Month: May 2018

Well, its BPD awareness month, and to top that this week is mental health awareness week (they should do a calendar of these, theres so many of em).. I thought for my second entry that I should say something about my association with BPD and mental health issues as a way of explaining just why I’ve created this blog.

Firstly I should say that me saying any of this in no way qualifies me or makes me any more knowledgable than anyone else, this isnt a competition or a comparing scars contest. I just think that theres a lot of people now talking about mental illness and becoming self-styled guru’s on the subject (which is fine by the way – the more people talking the better), the idea of people reading this just makes me slightly nervous (stage fright I suppose).

Secondly I should say that I’m not looking for sympathy of any kind. Lots of people are far worse off than me, and I’m not trying to change the world. I’m just relaying my experience.

And thirdly I should say that mental illness is horrible. Horrible in ways that peope who have no experience of it for themselves can possibly understand. Depression and anxiety have ways of messing a life up in ways that very little else can achieve, and its a gift that keeps on giving too. BPD is its own little demon, with a good proportion of those affected going on to kill themselves and the remainder having reduced their expected lifespans. Officially I have recurrent depressive illness with dysthymia, emotional regulation issues and a generalized anxiety disorder cherry on top. I take a small cocktail of venlafaxine with a mirtazopine chaser each day to keep my spirits up and am seeing a therapist each week, as well as a community care coordinator (dialectic behaviour therapy nurse) and a psychiatrist. I’ve recently been tested (PDQ4) for personality disorders and scored fairly high on the borderline, anxious attachment, paranoid and a few other sections. According to the DSM-IV manual this makes me a pretty good candidate for Borderline personality disorder (emotional regulation issues to be a bit kinder). I don’t know why, but getting this diagnosis has changed everything. I’ve had depression my whole life, but knowing about the BPD is like finding out that I was adopted or something. I think I’m a pretty clever person, but I just cant compute what this means for me. It feels a bit like a life sentence-that I’ll never be free of it. It’s also placed a massive barrier between me and others that I can’t get over. I think that I’ve make the cardinal sin of looking at myself as the illness, but hard as I try, I can’t seem not to.

This all probably sounds really whiny and boo hoo poor me, so sorry. It’s just that I’m now super aware of how my illness effects others in a way that I wasn’t before, especially after the incidences which triggered the most recent episode of depression this time last year (a future post I think).

In short then I’ve had depression on and off since I was 15, attempted suicide several times (I’m not very good at it) and seen countless medical practitioners-all leading me to where I am now-which incidentally is where I’ll leave you..

I hope that some of this is informative or of interest (particularly if you’ve had a diagnosis of your own), if not then apologies.

Next time…

Well, this is my first ever blog post… Its taken me a lot of vacillating and changing my mind as to whether its a good idea or not, but for better or worse here it is.

I suppose I should introduce myself, I’m an ex-scientist in north-east England (sunny Newcastle upon Tyne) currently working within the university system. The purpose of this blog I suppose is to add to the growing number of mental health blogs that are appearing every day. I guess I’m quite late in the day to this, but the more the better I suppose.

I should point out that I’m not a crusader, I have no intent to change the world (although that would be good). This is merely a space where I can put thoughts and opinions about my condition and how this affects me and the people around me. I guess its a trash-can of consciousness and in its own way….therapy?

I’ve recently (well, this year) been diagnosed with Borderline personality disorder (if there’s a worse name for a condition I’d like to hear it), and its been in part a relief, and in part a curse. I can’t say that its an overwhelmingly positive thing, although it means I now know my enemy at last. After half a lifetime of being dysfunctional, depressed, anxious and unhappy I at least know why.

After doing a mountain of reading about the subject (the academic in me), I’m amazed by the vitriol by which we are described. I’m generally not a fan of “labelling”, and am resistant of naming those of us that display “disordered personality” as a group, as we are all different. There seems to be more ways of “displaying” the condition as there are hours in the day, and I don’t want to group people together – and was surprised at how authors on the subject are eager to do just this. We are (apparently) by measure hysterical, over-emotional and sensitive, manipulative, deceitful, and needy. The texts seem to ignore the fact that we are also, and to a large degree, loving, emphatic, caring and helpful, with a great need to pass that love onward and a nurturing sensibility. I’ve read many blogs, comments in the twitter-sphere that describe the daily struggles of people (for want of a better term) like me, and we all seem to face the same generalisations of our personality and character assassinations, making a bad condition even worse.

I’m leaving it there for a start, but I would like to know more (if anyone ever reads this) about peoples experiences. I know mine so far have been traumatic and BPD has changed my life considerably in the last 12 months alone.

That’s all for now….