Hi everyone…it’s been a long long time since I’ve written!!!
Life is so complicated, as it always is J
There are ups and there are downs and in betweens.
Today I want to talk about a subject I have not discussed
much on my blog, and that is Borderline. I myself was diagnosed with borderline
last year when I went through a particularly heinous episode of a couple of
months that pushed me back into counseling and psychiatry after a long break
during my pregnancy. I did not know what was going on with me at all…it was
very extreme. I was fighting with my husband all the time and having these
rages that would start at my toes and literally go up through my head like a
white hot heat. I’d never felt anger like that before, like some crazy wild
animal – the intensity was far beyond what I had ever experienced. Having
mostly been an inward turning person throughout my life, expressing angry rages
outwardly was scary to me, yet I felt completely out of control of my emotions
and behavior. I began having traumatic flashbacks to my childhood that would
hit me out of nowhere, while shopping or doing laundry or driving. I began
having panic attacks where my heart would race and I would be short of breath,
hyperventilating, sometimes for hours. I began severely dissociating (although
I did not know what dissociation was at the time). I would be walking and
talking and having no idea what I was doing, where I was going. I felt very “muddled”
in the head during those times and would find myself putting garbage in the
refrigerator or driving off someplace where suddenly, nothing looked familiar
and I had no idea how I got there. My emotions would fluctuate between extreme
and overwhelming to numb or non-existent. I literally felt as if I were going
crazy and KNEW I needed help. I did not recognize the person I had become.
So, on top of having bipolar, I was diagnosed with
borderline, and initially, I actually felt relieved. I thought “Ok, this makes
sense” and did a lot of thinking back on my life and feelings and behavior. I
came to recognize a lot of things that I never did before, almost like blinders
coming off. But then after a couple of months, it started having the opposite effect.
The more I learned about borderline the more bleak it seemed. People view those
with borderline as “crazy” “unpredictable” “angry” “mean” “unfixable” and whole
host of other very negative descriptors. There is very little understanding out
there about it. Much like when I was diagnosed with bipolar, I did not like the
idea of being lumped in with “those people” especially since I DO NOT do some
of the more egregious things that many borderlines do (verbally assaulting
others, physical aggression, manipulating behavior). I can’t say that I have
NEVER been mean to another person verbally but overall, it is not what I would
consider a part of my “personality”.
So that brings me to the other point that I didn’t like
about being diagnosed, and that was the label of borderline itself. The name “Borderline
Personality Disorder” originated when it was believed that the disorder existed
on the “border” of so-called neurosis and psychosis. This is now known to be
untrue but the name remains. It has insane amount of stigma associated with it,
probably moreso than any other mental disorder. People just hear the word
borderline and they immediately get a horrible idea in their heads and think
you are the scum of the earth. Which, honestly, I know I am nowhere close to
being!!! I’m sure there are some borderlines who ARE that bad but again, I’m
not a ticking time bomb walking around hating everyone and just waiting to
unleash my anger. Quite the opposite. I’m generally a quiet, meek individual.
Growing up my anger and negative feelings were turned inward toward myself and
came out as depression, suicidal thoughts, self-injury and those types of
things, rather than angry tirades and verbal abuse of others.
I really think that “Borderline Personality Disorder” is in
itself a misnomer. I do not believe it is a disorder of personality, which
implies that it is some sort of core fault and that those with this disorder
are “bad” people. The truth is that with more and more research being done into
BPD and mental illness in general, the more the findings are showing that it is
a complex interplay of both nature and nurture that causes these disorders to
arise. In the case of borderline, individuals are believed to be born with a
highly sensitive temperament which, from the start, predisposes them to various
issues. So there’s the nature, the hereditary element of it. Then add in what
is described as an “invalidating environment” in a child’s formative years –
that can be anything from being ignored or criticized by their caregivers all
the way through severe forms of abuse or neglect. So there’s the nurture aspect
of it. The outside factors that influence and shape a person’s neural pathways
in the brain which then control their thoughts, beliefs and behaviors later in
life. It’s a big can of worms, essentially.
So, the idea of this being a personality disorder just doesn’t
sit right with me. When you take into account that the vast majority (some
studies have said as high as 80% or more) of people with BPD come from
traumatic or abusive backgrounds, it really seems like a way of punishing the
victim unfairly. Truly, BPD to me does not seem to be a personality disorder,
but actually a disorder of trust and attachment which was skewed and malformed
at a young age. As a result, people with BPD struggle with relationships and
their sense of self/identity. Most of the classic BPD issues (fear of
abandonment, lack of trust, love/hate relationships, outbursts of anger) can be
traced back to events which occurred in the person’s life. They weren’t just
born “bad”…like a malleable ball of clay, young children are impressionable and
shaped by the experiences around them. I think if people understood this basic
premise they would understand those who suffer with BPD a little more and try
to understand what hell it must be (and I can speak from experience, it is at
times) for the person living inside that body and mind.
Now, that is NOT to say that because those with BPD come
from backgrounds of trauma that they can just throw their hands up in the air
and say “This is how I am. I can’t do anything about it,” and just subject
others to inappropriate behavior. Just because things happened to us as
children, doesn’t give us a right to say “It’s somebody else’s fault” and
subject others to the same things we were subject to. There again, I see
another distinction between myself and the “classic” borderline individual – I recognize
these areas I need to work on and accept that. I’m not happy just living in
chaos. There are many BPD sufferers who choose not to do anything about it, and
to me, that isn’t OK. We didn’t ask for these problems but the fact is, they
are there. And they must be dealt with. Those with BPD (like myself) do have
the capacity to improve, we do have the ability to get better at managing our
intense emotions and relationships with others. But that can only occur when we
accept WHAT IS rather than denying it.
So I guess in that sense, the diagnosis has helped me. I’m
understanding more and more about myself as time goes on and working hard at
getting better control over things, which probably never would have happened
had I not gotten the diagnosis. After I was diagnosed with bipolar 4 years ago,
I automatically lumped all my emotional states into that, but now I see that
not all the emotional issues I have are bipolar related. Many of them are
borderline related. The causes are different, treatments are different. I
finally, in my third decade of life, feel like things are starting to make sense
to me. I feel much better than I did then, emotionally. I feel stronger. For
most of my life, I felt weak and fragile and wore a mask to hide all those so
called imperfections from others. I’m finally starting to actually FEEL the
inner love and peace rather than just pretending that I do. DBT has helped
tremendously with this. It is hard work but I recommend it to anyone suffering
with BPD who wants to better their life situation. We cannot control our
genetics or what we were born with, we cannot control past events or things
that were done to us when we were small and powerless. But now, we are grown,
we DO have a choice. We do not have to be angry, sad, helpless. We can begin
the process of healing, of taking back the power that was stolen. The power is
all inside of us…we just have to believe in it.
