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….
Borderline with a PhD 