Stigma alert: I’m manipulative, attention seeking and toxic. You will feel like you’re walking on eggshells around me, and I’ll leave you feeling drained after every interaction. I will lie, feign illness, and seek drugs. Nothing you can do will help as my personality disorder is untreatable so its important that you cut me loose…
I spent twelve months in an NHS funded private psychiatric hospital which was set up as a therapeutic community. It was 133 miles from home, so I was living in a new city away from all my family and friends. This was like no other hospital though; it prides itself on recovery within a homely…
I often describe having BPD as being stuck behind a window at the bottom of the ocean. You are watching everyone else above you snorkelling. If you have the privilege of an oxygen tank and no sharks, you, “should really be more grateful”… ‘Why can’t you just swim?”. In addition to this, the life saving…
I always felt like there was something different about me. People would explain it as, “You’re weird, but in a good way”, but it’s never felt good having extreme mood swings, feeling emotions so deeply, wanting to turn all the mirrors around because you can’t stand yourself, having chronic feelings of emptiness, constantly asking questions,…
My symptoms have existed for as long as I can remember, and I spent most of my teens under a CAMHS team. Despite this, I was well into my twenties, my teaching career and my umpteenth crisis before an eagle-eyed psychiatrist recognised I have Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). I also…
It was Spring Break of my senior year of college. I chose to stay at school for the break. I was supposed to spend the week studying; instead I found myself doing a self-taught course in psychology. I bought too many books and borrowed even more from the library. I scoured the internet for information…
I was 18 when I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. I had just spent eight months in a children’s Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU). It would be another five years before I would be admitted to an adult personality disorder unit. Having a personality disorder is a profoundly unsettling experience – for me, all…
Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, is a mental health condition I have recently been diagnosed with, alongside Borderline Personality Disorder and anxiety. It can often develop following a single, or a series of, traumatic events such as a severe car accident, or an assault. In my case, I have suffered multiple traumas in the past…
For many individuals suffering from mental illness, intrusive thoughts about suicide and the urge to end one’s life are a common symptom experienced on a daily basis. There are dozens of reasons as to why a person may consider suicide. Some may feel so depressed that they see no other way to end their inner…
As someone with BPD, the hardest things for me to deal with are rejection and abandonment. Borderlines are often described as ‘sensitive to rejection’. This sensitivity is really hard for me to describe and just as hard for other people to understand. One person’s sadness is my absolute despair. Another’s fear is my overwhelming paranoia….