I suffer from a form of mental illness called Borderline Personality Disorder.
I am also deemed what is known as a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP)—meaning my empathy and emotions are beyond my control because I feel not only my own, but everyone else’s that I come into contact with. There is a constant fear of abandonment lurking beneath the surface which haunts my every move. It destroys every coherent thought I might have when I am triggered. It doesn’t take but a slight change in one’s normal tone or their manner of approach for me to burst into tears and feel as though everyone I have ever loved has suddenly vanished. Or died.
My personal energy runs in overdrive as my soul is permeated with the energy of those surrounding me, only adding to the jumbled heap of dirty laundry I need to sort through to find my sanity. Life becomes too overwhelming for me more often than not, and I literally breakdown. I close myself off to the outside world and sob for hours on end while wallowing in the flood of feelings raining down like a teenage drama queen with her first broken heart.
Living with borderline is full of paralyzing misery.
The lows come with obsessive, paranoid, dark thoughts which play on loop until I want to escape the confounds of my own mind. I’m either my normal self with mild HSP symptoms or I’m spiraling into an abyss of eternal hell with the belief that I am both unworthy and unlovable taunting me. All the while my energy is fueling off the emotions I’ve collected from others, intertwining them with my own until I can no longer tell what it is I feel for myself. More often than not, I’m chained to that hurricane of paranoia-fueled state of mind, wishing the fiery rage and harrowing sadness would just consume me in flames and end my internal suffering.
A Borderline diagnosis is nothing I would wish upon my worst enemies—if people actually stuck around long enough to become an enemy, let alone my friend. The vehement intensity I exude proves to be too much for the average person.
In fact, my inability to relate to others on their normal, non-emotionally charged level makes coping with my illness worse. Being rejected by anyone, for an reason at all, is both terrifying and heartbreaking for me to deal with. Deep inside, the voice in the back of my head tells me I am too broken to be accepted or loved by anyone, even if they try to prove otherwise. The delusions only become validated when connections that I struggled to make with others are fragmented, even if it was for the best.
Being left alone in this world is the bane of my existence.
◊♦◊
This psychosis I live with dates back to the day my mother walked out on her family when I was just four years old.
She left my brother and I in the care of our father the day their divorce was finalized. While she made an attempt to take us every other week for dinner on a school night or a short day visit on the weekend, our relationship had become severely fractured and she made no effort to repair the crack. Instead, her visits became fewer and far in between until we only saw her on holidays; she had remarried and started a new family. I internalized all this at such a tender age as her thinking I wasn’t good enough to be her daughter, that the family she had made wasn’t able to measure up to her high standards, and therefore I deserved to be abandoned. I wasn’t daughter material.
If my own mother couldn’t love me enough to want to be my mother then how could I ever be accepted by anyone else? Certainly I couldn’t be loved.
The rational side of me writing this now gets how totally insane that all sounds.
I can detach from the illness in brief moments of clarity, but any number of triggers can bring me right back into my paranoid, fearful. mistrusting state of mind. Everything is fair game in triggering my insecurities, making it harder to recognize and take action before I spin like a reckless toy top only to plunge off the far end of the table. A simple conversation that turns personal or becomes too opinionated can send me into an over-defensive tizzy where my lip quivers, my body trembles, and my eyes well up with tears as I boil over, anguished by anger. A prolonged silence between us or a period of separation, unexpected or not, can lead me to believe the worst – the person has had enough of me and is never coming back. My level of crazy pushes them right over the edge without fail, because they never understand that it’s my illness, not me. I need help taking care of myself mentally, because the Borderline Personality has way more control than I want to admit.
Like most forms of mental illness, there isn’t enough known about Borderline Personality or HSP, to have found an effective formula of treatment that works. In fact, it is one of the most stubborn to treat. Typical antidepressants only make the lows worse because they stem from the defunct thought-process than Serotonin imbalance.
Antipsychotic medications help with the paranoia controlling the thought-process, but they create a hyper-sensitive state which always leads to a really low low period. Therapy helps take back some control, but not enough to truly break free of the illness and become unresponsive to the multitude of triggers.
All the while people with Borderline, like me, are stuck living with the constant irrationalities that plagues them. I would give my left arm, right leg, and both kidneys to end the madness in my head and live normally once and for all. I am tired of scaring people away, especially those I love and cherish; those I do not ever want to chase away with my sickness.
I am fed up with of being controlled by extreme paranoia and cascading emotions which flow in overabundance.
Alas, it is who I am. It is what makes me Me. I am the face of Borderline Personality. It doesn’t define me… but it is part of me and I will find a way to come to terms with that, one day.
◊♦◊
Photo: Unsplash
Read Kristina Hammer every week here on The Good Men Project!
How do you recommend getting someone who has all of the symptoms to get help when they will not admit that they have a problem. They instead accuse you of having a problem; which is indicative of this disorder. How do you encourage them to get officially diagnosed and treatmented. Any advice?
My heart has just skipped another 8 beats. My anxiety is present and I feel ill to my stomach. This story portrays my daughter. This illness is crippling for my daughter. Her 2 small children. Myself and her 2 brothers and potentially, anyone who is around her. her illness has just peaked in the past 2 months. I’m numb. I just want to ‘fix’ my beautiful girl. I’m so sad. I just want for it to go away and allow her to laugh n live n smile n be the crazy fun girl that she was/is.. I just feel so… Read more »
I am so sorry you have to watch your daughter suffer in the throes of her illness. It is hard because most of the reputable depression medicines aren’t right to treat it. Unfortunately we’re left to cycle through periods of lows without much to help ease them. I hope you stay strong for her and know that it is not a choice we make to feel that way, and it’s out of our control to a certain extent. The more you learn about BPD, the more you’ll understand how to support her. Best of luck to you both. Also, feel… Read more »
Borderline Personality Disorder is a really tough thing to struggle with. I work with a number of people who wrestle with it daily. But adding the ‘highly-sensitive person’ label to the mix is really not doing you – or the disorder – any favors. You may think that, because you are ‘an empath’, that you are a victim of the emotional states others bring to your sphere; however, there’s nothing substantial to support that theory. You should know, as a person with BPD, that it’s up to you to manage your emotional responses – and that you can master them.… Read more »
It’s not pop theory to me when HSP was a label put on my chart by my treatment team. Maybe not everyone in the psych field agrees with its legitimacy, but the doctors I see consider it so. It carries weight for me when it is listed as a diagnosis right along with the BPD. It wasn’t but 30 years ago or so when the psych field still refused to accept BPD as it’s own disorder and considered it pop theory….every new discovery has to start from somewhere.
I just read this to my boyfriend, who tries very hard to understand my mental illness. This describes so much of what I feel every day. Thank you for putting into words what I couldn’t.
Thank you for reading. I’m so glad you were able to use my words to convey your struggle. I hope he finds more understanding in knowing it isn’t just you. ☺
I have no idea how I would cope with what you’ve described, day in and day out; that you keep going, write & educate, and mother 4 kids, is one hell of a testament to you.
Thank you for such words. I’m touched. ?
I feel for you Kristina, and can relate on a certain level. I am currently dealing with a tricky situation with an ex-partner who, whilst undiagnosed, is definitely borderline. To expand a little, she is not just an ex-partner, but the mother of my children, and it is not just a tricky situation, but parenting proceedings (or a custody case in American lingo) in a Federal court, no less. The challenge with regards to Borderline Personality Disorder is that the ex instigated the proceedings on false, indeed deluded, grounds. She is psychotic, and has been for well over 12 months… Read more »
I am so sorry for what you are going through. It seems like she never had a chance against the illness, going undiagnosed and untreated for so long she never learned tools to handle the symptoms. Have you considered having her hospitalized at all, because there are ways you can have her sent without her cooperation. A litigator seems to be in her best interest as well, but that is above my knowledge to say either way. You have to do what is best for everyone, as much as you want to fix her. Especially with kids involved. You are… Read more »
Thank you for writing and sharing this. You’ve hit the proverbial nail in the head.
You’re welcome. And thank YOU for reading and commenting!
I, too, have this diagnosis. I am in the middle of destroying yet another good relationship. The spinning moods are the hardest part for me, and those around me, to deal with.
New to talk therapy, and the path to mental health, I hope for the best and am always prepared for the worst (of course).
Good luck to you.
Thank you for reading and sharing. My heart aches to know your struggles, because I understand just how you got where you are. Best wishes to you. I hope you use your fresh start to work on your BPD and be the best you you can be.
I can relate as I have the same disorder & have to totally cut myself off from people to function. It’s not much of a life.
It isn’t, is it? Finding balance is rough. Thank you for reading.
It all sounds about me, me me…
The piece is about the author and her mental illness and subsequent struggles. Who else would she be talking about? Empathy and kindness will go a lot further than judgement.
?
Patricia
Of course she has to tell about herself .
First of all, I want to tell you you are dearly loved and special. I believe I know personally some of your struggles and have seen you at your worst as well as your best. You know I have issues of my own so in some small way I feel I can relate, although I can’t even imagine how it felt to go through some of the things you have. Just remember when those awful thoughts and feelings start coming you are loved by many, your husband and children adore you! And hold your head high!