You might have heard about borderline personality disorder – and there’s a strong chance you’ve heard bad things. That we’re toxic, mentally unstable, people to avoid. I’ve experienced it personally, comments underneath a video talking about the bad experiences they’ve had with people who have BPD.
Borderline personality disorder is an illness that deserves understanding and support. I don’t think its name helps – because we have personalities beyond the illness.
Borderline personality disorder is defined by how you think and feel about yourself and other people, and have problems in your life as a result. But this doesn’t mean we make problems – but that it might be harder to deal with problems.
BPD feels like everything seems to hurt so much more than bad things do other people do. An argument can seem like the end of the world, and we worry that we’ll be abandoned and alone. That’s one of its major symptoms.
Other symptoms include having very intense emotions, not having a strong sense of who you are, finding it hard to keep relationships, acting impulsively, self-harm, intense feelings and possible paranoia and/or dissociation. Of course, these are the listed symptoms and won’t necessarily apply to everyone with the illness. You only need to experience five of these difficulties to be given the diagnosis – which can be a very broad one, with everyone having their own experiences
BPD can affect anyone and can be caused by traumatic events and experiences, and genetic factors. For me, I think it was massively inflicted by trauma.
Asides from the diagnostic criteria and clinical descriptions, I guess I just want people to know that we aren’t bad people. Just like we need to know that the world isn’t completely full of bad people.
I’ve had bad relationships and I’ve also had great ones, but these were normal relationships – just like anyone else has good or bad.
The difficult thing is that I love strongly and passionately. Normal arguments can make you feel panicked that the person you love is going to leave you. When you love someone, they are your whole world and you would do anything for them, and forgive them of anything – to your own detriment. We don’t hurt others, we hurt ourselves.
And we hurt deeply.
Things that seem like nothing to other people could circle my head for days and make me cry myself to sleep. Little things that other people don’t pick up on go to my head and make me feel scared and alone.
I don’t have a great sense of self. I’m constantly trying to establish who I am but being unsuccessful in working it out. Sometimes I think I have it, and then I feel lost and confused again.
I hate it when people call those with BPD toxic. Or warn people to stay away from us. Because we have good, whole hearts, and we will love you and protect you against anything.
We are not selfish – we always come last in our worlds.
Sure, people might have had bad experiences with people with borderline personality disorder. But that doesn’t mean it’s because they have BPD. You can be just a bad person, regardless of an illness. Being toxic doesn’t equal borderline personality disorder. It’s a stigmatic view to hold. People without BPD can be bad people. Having BPD isn’t a reflection on having a cold heart.
Having the diagnosis can be hard in itself because there is limited support for it. While other illnesses might have medication or a range of therapies, we’re often refused this because there isn’t clear evidence that medication helps. Instead, we’re usually offered STEPPS groups and one-on-one dialectical behavioural therapy. But, it takes time and is often not easy to get. And this doesn’t include because a lot of clinical professionals don’t understand the disorder and therefore we go through misdiagnosis after misdiagnosis and lack of treatment or the wrong treatment.
What we do need is love, support and understanding. We don’t want you to pander to every need, just a little reassurance and compassion, and to know we’re loved. .
But isn’t this what every relationship needs?