What is BPD?

It’s super easy for me to just brazenly declare that I have Borderline Personality Disorder but just what the heck is it?

According to the UK Mind website (www.mind.org.uk), you may well be diagnosed with BPD if you can answer “yes” to at least five of the following statements:

1. “You feel very worried about people abandoning you, and would do anything to stop that happening.
2. You have very intense emotions that last from a few hours to a few days and can change quickly (for example, from feeling very happy and confident to suddenly feeling low and sad).
3. You don’t have a strong sense of who you are, and it can change significantly depending on who you’re with.
4. You find it very hard to make and keep stable relationships.
5. You feel empty a lot of the time.
6. You act impulsively and do things that could harm you (such as binge eating, using drugs or driving dangerously).
7. You often self-harm or have suicidal feelings.
8. You have very intense feelings of anger, which are really difficult to control.
9. When very stressed, you may also experience paranoia or dissociation.”

(Source: www.mind.org.uk – September 2018)

 (There is a pdf on the Mind website that goes into great detail about BPD and other mental health issues.)

The theory is that if you have experienced at least five of these and they have lasted a long time or have had a large impact on your life, it’s likely you will get a BPD diagnosis.

I have found over the years that the main symptom of BPD that is focused on by counsellors and groups is a fear of abandonment.  Now, I’ve never had that feeling and would certainly never do anything to stop it happening.  This is absolutely highlighted by my recent divorce.  I was married for nearly five years, together with my ex-Husband for just short of 7 years.  For the purposes of this blog, I’ll call him Dave as I don’t think he deserves any publicity for what he did.  There will be more on that epic soap opera in future entries!

He started off by saying that he wanted to separate.  Don’t get me wrong, I was devastated but, up to that point, I didn’t have a clue that he was about to leave.  We separated for eight weeks and then he said that he wanted a divorce.  I only saw him briefly during those eight weeks.  The only real contact we had been via email and text message regarding household stuff and post that had come in, just boring normal stuff.  At no point during those eight weeks did I beg, plead or camp out at his family’s homes hoping to see him or beg him to come home.  In that whole time, I sent one text message to him saying “I want you to come home”.  That was it.  Nothing more.  I didn’t chase him after sending that text message.

The day he said he wanted a divorce, I stayed very calm and just said that I would start the divorce proceedings, he would pay for it and arrangements would have to be made for him to collect his belongings.  That was it.

I will absolutely freely admit that numbers 2-8 are me all over.  Yes, I can binge eat for GB.  If it was an Olympic Sport, count me in.  I don’t do drugs though, I never have done although I do smoke cigarettes.  I have been known to drive dangerously when I’m on my own but never with anyone else in the car.

Anger is the worst emotion for me.  I cannot process it.  I have no idea how.  I generally tend to suppress it, internalise it, somehow make it all my fault so it triggers the feelings of guilt and failure so that I can then self-harm or binge eat to release that pain rather than deal with the underlying anger that was there in the first place.  To be fair, I think that’s quite an impressive trick of those of us with BPD that we can transfer anger at somebody else’s actions into our fault and guilt.  It’s a skill which I’ve mastered over the years.

Numbers 2-8 have been part of my life for as long as I can remember.  I’ve been a binge eater since forever quite frankly.  I’ve always felt “different”, that something just “wasn’t quite right” with me.  During the school years, I never really did have the best friend.  I was the one that my chums sat next to when they’d had a bust up with the bestie.  Maybe, that was an element of the fear of abandonment so I didn’t put myself forward as a bestie.

After school, I used to walk up to my Dad’s shop and he would take my Sister and I home.  I would always get sweets at the shop on the way home and squirrel them away and eat them of a night time.  Then in the sixth form when we were allowed to go out during breaks and lunchtime, I would always go the shop at the top of the road and buy loads of junk food, sweets, chocolate and all of that good stuff.  I still have a sweets and chocolate problem to this day.  I can seriously face plant some ice cream too when I’m in a bad way.

The fact that I don’t suffer with the factor that I consider the main symptom has always confused me about my diagnosis.  BPD is incredibly difficult to diagnose and it can cut across a broad spectrum of issues.  This is why I have the side diagnosis of Bipolar coupled with severe depression.

If you are reading this unsure as to whether or not you have BPD or if your BPD diagnosis is correct, don’t worry right now.  BPD can be coupled with other mental health issues.  If you have already been diagnosed with BPD, speak to your mental health professional for further advice on whether you may have an additional issue.  If you haven’t been diagnosed yet and you’re just not sure “what’s wrong with you” well, firstly, there is nothing wrong with you!  You just need some help.  Please read the information on BPD from Mind on their website – it might help steer you in the right direction.

Above all, if you’re not sure what you’re feeling, go and see your GP, start the process, start getting help.  Start living again.