I'm such a hypocrite

I just realized how unfair I've been to my husband. He's a great guy. I'd even say he's every Borderlines dream guy. He's read everything he can in order to understand the condition. He puts up with my mood swings. He follows all of my stupid rules I made in order to alleviate the feeling that he was going to leave me. Even in my hardest times, he's never stopped supporting me. And it's because of all this that I expected more.

We got into an argument the other day. Well, it wasn't really much of an argument. I just said something that he took the wrong way and he ended up yelling hurtful things at me. It made me cry for hours. The whole time I was thinking that he should've held back his feelings. I was thinking that he shouldn't have yelled because he knows I might react badly to it. I was thinking that he must not care for me because if he did, he would've acted in a way that put my feelings first.

It wasn't until last night that I realized how hypocritical and selfish that is. I mean, I yell at him all the time. Why shouldn't he be able to do the same? Just because I have BPD doesn't mean I'm the only one with strong emotions. I've always said that everyone has a right to their own feelings and there's no such thing as a wrong feeling. So then why do I expect him to always keep his feelings in check? Why do I think my feelings are more important than his?

I've got some serious thinking to do.

So now I'm freaking out

The full force of my decision to move home just hit me. What the hell was I thinking? I moved away because that whole town makes me an emotional wreck. My "friends" are all the people I used to party with. They probably expect me to be the same person I was back then. The girl who will sleep with anyone if she gets drunk enough.

Then there's my ex. He's going to use my kids to hurt me every chance he gets. And in doing so, he's going to break their hearts and probably mess their heads up so much they'll end up with their own mental disorder. Part of the reason I moved away was because he told me the only way I could see the kids was if I slept with him. That's just the kind of person he is.

And there's my Grandma. I love her and I wouldn't trade her for the world, but she's manipulative. She lies and then lies about lying. She tries to play people against each other. She's just too much to handle sometimes.

And of course there's my Dad. My Dad makes me feel inadequate, like I'm just not good enough. When I tell him something, he looks at me like I'm lying (even though I'm not). He acts like I never do anything right. He never tells me he's proud of me. And he's disowned me 3 times. When I try to talk to him about the things Patti did to me and Lisa when we were little, he won't listen. He denies everything. I understand that denying what happened is his way of telling himself he's not responsible. But how can he deny coming home and seeing me covered in blood? How can he deny Patti hitting me so hard that she sprained her hand? How can he deny picking me up from the hospital after her actions caused my hand to be cut in half? He moved me out of her house that night so he must have suspected something. But I lived with him for months after that and he never said anything, He was with me through the reattachment surgery, doctors visits, physical therapy, and he never even asked what happened. I guess the denial was present even back then. I just get so tired of hearing "You remember it worse than it really was".

And last but not least, there's Patti. She made my life a living hell. She beat me for no reason. She gave us so many little rules, they were impossible to follow. It was like she wanted to control everything about us, no matter how small. I can't tell you how many times I got in trouble for drinking wrong. How does a person drink wrong? She treated me and Lisa like crap just because she wasn't happy with my Dad. It wasn't our fault he cheated on her. And when I got out of the girls home at 17, she tried to play the victim. She said I should feel sorry for her because she had to put up with me and Lisa. Screw that. I can't stand her. I hate her. I don't want to be around her and I definitely don't want to live with her.

When I step into my parents house, I turn back into a scared little girl. I remember all the rules. Ask before getting a drink of water. Ask to go to the bathroom. We only eat at designated times. No humming. Don't touch anything. No gum or candy. Ask to use the phone. I still follow them. I shake with fear (literally, my body trembles) that I'll break a rule. When my husband ate a banana without permission, I totally freaked. And it's silly because I know Patti can't do anything to me anymore. After surviving for 4 years with an abusive husband who outweighed me by a hundred pounds, Patti's nothing. I'm not scared of her. So I don't know why my head goes all screwy whenever I'm over there. But the point is that it does go all screwy....and I'm supposed to go back there and live?

How?

Personal Responsibility

I get annoyed with people that use BPD as an excuse for their behavior. I know it has a huge effect on our emotions and thoughts, but that doesn't mean we have to let BPD control our emotions and thoughts.

I lived for years using BPD as an excuse for my actions.
"It's not my fault."
"I can't help it."
"Don't blame me."
I let BPD rule my life. I let it make my decisions. I let it control my thoughts and emotions. I didn't even try to change because why should I have to change something that isn't my fault? I did whatever I wanted and then expected people to understand that it was the BPD, not me. Heck, I even expected people to feel sorry for me. And when I finally tried to get therapy and realized that there wasn't any in my area, I gave up. I used that lack of therapy as an excuse to keep acting out.

While writing this, the same words keep running through my mind: weak, irresponsible and selfish. Giving BPD so much control over my life made me weak. Using it as an excuse made me irresponsible. And giving up on finding treatment made me selfish. I never even thought about how this was affecting my husband and my family.

It was by pure chance that I found out about a therapy option most wouldn't even consider for treating borderline personality disorder. Self Help. My first reaction was ridicule. I mean, how the hell could a self help book treat something like BPD? From what I read, it takes years of intense therapy and even that doesn't work for everyone.

But then I took a look at my life. My marriage was a wreck. My arms still had scabs from my latest self harm episode. I had no friends because I drove them all away. I had almost been kicked out of the house because of my last suicide attempt. My emotions were raging out of control and because of that, my behavior was driving away everyone I cared about. I realized that if I didn't figure out a way to control my symptoms, I was going to lose everything. I realized that even though it wasn't my fault that I have BPD, it's still my responsibility to figure out a way to treat it. So even though I didn't put much stock in a self help book actually working, I decided I should at least try it. Besides, it couldn't possibly make my life any worse.


The book I chose was The Angry Heart by Joseph Santoro. After some initial troubles (which I'll write about in later post), I stopped holding myself back. I dug into my past, relived painful memories, and wrote it all down in a special journal. I took an honest look at my current life and implemented the changes needed to make it better. I started with the exercises and repeated them many many times. I worked at my own pace and it was slow-going. But it was working. My head didn't feel as crazy. My marriage was stronger than ever. I stopped self harming and attempting suicide. I even made a few friends. And all thanks to a ridiculous book I thought would be a waste of money.

I took responsibility over my life and my life got better. Although BPD still has a big impact on my thoughts and emotions, I no longer blame it for my behavior. Taking personal responsibility for my actions has made me work even harder at getting better.

This is something every borderline needs to do. Whether we use traditional therapy or self help, we still need to start accepting responsibility for our own actions.

I would hate to be normal!

I've had a bad couple of weeks. Actually, I've had a bad month. I've only been manic twice in the last month. And even then it was only for a couple days. I hate it. If I'm not manic, I'm just blah! I don't want to do anything but watch tv and overeat. I make plans and to-do lists and then cast them aside. I have no energy. No drive. Nothing!

So how do normal people do it? How do the mentally sound get through each day without feeling the intense drive that mania gives? How do they live life without that manic "I can do anything" feeling. Or do they have that same drive and that same feeling just in lower non-manic doses? I don't know. And I don't want to find out!

All I know is when I think about it, I feel sorry for my husband because he doesn't get to feel these intense happy feelings. But then I'm jealous that he doesn't have to feel the sad, mad, empty feelings that comes when the mania is gone.

I wish I could just be manic all the time.

Online BPD Support Groups

In the three years I've been online, I've joined quite a few online support groups. Some were just for BPD and some were for a broader range of problems. I always ended up quitting because it seemed like I was never able to post about the things I needed to post about. For instance, if I was having a bad day and felt like cutting, I couldn't post anything asking for help because it might trigger someone else. How stupid is that? While I understand about not wanting to trigger anyone, what's the point in being part of a support group if I can't get support when I need it the most? 

Recently Facebook made it so that groups can be either closed or secret. With this change came the creation of two (that I know of) BPD support groups. I joined the first one and spent the next couple days in awe. Everyone was so open about everything. We were all asking questions and finding out that we all have pretty much the same symptoms. I found out that I'm seriously not alone in this. That support group quickly became my leaning post. 

But after a while, people started arguing. Feelings were getting hurt and people were leaving the group. To be honest, I expected this to happen. After all, you can't gather 200 emotionally unstable people in one room and expect everything to be fine. But after seeing this happen every single day, I finally couldn't take it anymore, so I joined the second group (who I heard was much calmer). Thankfully, they were. Everyone was super nice and supportive. I very quickly became close friends with a few. 

Then a couple of us started seeing a trend in the posts. Certain people were posting all day every day about wanting to hurt themselves or kill themselves. Now personally, I ignore those posts. I know that's not very supportive of me, but I wouldn't know how to help them anyways. Besides, it was getting really annoying (and triggering for some) to constantly see a steady stream on s/h posts. And when one of the group members voiced her concern about it, she got attacked. So now there's arguing in both groups. 

A little before that happened, a couple of us struck out and started our own group. There's only 8 or 9 of us, but we like it like that. This is a different type of support group. It's a place we can go and be around other Borderlines, but we don't really talk much about BPD. We mostly talk about other aspects of our life. It's so nice to be around other Borderlines, but not focus on BPD. This group has been a life saver for me.

In the past couple of days, both groups have calmed down again. For now things are peaceful and I plan on sticking with all three of them. If you have Borderline Personality Disorder and you would be interested in joining one of the Facebook groups (they're better than I make them sound. I promise), friend me on Facebook with a message about joining so I'll know to add you. 

BPD and other Mental Conditions

Borderline Personality Disorder is commonly found to be co-occurring with other mental disorders. I've been thinking about this lately because I have at least 2 other disorders, Mysophobia and Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD). In trying to write about one condition, I find it almost impossible not to mention the others because the symptoms overlap so much. In some ways, I think the three disorders feed off each other.  I've noticed that when I'm having a bad day with my BPD, the Mysophobia seems that much worse. It's the same way with BPD and OCPD. Go ahead and compare the symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder with the symptoms of Mysophobia. Not try it with OCPD.
Do you see how the symptoms could feed off each other?

BPD Awareness Month!

Yesterday was the start of Borderline Personality Disorder Awareness Month. Throughout the month of May, I'm going to be doing things, both online and off, that hopefully will bring awareness to BPD. Yesterday I published an online article celebrating the 4th anniversary of BPD awareness and giving some background information about why awareness is so important. Today I downloaded some fact sheets and gave them to friends and family. Tomorrow...who knows? But I'll think of something! What are you doing to enlighten others?

What causes Borderline Personality Disorder?

When someone is diagnosed with BPD, one of the first questions they ask is "Why?".

What causes BPD?
Some of it's genetics. Like most mental illnesses, if someone in your family has it, that puts you at a higher risk of getting it. It's estimated that about 35% of Borderline patients have a close family member diagnosed with BPD.

The bigger cause of Borderline Personality Disorder is living through an extremely traumatic childhood. Sadly, that accounts for about 75% of all cases.  When a child is forced to endure so much abuse, their brain does what it can to cope. And since the brain is doing all this coping during the time that it's also developing and growing, the pathways end up getting all screwy. And that affects the way we think, feel and react for the rest of our lives.

Symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder

When I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, I had no clue what it was. I'd never even heard of it before. So of course I went online and Googled it. I was pretty disappointed with the results. It seemed like the exact same information was on every single website. Like someone researched it, wrote about it, and then gave it to every website to display. Ans as if that weren't bad enough, it was all written in complicated medical terms. Even the explanations of each BPD symptom were too hard to understand. I had to look every other word up in the dictionary and even then, I was still confused.

That was 3 years ago. Today I'm well aware of all aspects of my BPD. But because I had such an awful experience trying to figure out the symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder, I felt I had to do something to help others in the same situation. So I wrote Borderline Personality Disorder Symptoms Explained. This article explains every symptom of BPD right down to the last detail, in words everyone can understand. I wrote it based on my own life, how the symptoms have affected me. It's very personal because I felt that the more personal it was, the more people it would help.

This article was written for those who have just been diagnosed with BPD and are looking for information. It was written for those who have a family member or friend suffering from this disorder. And it was written for people like me. People who understand BPD because they've had it for so long, but they feel like they are the only ones suffering. I hope reading about my own experiences will show that we are not alone in this fight.