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…
Borderline with a PhD 