I Have Borderline Personality Disorder

I have Borderline Personality Disorder. Let me explain to you what that means because the name sounds misleading but trust me, once you understand more, it is all going to make sense and if you are 1 in 100 people like me, you are actually going to relate.

For many people, when they hear the phrase "Borderline Personality Disorder", they think of a person with many personalities or they imagine a disorder that closely parallels something like Schizophrenia. However, It's not like that at all. A person with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is constantly struggling, feeling like they are on the 'borderline' between safe or unsafe, or being accepted or rejected. They (myself included) are constantly walking on a tight rope of paranoia in their minds, quick to resort to their primal instinctive mind to enter fight or flight mode at the first sign of trouble. It is quite exhausting.

The two main areas of my life in which BPD affects me the most is when it comes to socializing and intimate relationships. My finances have also had trouble as it is not uncommon for those with BPD to make impulsive and sometimes, completely irrational decisions.

The most difficult part about having BPD is the lack of emotional control although I am much better at this now. My inability to control my emotions has caused me a substantial amount of trouble in my life. Struggling to control my anger would be the most damaging. It is difficult, if not impossible for me to comprehend certain things on a logical level.

I don't take things in the world for as they are, I take them for how they make me feel. When my sensory is triggered whether it be touch, sound, smell, or taste, my mind processes the information by the emotional response given to the sensation, and by very little logical observation.

It is incredibly exhausting to view the world through an emotional lense. Feeling emotions at such peak levels on a consistent basis, whether good or bad, causes fatigue. There are times where I have found it to be a great challenge to keep up my energy. Even after getting good rest, keeping my stress levels down, and eating well, I can still find it hard to maintain my energy, particularly towards the second half of the day. No matter what I do, I always feel drained by the end of the day.

I cannot hide the way I truly feel. I will take any matter personally. Feeling accepted by others lights up my whole entire world, while feeling rejected leaves me feeling sad and confused. It is nearly impossible to pass off someone being mean to me for no reason as "Oh, they were just having a bad day and it has nothing to do with me." I personally don't believe it is fair for anyone to project their own negative feelings on anyone else.

I do my best to maintain a normal self-image even though my instability, paranoia, and exhaustion due to an excessive amount of emotional attachment involved with every aspect of the day, distracts me from myself and my purpose.

I love harder than most. I fall for people quickly and become easily attached. I don't understand social or relationship boundaries when it comes to intimate relationships. I forget that others do not feel as deeply as I do. Every relationship I have ever been in has started and ended the same. It's very intense at the beginning and as some time goes by and the intensity begins to settle, problems will arise, usually having to do with my over attachment and insecurities, and shortly thereafter the relationship will come to an abrupt end.

I cannot help feeling things on a much deeper level. It's like my mind and thinking space is capsized by emotion clouding my logical thought processes and critical thinking abilities. My drive in life is fueled by my emotions.

The good emotions feel great and the bad emotions feel horrible, which is why I am at a high risk for addictive behaviors. Admittedly, I have struggled with addiction on a few occasions. It was easy for me to chase the feelings that feel good whether it was an intimate encounter or a drug, anything for a dopamine rush.

Knowing and understanding my mental health condition has been validating to say the least. Having a strong emotional response to everything is really hard. I really began to feel crazy not knowing what was wrong with me.

It seems like when it comes to mental health, we become very much empowered when we are able to put our finger on the exact issue and give it a name. When we understand what it is, we can truly begin to work on it.

A lot of my life has been dedicated towards bettering myself, and learning to control my emotions. In a way, I feel like I have a gift to be able to feel emotions on such a deep and sincere level. I have been to very happy places in my life and unfortunately, I have been profoundly depressed as well.

What I work on now is letting go of fear and paranoia, especially in social situations, and also the fear of being who I am. For a long period of my life, from childhood to early adulthood, I had never addressed my own identity. I couldn't figure it out. I was faking, and it was easy to do that because that was what I knew. It was all I knew. All I needed to do was be the person everyone thought I should be. As long as others were happy with who I was, then I was content. However, after suffering major emotional trauma, I experienced ego death. The character of who I was, simply did not exist anymore.

When the character of who I was died, the person who remained thereafter, was my authentic self. Today, I live true to who I am but I no longer possess the mask I used to wear leaving me to feel exposed, vulnerable, and insecure. I panic at the idea of having an in-person conversation with a stranger. I no longer have anything to hide behind, and I worry far too much about whether I am liked.

I avoid stressful situations at all costs due to my powerlessness of processing the level of emotion associated with something like a confrontation, rejection, or a even a crowded room. I go places where I know people will talk to me the least, use self checkout wherever I can, and I look at the floor when I feel like someone is about to talk to me to make sure eye contact will never be possible. I don't do any of this because I dislike people. In fact, I love people. I am highly empathic and caring for humanity. It's just that I don't want to endure the stress or fear triggered by a confrontation or my own insecurities.

Borderline Personality Disorder has been with me for most of my life. Learning to tame my emotions, take care of myself, and recognize my identity has taught me many lessons I would have never gotten the opportunity to learn without my mental disorder. I am still learning and growing, and although BPD has been a significant barrier for me in my life, it has played in a major role in the evolution of myself and my identity. It has given me a perspective that is challenging and unique, and if I am being totally honest, I wouldn't change it for a thing.