceive to be eternally striking against you. You find harm and pain in the warmest of places and ignore risk and intuition as well as instinct when you feel emptiness deep within. All you know is to fill the hole that can never be truly filled due to the fact that everything you place within disappears so quickly. No dollar amount, no satisfaction, no person, no relationship, no self-achievement could ever fill what is actually never empty. You just can't feel it. You dare not think you are fulfilled, for that, in itself, would mean death. To live on either side of the line is what you are truly afraid of. To make a choice and to see things as they truly are in the present.

It made sense for you not to live in the present, the here and now, many years ago as you were abused and abandoned. Developing your borderline personality actually saved you back then. It removed you for the danger and pain. The ultimate defense against any and all enemies, any and all abusers, any and all emotion of pain, shame, and disgust - to take yourself out of the present into a world where you are safe. No security to be found in reality so you escape to fantasy and develop altering perceptions to keep you safe and sound. As you grow, this has followed you, the ultimate guardian. If you need a friendly dragon to ward off your attacker...you just create one.

Then, as you grow and prosper, you discover that the dragon you created to be by your side, serving, as your friend, your protector, is not real. You stand alone in a fight that only existed years ago...no present danger, yet your body and mind still feel threatened. You are on guard for no reason and the tension and depression produced by this is devastating. You are fighting a battle that you have already won, yet your gun still remains drawn at the invisible enemy within yourself. Most times, you yourself become the enemy and find yourself as the target of yourself. Why? Maybe in hopes that your friendly dragon will come rescue you once again. Yet, you find yourself fighting alone in a war you have already won years ago.

Imagine yourself now discovering all of this yet confused on how you are suppose to match your inner being with your outer environment. The truth - the reality that you do exist in. Your mind is no longer throwing you back to childhood, your body can feel that maturity in its growth, yet at times you feel so small it seems impossible to drive your own car. As you grow, you assume many roles in life. Those which rely on intellect. Your escape from hell has been your need to grow, to learn, to achieve, and to be productive. You are not much more than an actress assuming any and all roles placed before you - often feeling you have entertained an empty house. There may be applause from the crowd - yet you can not stand to hear it. To acknowledge your success is to acknowledge your fulfillment. Once you are fulfilled, the final curtain, you feel, will come down.

The combination of intelligence and compassion with that of borderline personality can be no worse then hell. You are aware of the destructive behaviors, the emptiness, the desperate measures you will take not to be abandoned or hurt...yet you are as helpless as you were when a child. You have relied on your intellect to bring your further along in life, yet without the emotions, you have remained a partial child. Often reacting and acting out as a child in an adult world and situations. There is no match and no resolution. You learn you can not move forward in life without striking a balance between the heart and the head. You learn that in order to be yourself, you can not be the child you once were. A child living in a horrid reality and one who escaped to vivid fantasy for survival.

Again, no friendly dragon to come play and save you. The once friendly dragon that danced in your childhood has now become the borderline dragon...a dragon that is now mocking your adulthood. Imagine that you now must rid yourself of the borderline dragon. For it has shifted from being your friend to being your worst nightmare. To fight the borderline dragon today, you must see it for what it truly is. A devastating illness nurtured by yourself throughout life.

As you learn, you develop. As you mature you come to realize that the old need to be borderline no longer exists. In its place you need to learn to see things in reality, keep them in reality, and cope with them in reality. That is my goal. To imagine myself as that friendly dragon from fantasy and bring it to reality to give me the strength and fortitude to fight the borderline dragon. For it is that brave dragon from childhood that I need to feel within me. It is this playful and protective dragon that I must reach deep inside myself. So I can comfort and protect myself in a sense of security unmatched by any heaven that could exist. So I can finally make the choice not to be borderline in a world of color, beauty, and where dragons remain in songs and storybooks for children.

If you'd like to give Meri feed back on the above article and the following article and 2 poems below you can email them to her. Meri

The Invisible Pain And The Visible Patient

How many needless trips to the family physician do I need to convince myself that my headaches are not from some rare tumor that can only be seen by a select few? How much money should I spend for prescription after prescription for what does not ail me? How many pills a day must I take to find that none of them contain the magic I have searched for? What do you do when the invisible pain your have felt all your life is only expressed through somatic complaints and anxiety related minor ailments?

You stop. You come to realize that the compulsion for being nurtured and need for attention is what precipitated the numerous co-payments made each year to your physician and the countless money you spent on medicine that perhaps, you never needed. You come to realize that this is just a part of your borderline existence; a part that brings confusion to both patient and medical doctor. To fix a neck full of tension and muscle spasm is easier to cure; to diagnosis a cold or flu is easier to do; and to not tune into your body so much is the most difficult thing to accomplish.

Who can make a bruise into a severe internal bleeding disease, which will only bring upon untimely death? Who can make a simple backache from tension into a slipped disc? Who can make an upset stomach into a rare and complicated disease? Any borderline person you meet, including myself, who can understand visible symptoms and not invisible pain.

Often I have simply just asked for a broken leg. Easier to explain, easier to justify, and one that lends itself to visible healing. An x-ray will show the break and separation; a cast will hold it together while it mends; and physical therapy will make the leg good as new as you once again are able to stand.

How then couldn't I see that I have had a broken soul? A soul that needed mending all these years. The process would have been the same perhaps, an x-ray to determine the invisible pain of childhood; a cast to be placed upon it to keep it safe and secure while you work on the healing and the reconnection of your heart, mind, body and SOUL; and therapy to continue the healing and mending while you gain the strength to once again, stand up in the world for yourself and as yourself.

For no doctor, no medicine and no imagination of a magic pill or spell can cast away the virtue of the borderline personality. A borderline's body is the cast that contains the soul still deep within waiting to finish healing.

To Be BPD

What does it feel like
to have an illness so obscure?
You spend your lifetime searching
unclear if there is any cure.

Your thinking is black and white
with loss of clarity in between,
although you talk calmly
inside the echo of a scream.

You try to connect to a world
that barely seems at all real,
and in the cloud of borderline personality
is it fantasy that you feel?

You view people as distant
and view yourself as fading away,
some days are easy to get through
some days are ... better not to say.

The life of a borderline person
is no different then hell or your worst fear,
for every time you think you are getting closer
the answers erode in a distant stare.

If I am to ever overcome
all the initials placed after my name,
all professional diagnoses
will I ever be the same?

And where am I to go
to find the right connection just for me?
to be able to say I am no longer borderline
in the mirror will I finally myself see!

Metamorphosis

For years, I, the caterpillar
crawled throughout the earth,
ugliness and fear
became upon my birth.

I, the caterpillar existed
afraid of each unyielding leaf,
feeding and searching for existence
each new season evolved to grief.

As a caterpillar I often curled up
to protect myself from human's harm,
another child's exploitation
meant more then me on his arm.

Then one day, I, the caterpillar
began to feel some change within,
unsure if I was to live or die
a metamorphosis was to begin.

I quickly built my own shelter
around me, a solid cocoon,
for there inside I could develop
for what I was to change to soon.

Inside this tiny cocoon
I strive for a new image of the emerging me,
from an ugly and frightened caterpillar
to something beautiful which I longed to be.

Inside I was changing
a fearful caterpillar - no more!
my feelings, my body, my spirit - blended
forming this wondrous butterfly I saw!

Now, I the emerging butterfly
have started to spread my wing,
in a world that is no different
except in the beauty that I bring.

From an ugly and frightened caterpillar
to butterfly I have become,
yet the one thing I must always remember
is the metamorphous where I came from.

To exist in the world as a butterfly
I had to change my view on earth,
and have compassion for the other caterpillars
that are still questioning
their survival and self worth.

I, the beautiful butterfly
now fly proud amidst the earth,
beauty and understanding
from a livelong process comes rebirth.

I think I am writing because I need an outlet. I have a question: How possible is it that a reputable institution and the doctors in it would diagnose a patient with "major depression" rather than "BPD" because somehow or other "major depression" seems like less of a social burden for the patient to have to live with? I am 19 years old in college. Last year I was hospitalized three times. Since then I have seriously started to think I have BPD. For one thing, I was placed on the BPD unit, they asked me to read information about it, and my discharge was contingent upon my agreeing to pair up with a DBT therapist. I later dropped out of therapy entirely. I also quit medications. (I'd gone from Prozac to Zyprexa to 225 mg of Effexor with some amitriptyline.) I always had trouble taking medicine--I'd start to feel it wasn't helping, just wouldn't take it, or, worse, was known to be an overdoser. That was what had hospitalized me in the first place. I had another ER visit this summer. I think the ER staff must think I am a recreational patient-that I come in just for the attention. And then, when I realize that I do like the attention, being worried about and taken care of, I feel guilty--as if they are really RIGHT--as if I AM just a habitual whiner. The odd thing is, so often the physical "complaint" that lands me in the ER in the first place feels real--it IS real. Intense stomach pain. I thought it was an ulcer. The last time they sent me home to take Mylanta. I think they thought I was just anxious. Then I felt really bad, almost wished something more serious HAD been wrong-- just so I wouldn't feel the guilt of having "wasted" the doctor's time. It's reached a point where I almost think if I ever really did become ill I would hesitate to go back to the ER for fear it might be "nothing serious" "nothing to worry about." The more I read about BPD the more I feel like the wind has been knocked out of me. because I recognize myself. The feeling inadequate in everything--despite my talent. I've always seemed as though I had my life together--I'm in a very good college, my professors view me as someone with great potential, my family is well, I "have it all." yet so often I feel like a shell. I like the Beatle's song "Eleanor Rigby." Recently I read someone's interpretation of that ambiguous line: "Eleanor Rigby, picks up the rice in a church where a wedding has been, lives in a dream. Waits at the window, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door." That jar by the door is probably her make-up jar. I feel that way sometimes. I wake up, put on my face, try to look pretty, for others, but really secretly I think I'm somehow not "good enough." That poor-self image is probably related to my #1 cognitive distortion--the magnifying glass trick. Whatever is good in me, I shrink to an insignificant speck. Whatever is bad--my flaws-- I magnify until they are so large they BECOME me. I obsess. It is so easy for me to fall in love--to think I have fallen in love--with people who are inaccessible to me. Either because they are married or because it'd be unethical--because they work with me in a professional or academic setting. I've been known to fall for my professors. Probably a common phenomenon, except with BPD it becomes so intense I am not even interested in males my own age. I get so fixated, so "devoted" to my heroic image. I think the reason I do that is precisely BECAUSE the relationship could never be fruitful. We could never be close. Thus, there is NO WAY I COULD GET HURT. Except I do get hurt, terribly, emotionally--and all of this is my own doing--I get hurt because I distort and think thoughts such as "He didn't smile at me today, I wonder if I did something wrong." Irrational. Perhaps I have rambled too long. At the moment I am just keeping it together. The therapist I had said I had a huge control problem, that I try to control things. This is true. I also repress, pretend I am fine. I don't know. I wish life could be happier, but even when I do feel happy I just think, this won't last long. I just keep pretending to myself. Apparent competence?

I've recently been diagnosed with BPD, cautiously, with at minimum "BPD traits" by a psychologist and BPD by a psychiatrist. All my life I've been in a quandary as to what is wrong, because I have had episodic crises in between which I have expended inordinate energy surviving in a fast paced and high level career and lifestyle. The toll has been cumulative culminating in physical ailments from stress and collapse from depression in the hospital.

I know now there is no ignoring this, that the "buck stops here," if you will. I am forced to make first priority health and therapy and all those things I was afraid would be futile and therefore irrelevant to my creating my own success. Taking responsibility for creating your life experience is admirable, but the existentialist philosophy can be lonely, and debasing when faced with results that even the most concerted efforts could not control. The humiliation of failing when I know I tried in every way I knew how, was overwhelming. Some of the issues and deep seated insecurities I find terribly embarrassing, and incongruent with the dignity I wanted to establish in my life.

This last episode of blacking out under extreme stress (and drinking) and (I can't even write about it without stumbling) cutting my arms was just devastating. I thought I had "gotten over such immaturity". This is how I always viewed it. The involuntary hospitalization, albeit short, numbed me and shook me to the bone. For the first time I have no excuse but to get help, because I have the time now. It is also the first time BPD was discussed with me. Years past, diagnoses varied between alcoholism, Post traumatic stress syndrome, bipolar (and those were the nice comments - family more likely called it irresponsible, immoral, selfish, etc.) - It occurred to me that family "help" only degraded what little confidence I had, and psychology was mostly conjecture and what was in vogue in any given year.

I became very cynical about any help that I could ever find any help. Now I am determined to follow through. Although I don't "rage" all the time, and certainly do not exhibit psychosis, I find much of what I read about BPD answers many questions for me. I am entering into this venture with guarded optimism. I want stability, and to make a positive difference in this life.. I believe fervently in the Jewish concept of "Tikkun Olam" or that we have an obligation as human beings to help repair the world in whatever capacity we are able. At times in my life, even survival has been tenuous, and I want much more than that - I want the range of human experience, and empathy and connection. None of us here are alone in our pain, and I trust that we can capitalize on each others experiences to improve our lives.

I can't begin to describe how extraordinarily alone and alien I have felt for most of my life, and to hear that someone may relate to my experiences is astounding to me. My first reaction to the psychiatrist who told me what I had was "more than depression, but BPD also" was nausea and well restrained (!) fury, that he would insult me so.

BPD has sounded so revolting with its depiction�s of "infantile defense mechanisms" (an actual terminology I saw on an Internet medical journal on BPD) and out-of-control raging that it sounded like a 2 year old throwing a temper tantrum, or a 15 year old on drugs. But at this point, I am willing to entertain anything that might help me understand my life, and recover from the pain. For so many years, I agonized in self reflection, trying to understand but unable to identify any explanation for my problems.....

In "AA" which I attended off and on for years, I was chastised for not "doing the steps well enough", yet when I tried to complete a "4th step" inventory, I could not piece my life together in any coherent fashion. Rather, it was snapshots of pain, that had no apparent continuity. There were sometimes, year or two stretches of time where I could function well, in my career, in my relationships, and even drink without compulsion or excess so the alcoholic "model" did not fit. Then there were the speculations of PTSD, dysthymia, major depression and I guess anything short of schizophrenia and paranoia. In crisis, I was a walking plethora of theories.

I never understood why extreme stress or rejection prompted the depression which prompted the drinking which prompted the suicide attempts, arm cutting episodes and - when I was younger - driving at high speeds hoping to crash to just end it all.

Inevitably, after the crisis, or hospitalization, I would quickly reassemble, pull myself together, dress in my best business attire, and present myself as articulate, capable, professional, and positive - and I did have the credentials to support this persona. As a result, I have worked all over the country and internationally in wireless communications, in engineering and in management. Yet always I felt like an impostor, with dark secrets that must be closeted under lock and key. It was neither in my nature nor in my career position to be inconspicuous. I may have well have worn a sign that said "target" in neon letters. Have you any idea (I'm sure you probably do) how absolutely exhausting this was??? I will understand more, I'm sure, as I go through therapy, but my doctor seems to agree that it is a good part the real corporate engineering environment coupled with my gender and "genetic" sensitivity he claims is symptomatic of BPD. I welcome learning more about this, since recovery is not