My Battle with Borderline Personality Disorder

When I was 15, I was told by the time I was able to be "on my own", I would end up being the person we see walking on the street talking to themselves by a psychiatrist. This was reaffirmed when I tried therapy at age 18, by my therapist. It doesn't really help much when no one will tell you whats wrong with, except that you're crazy and what you will amount to be. Well, once I got told I was depressed. Okay, gee thanks Sherlock.

"Scar tissue has no character. It's not like skin. It doesn't show age or illness or pallor or tan.

It has no pores, no hair, no wrinkles. It's like a slip cover. It shields and disguises what's beneath.

That's why we grow it; we have something to hide."

(Kayson, Susana. Girl, Interrupted.)

People who are placed in extremely tragic situations process those situations differently. Some people simply move on, and accept that life is not always perfect. Others are effected much more, and develop "disorders" such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Depression, or in my own personal case, Borderline Personality Disorder.

First, lets define what Borderline Personality Disorder is. Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) "is a serious mental illness characterized by pervasive instability in moods, interpersonal relationships, self-image, and behavior. This instability often disrupts family and work life, long-term planning, and the individual's sense of self-identity. (NIMH, 1)

Unlike other mental disorders such as depression or bipolar, BPD is fundamentally incurable. It is something that suffers of BPD must learn to live with, and adjust their lives to. There are treatments available now to help sufferers of BPD to cope and deal with their "disease", but it will be with them throughout their lifetime. (Bateman, 1) The odds that someone who suffers from BPD will kill themselves is 9½ x higher than the odds of them ever being cured (McGlashan, 1986; Stone,1983).

As a child I was a victim to a lot of tragic things no one should ever have to face. At a very young age I began to be a victim to emotional, physical, and ritualistic sexual abuse. Too young, and

too scared I never said anything to anyone, and the emotional toll this has taken on me, has been something that I believe, is the worst part.

Though my "symptoms" did not begin to appear until I was in my teen years, they were very real and problematic. In 9^th grade, I went the first semester earning a 3.9 GPA, to the second semester earning a 1.9. I then discovered "cutting", and this would be my chosen path of "healing" for the next 6 years. By the summer to follow my freshman year in high school, not only was I experiencing depression, an extreme version of anorexia, horrible agoraphobia and social anxiety, I was still a teenage female who was going through the "horrible" things teenagers face... social pressure, acne, fitting in, not fitting in, etc.

"I start to feel like I can't maintain the facade any longer, that I may just start to show through.

And I wish I knew what was wrong. Maybe something about how stupid my whole life is. I don't know.

Why does the rest of the world put up with the hypocrisy, the need to put a happy face on sorrow,

the need to keep on keeping on?... I don't know the answer, I know only that I can't.

I don't want any more vicissitudes, I don't want any more of this try, try again stuff. I just want out.

I've had it. I am so tired. I am twenty and I am already exhausted."

(Wurtzel, 1996)

The following school year, I tried home schooling, but even that was too much. My anxiety was taking over my life, and I sat back and allowed it. By my junior year of high school, it was all too much so I eventually dropped out (best decision of my life too!). Though I began a new summer of constant drinking, drugs, and a promiscuousness, something in me finally wanted to change. Having lived in Maryland the past 15 years, with my parents of course, I decided to pack my bags and move on October 15,2003, 1 month after my 18^th birthday, 2500 miles away from my house, my family, my friends, everything I ever knew, to good ol' Salt Lake City, Utah.

"I wasn't convinced I was crazy, thought I feared I was. Some people say that having any conscious opinion on the matter is a sign of sanity, but I'm not sure that's true. I still think about it. I'll always have to think about it."

(Kayson, Susana. Girl, Interrupted.)

That in it's self I call, quite a big "personal" research experiment. Trying to figure out if I could last in society, on my own, when I couldn't even walk outside my house by myself.

So, I got to Utah, and realized, HEY RUNNING AWAY DOESNT MAKE THE PROBLEMS GO AWAY! Oh man, I was so disappointed! To Top it off, less than a month after I had moved here, my father died... which meant I now had to sort out problems that I've had for years, with someone that is dead, which means in our society we should only think positively of. This now meant that I would begin to blame myself for what happened, grieve over a man that I hated, and so forth. And though I hadn't cut myself in quite a while, out the razors, knives, and scissors came.

However, even as crazy as I was, and even as crazier the things that being crazy led me to doing, I hate giving up. So, that meant that this "research experiment" that I was studying on myself, had to be completed, one way or the other. Whether it was in death, or in healing it had to happen (thankfully it didn't end in death....).

There is no one event that lead to my "healing". There were a lot that lead me to my diagnosis. I have only given the bears bum of the problems and tragedies I've personally been a victim to, or even those that I placed myself into. I have seen things that I never want to see again, been places I never want to be. I've been handcuffed, and thrown in jail because of the deep anger I once had. I've been pink slipped because I was acting that incoherent, so on and so forth.

However, I am a very "see it to believe it" person, and I know if I did not face everything I have faced, I a.) would still be the person I once used to be and b.) would not be half the person I am today, which includes the things I did face as a young and innocent child.

Getting accepted to the University of Utah, purely based on my ACT score (since I dropped out of high school) was a huge success to me, and graduating in December will be even bigger. I have a beautiful daughter that I love more than anything, and an amazing husband that I adore.

I know that a lot of my change has come because of having my daughter, and knowing that I couldn't be so selfish any more to act the way I was, and to continue to do the things I was doing. I was

also for the first time enjoying the things I was learning in school, and I know studying more about myself, and others liked me helped as well. It gave me a reason to change, because I knew deep down I did not want to be the person I was... I didn't want to be that person talking to themselves on the street :) . Writing has helped me a lot as well. It has helped me figure out when and why I'm getting angry or sad, or having the desire to cut, etc. and processing that so the next time I am able to change. Writing about what has happened to me in the past has helped me validate that those things were real, and then taking the steps forward to grieving over them, forgiving myself, and forgiving my father.

The biggest beneficial factor in my healing has been the relationship I found with my belief system. Having someone to goto when no one else is listening, and know that they felt my pain too... And simply knowing that one day, regardless of what happens in the here and now, I will be in a better place.

I can honestly say, that though I once met every single one of the requirements for borderline personality disorder, I now meet none of them. I have not cut myself in over a year. I have not lead a promiscuous lifestyle in quite sometime, and I've finally learned how to control and process my anger, and realize that I'm personally choosing to be angry. I feel whole, not just because the love I have for

my family, but because I feel I have purpose and motivation to meet that purpose. So was I healed, am I part of the 1% that "recovers" from Borderline Personality Disorder, I feel so. Maybe a piece of paper (a doctor) would say I've simply learned to cope with it, but what do they know... I'm supposed to be talking to myself right now according to doctors.

A rough and personal research experiment, but it worked. I feel that if I had stayed in Maryland, maybe one day I would have got myself together, but I know I would never be in the place I am now.

Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turn my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never shared
No one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

"Fools," said I, "you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sound of silence

~"The Sounds of Silence"

(Simon, Paul. 1964)