Story #6

I'm a twenty year old male whom has had his first tastes of psychology within the last two years. Somehow I made it through high school without taking a single class. I got curious about taking it after I suffered a year long nervous breakdown after getting in my senior year in high school. Some would be argumentative and say that it's relatively normal. However, it had been building from the last previous two years at least. By school's end I was in a state that I threatened to commit suicide at least once every two days in some form or other and even had a few plans as to how I would attempt it. But it never truly seemed real and I clung to idealistic images of types of ritualistic suicide.

Something just became the last straw, the last thing before I couldn't take it any longer once I graduated. To sum it up I started to open up and within myself I found yet again another layer to open up. I talked mainly to different supporting groups online mainly and only sought professional help once. But I had butted heads with the counselors and such before in my past as a child and consequently I don't trust them that much. In the beginning I almost liked my counselor, but like I always change, I didn't trust her any longer and wished to 'fix this' on my own and so I quickly stopped seeking help.

I've taken a foolish route, but a route that I like to think has worked so far. I'm not too successful in school, nor do I have a very good job- in fact I'm about to lose my job. But I have a great relationship with somebody that lives in Canada now. This actually being the first time I've attempted to have a relationship with anybody. Even with friends, I push most away. I haven't been diagnosed with any types of problems mentally nor physically, but then I didn't stay with therapy long enough, I suspect, to be diagnosed. I didn't want to be seen as a hypocrite going there although the pain was very real.

Most of the symptoms described about BPD seem to match me. Even down to the doubt of whether or not a bad thing in one's life is real or not. I have real bad phobias about groups of people or being alone with somebody. Consequently I almost can't go into public bathrooms, they are one of the worst experiences. And gyms are the other place. I had this phobia for a long time before the nightmares started, but scattered through out last year I had four nightmares about being raped. That topped with the fear that already existed started to make me fall apart further after I had managed to 'put myself back together' some. It reversed the healing cycle for a time.

I don't know what is wrong with me and I don't think I will ever know when it comes to that. It drags up feelings of hate and despair at times when I dwell on it and other feelings from my past. So far the only thing I've discovered now that I can feel that I'm good at and that I can escape into seems to be writing and so that is where I am deciding to finally go. It is the only genre that I can use my problem to my advantage- the fact that I 'shift' and feel things from different view points from time to time. They say everybody seems to do that but I don't see anybody else suffering from it at times.

It is funny that I remember to say this last, but I don't worry about this so much now that I met my girlfriend. I've suffered from anxiety from my phobia- thinking that I might be gay or a "fag". But ironically it is in the very nature of this phobia that I generally respond with disgust at first around gay men. I usually adjust to their personalities and attempt to ignore this first feeling and generally it will go away unless their personality clashes with mine. I site my phobias of large numbers of people, men that are bigger then I am, and fear of being alone with somebody as being some of the main reasons why I've gone through such dramatic changes, "red lining" or "bordering" back and forth between extremes.