Borderline Personality Disorder in Older People

I am forty five years of age and diagnozed with borderline personality disorder. BPD is a disorder that literally cries out for help, and if you are a bit lucky, like me, you do find quality support. My instability is there. Sometimes, when provoked, it comes out. Still, as one researcher has stated, borderlines have a sense of reality and they get dressed when it's cold and so forth. So I have learned that some sort of behavior will make me feel better than other behavior. For instance, if I have blown it in public, I don't need to hide and avoid going out again, like I did before. I can talk to some psychiatric service and focus on more functional behavior. I know the signs of vulnerability, and I'm more aware that it's not good to push myself too hard. I'm better at selecting people who support me, and to get myself out of harmful situations. I'm more at peace with being a bit queer and having stronger emotional reactions than others.

When I was young I had more frantic behavior in order to avoid abandonment. Through therapy and twelve step work I've been learning that letting go of people makes them more free to come to me. But to some extent that inner drive for contact has been replaced with apathy and controlling, by eating. So I've gained about 50 pounds since I was younger. I need to tell myself that it isn't the overweight that's eating me, although that's actually how I percieve it. Actually, my eating problems are old. They too are a bit less frantic, thanks to a serenity encouraging fellowship.

I've come to the conclusion that alcohol gives me a tendency to look at people in a more paranoid way. Like it gets conserved in the liqueur in stead of just disappearing when the emotions change. So I stay off alcohol. Think I read about that somewhere.

I see the danger of isolating. I've read that some BPD's become more and more paranoid, and eventually suicidal, so I really see the need to keep up my health preserving connections. I cannot do it all alone. Church, therapeutic and other accepting settings like this site is helpful in stabilizing my emotions a lot. People close to me, like my husband and children, know that I'm unstable. Also those who know me from the settings where I feel safe, but I'm more competent at not letting it all hang out where people can't deal with me. So I'll conclude: Life's for learning. As such it can be pretty exciting.