Running from your diagnosis: My experience of Borderline Personality Disorder

Grace tells us about her experience of being diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), the stigma attached to the disorder, and what that meant in terms of getting support.

-Grace Moody 

I was just thirteen years old when I would say I had my first experience with mental health problems. Many people passed it off as an ‘emo phase’ but I would frequently self-harm and I would often feel empty and worthless and I would often have suicidal thoughts. For a lot of the time though, I was confident and an extrovert and would often be the leader of whatever group I was in. Looking back on this, it was probably why no one really took my mental health seriously until I was in sixth form.

Throughout sixth form I had a serious boyfriend who provided me with all the attention and loving that I craved and my mental health did get a bit better. He got very good at knowing how to help me when I was overreacting about something and he was very laid back which helped to reduce my impulsivity. Unfortunately, he went to university a year before me and we were suddenly in a long distance relationship. My paranoia went through the roof and I’m not proud to say that I became so desperate to keep him that my behaviour was appalling. He realised this and urged me to go to see a doctor and at his request, I did.

At this point I had already applied to be a social work student at University of Bath. When I had applied and also when I was interviewed, I was asked to declare any mental health problems. I didn’t declare any issues because I was frightened that this would mean that I wouldn’t be able to start the course. For this reason, even though my G.P. urged me to take antidepressants and to go to cognitive behavioural therapy, I declined.

Before starting my course I had never even heard of borderline personality disorder which is what I am told is my diagnosis. In my first year my lecturer discussed the signs of it and some of the reasons and I was in shock. Looking at it in bullet point form on the white board made me go quiet. I wanted to ask her at the end how serious it was but as she said things like “lying is quite common for people with BPD” and “They’re often very needy service users and don’t be surprised if they try to manipulate you”, once again I decided to stay silent.

I started going to the doctor for anti-depressants but refused to get any therapy. My group of friends were very supportive and a number of them had problems with depression or anxiety themselves. I never told them my worries around the fact that I had them.

I was obsessed with googling borderline personality disorder then. I would look at the signs of it and check them off in my head. Intense fear of being left alone that causes extreme behaviour such as constantly calling someone? Check. A pattern of intense and/or unstable relationships where you change between loving the person and hating them? Definitely check. Engaging in impulsive and dangerous activities such as unsafe sex, drug abuse, excessive drinking or excessive spending? Check. Self-harming, mood swings, anxiety and irritability, paranoia in stressful situations – All were checked off.

Throughout my course I was in various placements where again I experienced more prejudice against people with borderline personality disorder which made me even more determined to keep it to myself. I’d open up about my depression a little more but I felt that the other parts of my diagnosis were shameful. I became slightly like a self-fulfilling prophecy; every time I told a small lie or manipulated someone I would be torn between thinking ‘oh well it’s just my diagnosis’ to excuse it and also feeling disgusted with myself that I was such a horrendous person.

My relationships were also horrendous. After I had broken up with my sixth form boyfriend, I dated a huge amount of people and all of these relationships were short lived and many of them involved me being treated pretty badly. Although I was not in the wrong in the vast majority of these relationships, I still felt desperate for any of them to love me. I was convinced that the reason they could not love me was because of my mental health issues.

It was one of these men that caused my breakdown in my third year of university. My mental health had been pretty bad for months before this happened and my housemates were having to calm me down pretty frequently but when yet another guy told me I wasn’t what he wanted, I broke down.

I was at my placement in mental health services when he called me to tell me he didn’t want to see me again and that I wasn’t girlfriend material. It was everything that my internal voice told me but it was being said out loud and I started to cry and then couldn’t stop. I left placement, went back to my student house and took a cocktail of anti-depressants and any paracetamol or ibuprofen that I happened to have in my room. Washing it down with red wine I’m not really sure what was going through my head. My housemate said when he found me that I didn’t look depressed, I looked manic. I ran from the house to stop him calling an ambulance but instead he called the police. When I eventually came home the police had to calm me down and persuade me to go with the ambulance to the hospital.

It was after this escapade that I realised I couldn’t avoid mental health services any longer. The psychiatric nurse said as soon as we’d finished our assessment that he felt there was a possibility of borderline personality disorder – something which was confirmed by other professionals. I didn’t react when he told me because it was exactly what I expected. I was just sad that it was true.

I’m still coming to terms with having my diagnosis but I’m not letting it control my life. I’m doing my research so that I know what I want and can make informed decisions about my care. I’m hoping to go back to university in January and I strongly believe that my experiences will allow me to talk to service users suffering with mental health issues (and personality disorders in particular) in a way that challenges the stigma and shows them that they don’t need to be afraid of what they have. Nothing has changed for the negative since finding out what’s wrong with me. In fact, I feel relief that I know now and that I am getting the support that I need.

For more of Grace's work, you can view her Buzzfeed Community article here at: https://www.buzzfeed.com/gracel24/sheridan-smith-is-more-of-a-role-model-now-than-be-jmjk

MHAW: My relationship with me

In aid of this year's Mental Health Awareness Week (16th-22nd May), Sophie writes about her experiences of Orthorexia and what that taught her about the relationship between mental health and the self.

-Sophie Cockeram 

When I found out that the theme for Mental Health Awareness Week 2016 was ‘relationships’, I felt that it was something that I couldn’t write about. My family and friends are incredibly supportive and I’ve never been in involved in anything abusive romantically. But then I started thinking about the relationship I have with myself, and how that relationship has caused me to suffer with my mental health and self-worth. I started struggling with depression at the age of about fifteen or sixteen, so this is something I am able to manage and monitor. However, in my second year of university, I experienced something other than that. And that ‘other’ was in the form of an extensive battle with disordered eating.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when this began: I generally say that it started in May 2014, as I lost quite a lot of weight in a very short space of time by eating very little and over-exercising. Once I’d shed a few pounds, I had the bug- nothing was going to stop me getting the body of my dreams. Then, in the following September, a messy break up with my long-term boyfriend led to my self-worth and confidence plummeting. I started on the Protein World ‘Slender Blend’ meal replacement plan, which turned out to be the worst, and most dangerous, thing that I could’ve done. I developed Orthorexia, which fed into bulimia and binge eating.

The funny (or very unfunny) thing is, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing to myself. I thought that it was normal to come home from eating something ‘bad’ and do hundreds of exercises in my room to try and burn off the calories. I thought that having protein shakes was great, because protein’s what makes you lean, right?? Wrong. I was harming my body beyond belief, blinded by seeing the number on the scales drop, and basically starving myself. Despite thinking and worrying about food all the time, I was living off little more than 700 calories a day. It’s very difficult to explain exactly the way I was feeling to someone that’s been lucky enough not to experience an eating disorder. I was utterly fixated by everything I was consuming, constantlyresearching ways to lose weight faster, foreverstaring at my body in the mirror and despising every little thing that I saw. There were no good bits, there was no ‘oh, my arms look alright today’, there was nothing. Nothing but this shroud of negativity, so powerful that it was pushing both my brain and body to their breaking point.

Nearly two years have passed since the beginnings of my eating disorders, and it’s still something that I struggle with. I’m a million times better than I used to be, but in extremely stressful situations, I find that it’s very easy to slip back into my old habits, as food sometimes feels like the only thing I have control over. I urge anyone that has even the slightest feeling they may have a problem with their relationship towards food or their body image to seek some help. Tell a friend, family member, support officer at school or university. I think that there is a common misconception with eating disorders, in that we often picture someone that has an almost skeletal figure. I did not look like that (in fact, I got quite a lot of compliments from people telling me how great I looked for losing weight!), but that doesn’t mean that I was in any way healthy. Admitting that I had/have a problem and talking about it with other people (or writing it all down on my blog) has helped me a huge deal.

‘The most important relationship that you’ll ever have is with yourself’ is something that’s said a lot, but is far too easily forgotten. Treat yourself nicely, respect yourself and give yourself the love that you’d give everyone else you care about. You are what matters, and your relationship with your body should be happy and healthy.

MHAW: Bipolar in Love, Navigating a Relationship While Living with a Mood Disorder

Bethany shares her experience of dealing with bipolar disorder whilst holding a relationship together.

- Bethany Lipka

My relationships have always been tumultuous, and an on-again, off-again pattern has defined almost every relationship I've had since I started dating at age 14. 

When I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder (type 2) at age 24, this dating pattern suddenly made a lot of sense. Looking back, I could clearly see that hypomanic-me was capable of being happily in love, while depressed-me projected all of my negative self-perceptions onto my partner. “You don’t really love me”, “you think I’m stupid”, “just leave”, are all things I have said to people who absolutely did love me, who thought I was smart and funny, and who wanted to be with me. 

So after my diagnosis I felt relieved that I had finally identified this disordered pattern of thinking and behavior, so that I could prevent it in the future. I was in a relationship at the time (of the off, then on-again variety), and I thought that I finally had the information I needed to make sure things stayed stable. No more relationship drama, problem solved!

Easier said than done. 

I found myself falling into old habits pretty quickly. A decade-long pattern is hard to break. It’s been three years now since my diagnosis, and breaking this pattern is still something I work on every day. I constantly combat the lies that my own brain tells me about my self-worth (namely, the lack thereof). And I have to be critical of every emotional perception that I have, to determine whether it’s rooted in reality, or illness. It is challenging. It is a lot of work. But it has paid off. 

The same partner that I was with at the time I was diagnosed is now my wife. Over years, we’ve developed a pretty good system of weathering my many ups and downs. I have three tips from our experiences that may come in handy if you are in a relationship and you – or your partner – are living with a mood disorder: 

1) Talk. Talk a lot. If you are feeling low and don’t feel like talking: leave notes, send texts, write emails. But keep the lines of communication open. When your mood state (our your partner’s) is an ever-shifting thing, you need to keep your partner posted on how you are doing. No one is a mind reader. 

2) Arguments are rarely about what they’re about. This is true in all relationships, but especially for couples where someone struggles with mood variability. Sometimes “this” is really about “that”. Sometimes “I’m mad you forgot to take the garbage out” is really about “I haven’t slept in three days and my anxiety is so bad that I feel like I’m falling out of an airplane”. Try to discern the difference, and get to the root of things. 

3) Practice self-care. This advice is particularly important for the partner of someone living with a mood disorder. You are often thrown into the caregiver role, and being a caregiver can be exhausting. Take time to reboot, whatever that means for you (exercise, a good book, a long bath). You can’t run on empty, and trying to do so will put your own mental health at risk, as well as your relationship.  

Relationships are always hard, and if you are living with a mood disorder they are even harder. But having a person to help you navigate life with your illness can be one of the best possible things for your mental health, making it well worth the effort. 

For more information on finding support click here.

For more information on supporting a friend or a partner click here.

MHAW: Relationships in Mental Health – The Relationship With Yourself

Leah writes about how sometimes the most important relationship you can have is the one with yourself

-Leah Fuller

The focus of this week’s Mental Health Awareness Week is relationships, and I know that other blog posts have already touched upon friendships as a great support network if you are struggling with mental health issues. Personally, I wanted to touch on a relationship that many of us forget we have – the one with ourselves. 

Mental health issues can be a very isolating experience, especially when we think we are fighting it alone or that no-one else understands how we feel. Other relationships in our lives, be that with parents, partners, friends, or teachers are unquestionably important. However, having a relationship with yourself is undeniably even more significant throughout life. If we cannot start to believe in ourselves, like ourselves, or care for ourselves, the battle to recovery feels even more of an uphill climb. 

So, with that in mind, here are three things I personally believe you can do to improve both your relationship with yourself and your mental health:

Believe in yourself

Struggling with my own mental health, I have often thought ‘I can't do this’, ‘I'm a failure’, or ‘I'm not good enough’, as I’m sure many people can relate to. But the more we say these negative phrases the more we believe they are true. In reality, and you’ll have to trust me here, they are 100% NOT true for anyone. Believing in yourself is no easy feat, but one way to start is to tackle those thoughts by changing them to positives such as ‘I can’ and ‘I will’. The more you say them, the more you will start to believe in yourself. 

Take care of yourself

Again this is no easy task, sometimes when we’re feeling rubbish all we want to do is curl up in our duvet and hide away, but in doing this we forget to look after ourselves. It is so important to make sure you take time to eat properly, get a good amount of sleep, and do some exercise - as the saying goes healthy body, healthy mind. The best way I have found to make sure I do this is to plan my day with a to-do list including these tasks, and ticking each one as I go. This helps to acknowledge that you have both achieved things in the day and are looking after yourself. Once you’re into a routine, it’s much easier to take care of yourself. 

Make time for yourself

All too often we are too busy working towards the next deadline to make time for ourselves, to do the things we like, that bring us happiness and help us to relax. To improve your relationship with your mind, make sure you take time out, whether that’s to read a book, watch your favourite TV show, or just walk round the block. Getting some head space can really improve your outlook and do wonders for your mental health. 

Try hard this week to build a better relationship with yourself. I know it may seem a huge and hard step to take, especially if you feel you're at the bottom, but even if you take it in baby steps it will help you to be and feel happier.

MHAW: Experiences of Mental Illness within a Relationship

Saira writes about how mental health problems can be within a relationships and how it is more common than you think to raise awareness for Mental Health Awareness Week.

- Saira Wood

"Dear Wife,

I speak, but I worry that you don't hear my words, or the secrets hidden between them. I cry, but I keep it hidden inside in case you think less of me. I worry, but I stand tall and act strong in hope I'll believe I am. I feel, less of a man, less of a husband, less of a person, but I won't tell anyone because they'll see me as weak.

I wish I were louder, happier, confident, stronger, and proud of myself, but I struggle every day to find myself again. I struggle to understand why you don't leave. How you can love someone like this. Why you still tell me you love me."

"Dear Husband,

You had nightmares again last night. I didn't wake you, but I held you. I kissed your cheek, I gently rocked you and I whispered in your ear that I was here. And just as normal, you fell into a deep sleep. I don't tell you each morning because I know you'll feel embarrassed. I don't want you to have to remember again, talk about it again, relive it again. I washed your favourite shirt for the morning. I made your coffee extra sweet. I used my lunch hour to go get your favourite meal for us to have for dinner. I can't do much about the past, my love, but I can make life now easier. I wish I could stop the nightmares for good, but I can hold you through them. I know deep down you worry about looking weak, needy, fragile and vulnerable...but my love, you have only ever been strong, brave, courageous and incredible."

People understand more than you think. Let's talk about mental health.

Mental health is serious. It's real, and it has no boundaries. From post natal depression, to PTSD, personality disorder to OCD, in fact 1 in 4 people in the UK will experience a mental health problem each year. Yet we still shy away from talking about our problems. Stigma and stereotypes have led to mental illness having a negative connotation when we should be celebrating the positives.

The more people that are diagnosed and treated, the better our understanding, the less taboo the subject, and most importantly....the larger the support system.

It's easy to bottle things up and pretend we can cope, but why should we have to? Relationships in mental health are so important - and when you start to open up about your problems you realise there are so many people dealing with the same disease, and that's just what it is. A disease.

We are not defined by our problems, and we are not controlled them.

People understand more than you think. Let's talk about mental health.

- the stories above were taken from parts of my dissertation where I spoke to a Navy Veteran and his wife