This is from a BPD Solution seeker

I was relieved to be diagnosed with BPD after years of pain and suffering.

Hi I haven’t written anything like this before so was a bit nervous about it and got myself into a panic thinking I need to sound intelligent and how I need to word my story then I thought f@@k it !!!

Don’t try to be anything just share my experience then I can’t go wrong, so I am starting to write this as it comes and let whatever come out as. There won’t be any fancy words or quotes just whatever is from me.

So here goes … My name is Kim. I’m a 36-year-old female, and I have been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder.

I have suffered from my mental health as far back as I can remember. My early memories of childhood still to this day pain me, not understanding the emotions I was feeling, not understanding this world I feel I have been placed in by mistake.

Feeling completely lost, alone, and stuck.

I can remember being of primary school age, sitting on a swing in the park for hours just staring up at the sky and feeling complete confusion.

Wondering who I am?

Wondering about this world around me and feeling like I don’t belong. While the other kids of my age are all playing together, playing games, laughing and smiling and I’m just thinking, I can’t do that. I can’t do this. I just want to leave.

Please take me away from here.

I thought I was the only person in this world to feel the things I felt. Everyone else seemed to appear normal.

When I say normal, I mean interacting with each other, doing normal things, being children.

Not being messed up in the way I was.

I spent my childhood in the darkness in a world I didn’t understand.

Why was I here?

What was so wrong with me? I just didn’t know.

I’m not sure if it is trauma that caused my BPD.

I do know I have a brother who is seven years younger than me and he is a balanced human being who lives a balanced life. (he’s the golden boy of the family.

He doesn’t suffer in pain.

My mum used to say, how come your brother turned out ok?

I don’t have an answer for that.

Maybe because of the age difference or maybe he didn’t see the things I saw as a child as he was younger?

The violence within my family home I know damaged me and many more traumatic experiences to follow.

By the age of 13, I was completely out of control and ended up in a children’s home because my mum just couldn’t cope with it.

She didn’t understand what was wrong with me and neither did I.

I was lashing out by that time and causing many problems my mum had tried many things, but in the end, the last resort was the children’s home, and that finally came.

For years after that, I hated my mum and blamed her for everything.

I started a long battle with drug addiction because

I couldn’t bare this world, so I used one substance after another to take away the pain I felt inside.

I felt unloved. I felt unwanted. I felt like a bad person.

I hated myself, and I hated the world around me.

I believed I was a monster. Some nights I would pull my hair so hard bits would come out, and I’d scream into my pillow just to try to get rid of the hurt.

I didn’t trust people either.

I was always on edge and paranoid and still can be like that today.

I would come up with a million and one scenarios in my head to what people were up to or what they were going to try to do to me.

Sometimes might I just add I was right and things I thought would happen would happen?

I had to protect myself. Protect myself from everyone so no one could hurt me.

I used drugs that made me high one minute the next I was on drugs that took me right out of it.

Which I craved more and more because at first they removed all the pain but it never lasted eventually the pain would always return.

I went from blaming my mum for the way I was to blaming the drugs to blaming any partners I was with at the time. I had two kids along the way.

Jeez, I couldn’t even look after myself.

What the hell was I thinking?

What was wrong with me?

Even though I always put the blame elsewhere, there was a part of me inside that knew deep within that there was something else wrong with me. I just didn’t know what.

I spent my life up until ten years ago on and off drugs to the point there were no more drugs to try.

Every drug I had used till it didn’t work anymore.

I had no choice but to come off them.

I had gone from one broken relationship to another.

Now I was on my own.

I was homeless at the time.

My kids were removed from me, and they had to stay with other family members until I got clean.

After a long battle, I got clean.

I thought right let’s get myself together.

Got off the drugs, Got my kids back, got a job, etc.

I wanted to try and rebuild my life again but how could I rebuild it when I didn’t have any solid ground in the first place?

I didn’t know that so yeah I got off the drugs and the drink which was another avenue I exhausted.

In the time spent in the fellowship, I worked on a 12 step programme which involves meditating and praying, having a sponsor, and helping others come off drugs.

If you follow this programme you are told you will live a life beyond your wildest dreams.

I was doing everything I was told.

I got clean, got my kids back, and got a flat and a job.

I was looking great and even purchased a car.

So wasn’t that all I needed to do?

I was still in pain the only difference this time I wasn’t on drugs. I had all the outside stuff which was the first time in my life I had that.

Everything from outside looked great, but I still felt this pain within.

Feeling like a child sitting in the park on the swing staring up at the sky. In all these years what had changed?

I was still confused. I still didn’t know who I was. In fact, I was even more confused because now I was pushing myself into the world.

Trying things I hadn’t done before.

And yes at times I experienced laughter and fun and can do on some days even now I find this confusing.

How can I feel happy one minute then the next minute feel so sad?

Then I think was I even feeling happy at all?

Was it real? I don’t know? It’s so confusing.

I went from feeling loads of confidence like feeling pretty funny and intelligent and able to having no confidence at all.

Feeling so ugly that I can’t Evan go out the door as if people look at me they will see my horrible monster face and see how stupid I am.

I actually thought at one point that I had bipolar as I can go from one extreme to another.

I go from laughing to crying tears running down my face.

I go from feeling completely secure and loved to insecure and unloved.

I can think my partner is the best thing in the world to the worst person I know. It’s crazy.

There no in between.

Please, someone, let me out of here!!!!

I made a decision over a year ago to leave the fellowship because something wasn’t right.

I was doing everything and still having suicidal thoughts and hallucinations at night.

Leaving the fellowship was hard because I was scared as I thought if I leave I will have nothing to fall back on.

By doing that it led to more pain which led me to my diagnosis.

I was cutting myself and taking overdoses.

What now?

In turmoil with my new relationship destroying that.

My partner says at times he feels like he’s in a relationship with a heavy emotional weight!!

I cut myself to stop the pain.

I try to kill myself because I can’t cope in this world.

I was reluctant to go to the doctors because I had been there before and they had prescribed anti-depressants which at that time didn’t help me, so I thought what’s the point, but my mum encouraged me to go back.

So I did, and I begged them to help me.

I told them I want to kill myself and I can’t cope with all these emotions.

This anxiety, the paranoia, and the insecurity.

The pain I am feeling and the pain I am causing others. Please make it stop I asked them.

They referred me right away into the mental health clinic where a crisis team started the process.

I don’t want to hurt my family by taking my life away but is it possible for me to be here in any way and not suffer?

After a couple of months of visiting the mental health team through the NHS, I was given a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder.

Right away I was right onto Google 24/7 reading everything about BPD.

For the first time in my life, some things started making a bit of sense.

Part of me felt relieved, and I couldn’t believe there were actually other people with BPD.

I then went on to stalk them all online!!

I was like are you like me hehe. People actually feel what I do? It was so strange.

I went through a period of feeling relieved one minute to feeling like right

I am a loony the next minute to thinking maybe they got it wrong they made a mistake, and there is no name for what I have.

Maybe I’m just f@@ked up!!! There no cure.

I was given a booklet by my key worker at the clinic about being diagnosed with BPD.

There was information in it about DBT which is dialectical behaviour therapy.

Dialectical therapy is proven through studies to be one of the most effective treatments for BPD.

I was also giving a CD to practice breathing techniques.

I attended my next appointment at the clinic and of course asked about the DPD treatment on which I got no response from my worker.

Feeling confused then I started feeling stupid.

Thinking maybe I read the booklet wrongly.

But I went home and reread it again and yeah there it was.

DBT therapy is available on the NHS for borderline personality disorder.

I have been trying to pursue this with the clinic, but eight months later I am still no further forward with getting any therapy.

I did get put on Sertraline medication 100g it has brought my anxiety down a bit.

But the suicide thoughts are still there, and I even took an overdose of my Sertraline to kill myself which only led to a horrible experience in the hospital.

I was unwell with the overdose but still alive!!!

Is there no escaping this world I thought?

I have a 24-hour number I can ring if I feel suicidal.

Sometimes it has helped depending on who answers the phone.

I once had a guy on the phone telling me can’t I just stick the TV on and how tired he was as it been a busy night with calls.

I didn’t have to phone back after a long time because I felt what’s the point in speaking to them.

I have been online and on the Linehan institution website.

As they are the ones who founded DBT but when it asks to put in my postcode, it just says no clinicians available where I live.

I have tried to access the treatment privately, but the costs are so much that I really would need to win the lottery to pay for it which I’m currently trying to do!!!

I do go online and get bits of DBT workbooks etc.

It’s kind of hard doing it yourself as my thinking can be distorted at times, so I really need to work it through with a professional.

I’ve stopped going to the clinic as they just want to keep upping my medication and adding other more.

I’m still having suicidal thoughts.

I still can’t cope in this world. There are times I enjoy things but the downtimes are killing me.

I don’t have any friendships outside my family as I don’t know how to.

On Mother’s Day, I booked a table for dinner for my mum, my partner, and his mum.

On the Friday I booked this, and on the Saturday morning, I was great.

Then came the Saturday night came and something changed within me.

My belly started turning, my emotions all started building up then exploding by the time Sunday came I couldn’t move.

I lay in bed for hours just lying there. Every time I have any meltdowns, this is what happens to me afterwards.

I can’t eat.

I can’t do anything but lie there just staring into space. Then the days to follow I’m filled with guilt and shame of letting my mum down.

At times I feel like I’m losing hope.

I know that if I don’t get therapy, I will take my life. If that day comes, I hope my family can try to understand that being here was too painful for me.

I want to access therapy I want to get better, but if not I can’t go on anymore like this.

This is not a life for anyone. I love my children.

My partner, my Mum, my Dad, and my brother, and I even have a beautiful seven-month-old granddaughter and my two dogs of course.

I’m so in love with them. I really don’t want to hurt them more.

When you battle mental illness, it becomes exhausting, and it affects everything and everyone around you.

DBT is proven to be the most effective treatment for BPD, and yet I can’t seem to access it?

Thanks for reading.

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