Acceptance of Mental Health and never, ever giving up.

One of the toughest things about almost all mental illnesses is that they are a constant.  Every night the pain you fall asleep with is the one you wake up with – and this routine continues, sometimes for years, with no control. Its tiring, repetitive, exhausting, and can take massive control over your life.
I spent years being given false diagnoses, believing that my issues were just my personality. That it was just what I was like, rather than there being a separation between who I am and what my illness is. It is taking a long time but I am slowly coming to accept that there is the person I am, and there is the Borderline Personality Disorder that I have, and that I am going to beat. I accept my disorder, and I accept that it’s going to make me feel like giving up on a daily basis, but I also accept that I deserve better than that and one day I will be better. I don’t always believe this, in fact I rarely do, but if I write it down now then perhaps I will remember it when I can’t see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Another tough thing is never, ever giving up. I sometimes feel like I give up on a daily basis; I break down, I cry, I sit staring at walls unable to move or speak. Yet that isn’t giving up; that is my brain doing everything it can to not give up. Sometimes that means turning all my emotions off so that I am unable to do anything, anything but be safe. I may have tried therapy, group therapy, CBT, psychotherapy, counselling, and 7 different medications, but until I have tried it all, I won’t give up.
Currently I am trying lots and lots of vitamins (you never know), a STEPPS programme, solo therapy, mood plotting, and working out how my friends can support me in the way that I need it right now.

Never giving up isn’t necessarily about the therapy, or the medication. Sometimes never giving up is in every morning, giving yourself a chance to enjoy the small good things in your day, and reminding yourself that they exist. Because however small, it is those tiny jewels of hope and love which are going to give us the strength to fight our minds shattering around us. For me it’s often a single caring text, an outfit I feel confident in, or seeing something unexpectedly beautiful which allows me to hold onto hope for another tomorrow. That’s what life is; just a series of tomorrows. 

Scared of my own suicide

For the last 6 years I have been plagued by suicidal thoughts, and for about 3 years prior to that it was an array of other self-destructive thoughts. I dislike the term ‘suicidal thoughts’, because they have never just been thoughts. They are an overwhelming feeling, a sense of power, control and belonging, and feel like a look at the future rather than just an idea. When I think of suicide, it is not me considering it. The time for considering suicide was 6 years ago, and now it is a constant battle between the part of me which strongly knows that it wants to kill me, has to kill me, and the part of me which wants to beat this and live a full life.
I have good days and bad days. On a bad day, 90% of me is suicidal and 10% of me doesn’t know how to fight it, on very good days it’s the other way around, but those are rare. Very occasionally I get to come up for air and feel 100% able to survive, but this only tends to last for about 5 minutes and happens once every month or so. When that happens it feels like after years of being suffocated, the hands have been lifted from my throat. Yet I know that the hands will return, I know that I haven’t yet beaten this.

Suicide is a fear, an incredibly deep seated and slow yet terrifying fear. Some people describe their mental illness as an animal, holding onto them, walking near them. Suicide feels like an ink which has been injected into my bloodstream. People talk about recovery yet I have no idea how to remove this ink without bleeding out. People often tell me that I can’t commit suicide because it will hurt the people left behind. I’ve been told it will leave them angry, heartbroken, and an array of other negative emotions. Yet I struggle to make this a reason to not kill myself, because for me it is not as simple as ‘kill yourself or don’t kill yourself’, it is purely a question of how long I can hold on before I do inevitably die by suicide. That pain, anger and heartbreak will always happen; to me that part is not up for question. The only question is whether by the time I die, I can get the people I love to understand that when someone is killed whose heart is already black with ink; it isn’t actually a loss at all.

The fear comes from the knowledge that I don’t want to die. I don’t want to hurt the people I love, and I don’t want to be dead. I don’t want my life to end in my early 20s, and I don’t want a funeral before I get that chance to have a wedding. I want to go abroad on my own, I want to love someone and be loved back, I want to see which of my friends goes wrinkly first, and who is the one to try Botox? I want a life where I can gather more memories, not a life where all I leave is painful memories.

The control over whether I get to do these things doesn’t lie with me. It would be my hand taking my life, but honestly, its not within my power. I can try, and I can fight, but there is a mood which takes over where all I can do is watch from the side-lines as I hurt myself, swallow pills, prepare to hang myself and try to throw myself off a cliff. I get my own special seat ready for the viewing of me ruining my own life, and all I can do is watch.

So if I die by suicide: be angry, be upset, be whatever you want to be, but remember that the biggest loss alongside that you won’t see me again, is also that I won’t see the life I desperately wanted to live. So you might have to live it for me, and feel lucky for every day you go through where you don’t have to watch your own hands take something as important as your life away from you. 

The layers of BPD and why the internet is foul

Today I went on search of another blog by someone with BPD, because I felt incredibly alone, and I thought it might help. I found the following things:

1. An entire article on how people with BPD should never have children because those children would have a very high risk of developing a mental illness or PTSD just from being around you.

2. An article on how to stay away from people with Borderline, because, you know, we are clearly the devils work.

3. An article of how to cope better being a friend of someone with BPD. I was pretty hopeful about this one. Until it genuinely described how people with BPD will be emotionally crippled for their entire lives and that you'll have to accept that they'll never be a good friend.

I then thought I would look for blogs about suicide, because honestly, reading the first set of blogs made me heavily question why I bother fighting as hard as I do just to be judged. Every article I clicked on talked about suicide, then gave statistics for people with depression. They talked through depression, described it, and gave a range of helpful tips for dealing with it. Firstly Depression was portrayed in a positive light, but second and more importantly, no where was it mentioned that someone may die from suicide due to another mental disorder.

The thing I find most difficult about BPD is that its all the time; its a constant. At any time of day, I will probably be either overly depressed, anxious or bizarrely elated. Thats the first layer. On top of that layer, I will be scared of the people I need leaving me, irrationally. The next layer is thinking about suicide - I am in constant battle to fight it out of my head, and am reminded of it all the time throughout the day. Whether its trying desperately to remind myself I want to live, or working out how i'm going to die, its there all the time. The next layer is wanting to be alone, because I am exhausted from all the other layers, and can only process them properly in private. On top of that I am paranoid about random daily activities and the people around me, my feelings about people change in an instant, and I am scared that i'm going to die alone, in pain, and by my own hand.

And those layers all have to somehow co-exist, and when I walk near the edge of a high building, I have to have the strength to not jump off it. Because when you have those layers 24/7, the jump feels not so much just temping, but more like a necessity.

So to the people who write blogs about things which you know are going to be incredibly hurtful towards people with BPD, perhaps take the time first to think about whether its worth it. Because to me, being told I should never have children, is heartbreaking. To be told I can never be a good friend, is something I can't cope with. And to think that people need to stay away from me is a cherry on top of all these layers of pain that I am already struggling to deal with on a daily basis. Was your article still worth it?

My mind is hell.

Today I woke up and I knew that something was wrong. I opened my eyes and stared straight ahead, but couldn’t bring myself to turn my head, that felt like too much. My chest felt very heavy, as if someone was trying to pull my heart and lungs down into the bed. I rolled onto my side and curled up, continuing to stare straight ahead, wishing I didn’t have to face up to the reality of going through another day.
I try and sit up but I realise I am crying, and whenever I try and take a breath, it feels like I am taking on a promise to survive, each second. A promise I don’t feel I can keep, but every breath holds me to it. This makes me angry, my body is forcing me into thing I don’t want. I try and hold my breath , this should be my control, but as my tears catch up with my clenched lips I just end up sobbing, clinging onto my knees, hoping someone will come and take all of this away.

I haven’t been through a break up, no one has died, I haven’t been dealt any bad news. But I do have Borderline Personality Disorder. It’s a disorder which characterises itself through rapidly changeable and intense moods, a lack of ability to hold stability with inter-personal relationships, difficulty holding onto an identity and incredibly strong impulses towards self-destructive behaviour, such as self-harm or suicide, along with a plethora of other painful traits. It is difficult to medicate and hard to treat with therapy, but these are the best options. It is hell on a daily basis, but it is my life.

One of the things I find most painful is knowing that I can’t actually let anyone know how bad it is without overwhelming them. I allow myself time scales. Maybe once a week, once a fortnight, I can be honest when a friend asks if I’m alright, and I can tell them the truth. But every other day I act as if I can actually cope. When I am out, I take regular ‘toilet breaks’ which are actually me having a panic attack or sobbing silently in a bathroom. I pretend to be busy on days where I am too scared to leave my bedroom because paranoia has overwhelmed me, and every month or so I make sure I let people know that I am doing better, so that they don’t give up hope even if I have done. Nothing in my life feels natural, because I can’t let anyone in to know the true depths of the hell I am in. It is carefully planning my next move, because if I burden someone with too much, the guilt will take over and I would probably overdose. Yet if I stay silent as tell no one, I would feel so alone that I would probably overdose. But if I strike the balance right, I feel as if I am manipulating people around me, which makes me hate myself, and want to overdose. It is a never ending cycle of not feeling like I belong in the world but being terrified of death, despite being completely over-ruled by the idea of it.

There is no way I can let someone into my world and let them see what it is like. As a person I am not sure of many things, I doubt almost everything, but the one thing I don’t doubt is that my situation is far worse than even I am willing to accept. For many people, a suicide attempt is the lowest point in their life, and something which makes them see the light and make a change; something that they move on from. For me, suicide is a life sentence.

If you love someone who is struggling with mental illness, take the time to ask them what it is like, and try and understand what they are actually going through. Understanding is surely the first step towards being able to support them through it. And if you’re in it for the long haul; I am sure they’d appreciate a reminder that you don’t plan on giving up on them, because I know that’s a reminder I would appreciate.

The Silver Lining of Borderline Personality Disorder

With Mental Health being an increasingly mentioned issue in social media recently, awareness is slowly rising for conditions such as Depression, Anxiety, and Bipolar Disorder. The net hasn’t yet spread far enough for me to have seen mention of slightly less known disorders such as Borderline Personality Disorder (also known as Emotional Intensity Disorder), but also few people have taken into account that longer term disorders such as BPD can also bring positive outcomes. There are few, and they pale in comparison to the negative symptoms which outline the disorder, but that doesn’t mean that the positive effects should be ignored.
One of the negative symptoms of BPD is having a persistently unstable personal image or sense of self. It is common for BPD sufferers to regularly change the way they look, doubt their sexuality, and question the way they act and who they are. The positive factor this brings is a very specific type of personality which can adapt to situations and is often good at a wide range of tasks. A malleable personality may make it weaker, but it also means that every day there is the ability to be changed for the better, to be inspired, motivated, and to build a wide range of experiences.
This ties in with another positive outcome; intense passion. We may be overcome with emotions which seem uncontrollable and unmanageable, but when we are passionate about something, we will not lose that. We will be so passionate that we try as hard as we can, we care with all that we have, and we have the ability to truly give it our all. If you are the loved one of someone with BPD, then trust that you will be loved so deeply. If we succeed in something we care about, it will make us so happy that we will remember the feeling deeply for a long time. It may hurt sometimes, but intense passion is an incredible emotion to have.
Other positive factors include stunning curiosity and genuine interest in other people, the ability to sit and listen for hours as long as you have things to say, we will care. The ability to be spontaneous, to live in the moment, and to really feel the highs which life has to offer. Due to having experiences so much pain, we are deeply empathetic, we will never judge someone for having feelings and will never push down the importance of them. Some borderlines struggle with compassion because their emotional ranges are so different, but many, like me, can access such a massive bank of emotion that we can feel compassion in almost all situations.

The last two positive attributes I will mention (as there may be many more!) are two of my favourites. The first is the ability to be deeply creative. We have the ability to open our mind, to use our bizarre range of experiences and deep level of emotions to create in a way which others may struggle too. This makes us naturally good at the Arts, and creative careers.

The other is the ability to pick ourselves back up again. To know that things will get better, and to fight so much more than I think it is possible for non BPD people to understand.  My mind is a tornado of pain; my symptoms literally include recurrent suicidal behaviour, chronic feelings of emptiness and nothingness, and transient paranoid thoughts. Every single day of my life. But I am still sat here writing this post.

I may have a personality disorder, and that may mean a lifetime of intense mental difficulty, but perhaps it’s worth reminding ourselves every now and again that with the hardest challenges come the greatest successes. And I am determined that my personality doesn't have to be a disorder, it can be a success as well.

The strange side effect of talks about Mental Health

Today I went to the TEDxUniversityofKent talks. The topic of the day was Milestones, and I was prepared that there might be part of the talks which I found triggering or which I was sensitive too due to my ongoing problems with Mental Health, specifically Borderline Personality Disorder.  What I didn't expect was a talk about Mental Health. The stage was graced by Becci; a girl in her 20s, well dressed, with a perky demeanor. Her talk was entitled 'Words have superpowers: A map of milestones to healing mental illness', and was about her experiences as a woman who suffers from Anxiety and Depression, who has found solace and healing in poetry, and who is working as a teacher aiming to help younger generations. 

It was a wonderful talk about some really important topics, and I was struck, but not surprised, by my reaction. From the first sentence through to the last, I was crying. Sat on a theatre, tears rolled down my cheeks silently for the entire duration of the talk. I found it hard to keep my breathing under control, and I couldn't stop myself from shaking. I spend a lot of my time wishing mental health was talked about more regularly. Wishing I heard other people talk about it more, and wishing I had more platforms to talk about it myself. Yet the minute it is talked about, I am reduced to a blubbering mess! I was lucky enough to have one of my closest friends next to me, and without her hand to hold, there's a solid chance Id have had a silent panic attack. This isn't because I didn't like the talk, it is closer to the truth to say I liked it too much. I had someone stood in front of me and a theatre of people, verbalising the thing which has caused without a doubt the hardest experiences of my life. It has shaped the last decade, and I know it will continue to shape my life and those of the people closest to me. Yet she stood on stage and held some of my biggest demons in her hands in front of her. Her talk wasn't about me, yet in some senses it was, because when someone talks about mental illness that openly, to someone who suffers, it is like hearing your diagnosis being read on on repeat. It's like the darkest most painful parts of your life being held by someone else. They weren't being hurt by someone else, just held; bringing my attention to all the pain and suffering that they have in the last brought, and continue to bring me.

This makes me think about talking about mental health issues. For me, I'm taking small steps and im writing this blog. It may not be the biggest or the bravest step, but it's a chance for me to say "look, i'm fighting something very hard and very painful every day of my life, let me try and help others learn from me, and let me reach out and remind you that you really aren't alone in this". And for me it's making a difference, because it takes away some of my shame, and it takes away the common problem of Mental Health as something to be hidden away. 

Today made it abundantly clear to me that people really don't vocalise their battles with Mental Health enough. I look for people who speak up, yet I was still affected that strongly because hearing those words was still a shock to my system. Today made me wish that people made me cry like that more often. Speak up, don't be ashamed, because you're brave, and I'm here ready to sob in the back of more theatres, or at more articles, or more videos online. And who knows, perhaps one day I'll have that affect on someone in return. 

Unicorn Socks to save the day (and other Gift Giving love)

I hadn’t had the best week this week. I am not going to go into details, but I feel its important to mention that it’d been a struggle, and it’s only a Thursday.
Today I got two parcels, sandwiching a Dr's appointment (and those are never fun!) which turned my day around. I am a member of an online community of people who like Black Milk Clothing. Its more than a community, and less strange than a cult, but is perhaps somewhere in between! We call ourselves Sharkies. As a part of this I am in a group where we Sharkies send each other random gifts, to try and brighten people’s days randomly. It has always been an incredible page to be a part of, and people’s generosity and thoughtfulness never fails to amaze me. This was exemplified today by a particular Sharkie, the sender of today’s parcels, inside which was the array of wonderful things pictured below.

Now, I am writing this post for two reasons. Firstly as a means of thanks, to this sender but also to anyone who has sent a gift on this page, to me or to anyone else! To take time out of your busy (or not busy, either way) life, and to spend both your money and your thoughts on another person, not because you feel you need too or to repay something, but just because you genuinely want too, is a wonderful thing to do. Thank you on behalf of all of us! I know I am one of many people who is incredibly grateful. One of the people for whom the random gift appeared at a time, so unexpectedly, when we needed a pick-me-up more than we even knew.

I am also writing this post as a reminder of how much your life can change in a short space of time. This week there were times that I really wasn’t sure if I’d get to the end of it; I was told something which made me have to re-evaluate my life, and for me that’s a pretty dangerous thing to do, and I wasn’t sure I could. I am still not sure about the re-evaluation, but I’m definitely working on it. What I am sure of is that I’ll make it far past this week. This gift has shown me that my little world is so much bigger than me and the decisions I am currently trying to make. My little world is actually part of a very big and very wonderful world! And this decision won’t be the end of me, because I am stronger than that, but also because I now have a pair of unicorn socks to help get me through.

Let’s be honest, unicorn socks and a large dose of hope is really what anyone needs to get through a rough patch!