BPD and Me
Written by Asher Chambers
Graphics by Jolie Asuncion
Six months ago, I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, or BPD (or EUPD), and it changed my life in a big way - as it should, it’s a big diagnosis. It gave me a whole new perspective on my life, especially the last year. It changed how I viewed my own behaviour, and it gave me a better idea on how to move forward. Something I didn’t expect, however, was how much it changed how other people treated me. People cared so much, or not at all.
BPD has been linked to the amygdala and limbic systems in the brain, and these are the systems that control emotions, specifically the more negative emotions like anger and fear, as well as controlling impulsivity. All of these are pretty key characteristics of BPD and probably the most well known. We’re stereotyped for our emotional outbursts of all kinds - and I’m not going to lie, I’ve had those outbursts. I’ve had the super happy ‘God, I have so much energy!’ outbursts, I’ve had the pure anger ‘I hate everyone and everything’ outbursts, and I’ve had the rock bottom ‘I can’t take life anymore’ outbursts. Off my medication, every little emotion feels like an outburst. It was utterly exhausting, and I felt awful every single time because I knew I was out of control and I could never stop myself quick enough. Once I was in the emotion, in the ‘outburst’, it was so intense that all I could do was ride it out and pick up the pieces after. That’s the part that doesn’t make the stereotypes. The assumption tends to be that we’re manipulative about it, that we’re doing it on purpose. Which I have to admit, really hurts. I think sometimes people can forget that, just like with any other mental illness, as much as it’s difficult and confusing to deal with us, it’s just as difficult and confusing to go through it. It’s upsetting, frustrating and scary to be so out of control of your own life.
These misunderstandings, these assumptions hit me like a truck one night in November when a mental health professional sat across from me and told me that my suicide attempt wasn’t genuine, that it was, in fact, just for attention, because I had BPD.
That's an uncomfortable thing to read. I was uncomfortable to write, and to remember. But it happened, and it happened because even the people who are meant to help us are prone to believing everyone but the people sat in front of them.
Of course, the huge emotions, the depressing experiences with the mental healthcare system and the problems in relationships aren't the only aspects to BPD. To get diagnosed you have to meet at least five of the nine key criteria (an intense fear of abandonment, a pattern of intense and unstable relationships, unstable sense of self, a pattern of impulsive and reckless behaviour, engaging in/has engaged in suicidal and/or self harming behaviour, long term feelings of emptiness and lonliness, severe mood swings, sudden and intense feelings of anger, and feelings of paranoia or disassociation in stressful situations). They’re all closely intertwined, and all relate to how we react, and to how we interact with others. Untreated, it can take over your life. It becomes all consuming and though personality disorders don’t actually dictate your personality as we know it, in the middle of it, it feels like that's all there is to you. You can so easily become your disorder, especially when one of the symptoms of that disorder is not knowing who you truly are and feeling the need to compensate. From a young age my mental health was a huge part of my identity, and I fell right into that trap of becoming BPD and nothing else, because it felt like every single part of my life was nothing else. But, in January when I sat down with my three ducks in the garden and studied in the freezing cold instead of hurting myself, I realised I was more than BPD and that big long list of symptoms. Therapy and medication has, quite literally, been a life saver.
When I was diagnosed I had to look at my actions in a whole new light. The possibility of a personality disorder had never been raised to me before, and it was scary, because a personality disorder is something that you learn to manage, not something that ever fully goes away. But… it made a lot of sense. I looked back at how I coped with things, my reactions to things and it had Borderline Personality Disorder written all over it. It was a relief though. It confirmed that I wasn’t just being dramatic or irresponsible or unstable for the sake of it - there was a reason, and once you can see why something is happening, things can move forward.
So that’s what I’m doing - moving forward. I’m learning how to cope without getting dangerously destructive (most of the time) and I’m trying to surround myself with the people who are taking the time to listen to me.
Another misconception about those with BPD is that we’re untreatable, that we can never recover. Some think that we’re destined to die young. That’s not true. I believed it for a while, I thought my destiny was an early grave. But it’s not. I have BPD, I struggle with that along with a whole host of other issues, but I’m still here even when I was sure I wouldn’t be. People’s assumptions aren’t always correct.