I have borderline personality disorder (BPD). AMA, please.

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https://www.reddit.com/r/BPD/

This is a place for those who have Borderline Personality Disorder, their family members and friends, and anyone else who is interested in learning more about it.

 

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18 Things People Don't Realize You're Doing Because of Your Borderline Personality Disorder

https://themighty.com/2017/01/hidden-signs-of-bpd-borderline-personality-disorder/

By Sarah Schuster (Staff)

January 20, 2017

The very nature of borderline personality disorder (BPD) — the splitting, mood shifts and fear of abandonment — can affect how people with the disorder relate to others and the world around them. And because their behaviors can directly affect relationships, if you don’t know much about BPD, it can be hard to understand why a person is acting the way they are.

To try to get a better understanding, we asked people in our mental health community who have borderline personality disorder to share with us one thing people don’t realize they’re doing because they have BPD.

Here’s what they shared with us:

1. “Always overanalyzing everything, from something as simple as taking longer than usual to reply to a text message to saying ‘hello’ instead of ‘hey.’ It’s exhausting.” — Grace D.

2. “Losing my temper. At times I have actually scared/worried the person I’m with because my anger is so bad. I shout, cry, swear and afterwards cry even more because of the amount of embarrassment and shame I feel for being so vile. It feels uncontrollable at the time, and yet when you reflect, you feel like you should have been able to stop it. It’s frustrating.” — Claire G.

3. “Sleeping. People don’t understand how often I have to ‘recharge.’ Simple things are exhausting, especially when there’s social interaction. Even my family gives me a hard time about sleeping 12-plus hours, but what they don’t realize is I’m not sleeping the whole time. Even with medication it takes forever for my brain to shut off. I’m not being lazy when I sleep all day. My body and brain clearly need a break.” — Ashleigh T.

4. “I pick little fights to test you and see if you will leave me.” — Leigh D.

5. “I ask a lot of questions I know the answer to because of my fear of failure.” — Aislinn G.

6. “People don’t realize I don’t ask for help when I really need it due to the anxieties around rejection and abandonment.” — Charlotte S.

7. “I can’t be alone at home. I last maybe 15 minutes, then I get in the car. Even if I’m driving around for an hour till someone replies to hang out or someone is home. Otherwise my feelings of loneliness are overwhelming and I can’t move.” — Becky L.

8. “Neutral and mundane words, situations and facial expressions are often distorted in my perception and interpreted as threats of abandonment and rejection. The smallest real or perceived slight can send me into panic or desperation. It’s hard to simply have a conversation sometimes or go home at night and fight off the constant anger or panic. It hurts so bad and can last a long time. This then leads to other difficulties like impulsiveness and insecure attachment patterns. It is exhausting.” — Kellyann N.

9. “Because of my fear of abandonment and rejection, I often overreact when I feel like someone has slighted me. You didn’t reply to my message? You texted me without a smiley face? You walked by me in the hallway without saying hi? You cancel plans we had? I immediately assume you’re mad at me, that you’re avoiding or ignoring me. And my reaction to that is to go into defensive mode. I’m angry at you because you’re ‘obviously’ angry at me and I don’t know why (although I run through a thousand possibilities in my mind). I shut down. I avoid you so I don’t have to face you outright rejecting me. I get unreasonably upset. And then people don’t understand why I’m upset because as far as they know they didn’t do anything wrong. I wish there was a way I could make people understand how my mind and my emotions work and that I can’t help overreacting to something that seems irrelevant to them.” — Mikal P.

10. “I self-sabotage everything. Things could be going well, but I find a way to destroy it.” — Andrea C.

11. “Being tired all the time — most people think I choose to stay up all night and sleep most of the day. I don’t, I’m just always really tired from having to deal with life and my head.” — Isobel T.

12. “Apologizing a lot.” — Clincie B.

13. “I’m constantly holding back my feelings because they change so often that I never know how I actually feel about something until way later. They are influenced by everything around me. I can love you one second and I hate you in an hour. That is why I can never commit to an emotion because I don’t trust that it won’t change.” — Marie D.

14. “I change the subject of the conversation immediately if the subject is unpleasant and causing a reaction — anger, sadness, fear, etc. I avoid those and so I change the subject so often that not only my friends, but I also, get lost in the conversation.” — Lenka W.

15. “Sending a long text, ending it with “you don’t have to answer” because I don’t want to be a burden, and then getting mad when they don’t answer because even though I said it was OK, I think if they really cared they would have responded.” — Cheryl D.

16. “When I’m quiet, it’s not because I have nothing to say. I’d rather let the emotions storm inside me than say the wrong thing and hurt you.” — Ali R.

17. “Asking people if they are mad at me.” — Angela J.

18. “My emotions, good and bad, are amplified, and often times, my reactions can seem like they’re an overreaction. In reality, I feel everything too intensely and react accordingly.”
— Tiffany I.

 

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To Anyone Who Thinks Borderline Personality Disorder Is a Life Sentence

https://themighty.com/2016/03/borderline-personality-disorder-to-the-person-feeling-hopeless/

By Samantha Mills

March 25, 2016

To the person with borderline personality disorder (BPD),

First of all, know you are not alone. There are men and women from all walks of life who can identify with those three letters, and though they may not always be people you would choose to have in your life, they are your allies and your kin. We walk these paths together; and as lonely as it can be, because of that we are never truly alone.

Know that when you research your condition, you will come across websites that call you evil; you will come across websites that claim you are narcissistic and lacking in empathy. Know that being diagnosed with BPD does not equate to these things. Being diagnosed BPD means many things, but know that it does not make you a bad person. No website calling all people with BPD “evil,” “manipulative” or “narcissistic,” or calling for extreme avoidance of all those diagnosed is an automatic reflection of you.

Know that your future is not assured. BPD can be not “cured,” but it can be treated — it is not a life sentence. Life can get better. If you’ve done dialectal behavior therapy and found it unhelpful, know there is more than one option out there. There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all treatment for BPD, no matter what anyone tells you.

Know that your feelings, as strong as they are, will dissipate if you allow them to. Your anger will fade; your sorrow will ease. Nothing lasts forever, and your feelings are not the exception to the rule. You are the emotional equivalent of a third degree burn victim, but you have the ability to graft yourself with thicker skin. You can get through this.

Know that you can learn to control your behavior. What you do in impulse now, you can learn to contain. Your angry outbursts, your uncontrolled spending, even your self-harm can all become more controlled and can even be overcome. It will take time and it will take a great deal of hard work, but it can be done.

Know that the world is not as black and white as you’d like it to be, but you can learn to be OK with that. Know that your instinct to cast people or events into categories on the extremes can be worked with. You will learn, in time, that nobody is all good or all bad, and that is OK.

Know that you will learn to know yourself, gradually. Maybe you will start with your favorite color, or you’ll choose an animal to love. Maybe you’ll discover you like your eggs scrambled, or you dislike jelly.

Know that sometimes people will leave, but it doesn’t mean you are being abandoned. Life is full of change; people move on, or are taken from us suddenly. Not everyone was meant to be a permanent fixture in our lives; some people will stay for a heartbeat, others will fill our hearts for years. Know that you can learn to be OK with the changing landscapes of friendships and loved ones, despite the pain.

Know, most of all, that there is hope. BPD is not a negative reflection on your personality and life can get better.

 

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10 Things I Wish My Loved Ones Knew About Borderline Personality Disorder

https://themighty.com/2015/10/what-you-need-to-know-about-borderline-personality-disorder/

By Keira J

October 15, 2015

To the people who love me with my borderline brain,

I’ve been in therapy for seven months now and have only just uttered the dreaded words borderline personality disorder (BPD). This is my attempt at helping you to understand where I’m coming from and why I do the things I do.

Here are some things I want my loved ones to know about my experience with BPD:

1. I’m not a bad person.

My behavior is sometimes fuelled by my disordered thinking patterns. I do things some might think are heartless, manipulative, rude, dangerous and downright horrible. And I’m not using my disorder as an excuse! I’m just trying to tell you those things are not the sum total of me. They are a product of a legitimate disordered way of thinking that can be hard to understand. So try to see past the behavior and see the person you love under it, because I’m still here, just trying to control my brain.

2. It’s OK if you can’t understand me.

This is not me “just being negative again.” This isn’t a teenage temper tantrum where “nobody gets what it’s like to be me.” This is a tried and tested theory. Unless you have a personality disorder you will not understand one. Not in any logical sense. And the main reason? Because my disorder makes no logical sense.

3. My impulses are hard to fight.

When I get a random impulse to do something, it feels like an immediate requirement. It isn’t a want, it’s a need, and if I can’t do what I’m being told to do I become despondent, depressed and probably seem sulky from the outside. But inside I’m fighting a terrible battle of wills. My impulses let me filter out negative emotions when I’m unable to deal with them in a healthy way.

4. I’m not emotionally shallow.

In fact, I’m the complete opposite.

One of the symptoms of borderline personality disorder is “splitting.” For me, an example of this is when I connect with someone and then almost immediately (sometimes) disconnect from them. I go from idolizing them to never speaking about them again. Understand this doesn’t mean I don’t care about people when we’re connected. In fact, sometimes I need to force myself to disconnect from someone because the emotion I feel towards them is too much to cope with.

5. When I’m down I’m not just down.

My pain is sometimes like a combination of black hole and a Dementor from Harry Potter. It can feel darker than black and deeper than the ocean. It feeds itself and grows bigger and bigger. It feels like all I can do is lie there in a bundle of tears until it goes away. So when I’m feeling down, know I’m not just sad.

6. I’m not “just being dramatic” either.

I can practically hear your eyes rolling at that last point. But I’m being 100 percent serious. Being told to “woman up,” “stop being ridiculous” or other tips to “just stop being depressed” doesn’t work.

7. I play favorites.

When I connect with somebody they are elevated beyond everyone else. If you ever feel slighted, ignored or like you’re second best, it’s probably because I only have eyes for my current favorite. But it isn’t a conscious decision to choose them over you. It won’t even occur to me connecting to someone else is an option. My “choice” is never with malicious intent.

8. I have fear of abandonment.

This means if I’m “connected” to you and go for periods of time without hearing from you, I might become panicked, depressed, irrational and bitter towards you.

9. I’m scared of losing you.

I’m irrationally terrified of upsetting you, making you hate me, annoying you and making you leave me.

10. I need reassurance daily.

I need to feel loved (especially by my favorite). I need to feel like I haven’t destroyed our relationship by being such a “horrible person” (or even by saying something I irrationally interpret as stupid). I need to know you’re here for me and you haven’t disappeared since we last spoke.

Living with BPD thinking isn’t an easy task. It can be painful, frustrating and dangerous for my health. I hope now you can understand me and my BPD brain a little better.