Because I once again have blown a friendship because of my chaotic and unstable behaviour I am giving you a refresher on what those of us with Borderline Personality Disorder experience:
-Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment
-A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation
-Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self
-Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating)
-Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior
-Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days)
-Chronic feelings of emptiness
-Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights)
-Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms
It's not an excuse, but please those of you who know me, take this into consideration as I just can't deal with losing one more loved one due to my brain disorder.
Seriously, it takes me by surprise as much as you. I've been trying to contain it, controll it, all my life. Sometimes I'm doing just fine and then *BOOM* I spin out of control in a matter of minutes for god knows what reason. I can't predict it, I can't control it, and I certainly am failing miserably at dealing with it (at least when other people are involved). I'm trying my hardest everyday. I can't control the mood swings, the intense changes in behaviour. I wish I could, I really do. I'm so sick of feeling broken whenever my BPD flares up.
I'm dealing with it one moment at a time.
It's all anyone can really do.
Also: It's good to note that since I suffered abuse all my childhood my immediate reaction to a threatening situation is to run away, whether by dissociating or distance.
I always try and keep this stuff in mind when dealing with my friends; all I'm asking is that you all try to keep it in mind to if a friend of yours suffers from BPD (or PTSD, same symptoms in a lot of ways. Luckily I have both!). I guess that why my exroomie Christy and I are best friends. We both have BPD and PTSD. We get each other, we understand the craziness. But having friends who only have BPD or PTSd is somewhat limiting.
To everyone of my friends that has experienced this: I'm working on it, I really am. I apologise if I made you feel like shit. It's never my intention to hurt the people that I love. If I've shut down on you, well, that just happens. It's how my brain responds to stress.
WTF, NPR?
14 hours ago
15 comments:
((((LC))))
Hugs, kiddo. I have meltdowns too (bipolar, not BPD) and I know just how you feel. When they're happening there's not a damn thing you can do about it and that's really hard for people to understand. For me, the harder I fight it, the worse it is. These days I just try to retreat and ride them out. I've lost friends over it, as you have, but most of them have stuck around. Those people are golden. Having blog friends who understand helps, too. You've done that for me. Thanks.
Thanks terry, that means a lot to me. It's just hard every time it happens, especially when I think someone understands, but I forget how hard it is to understand that they can't really understand it unless they live it. Hell I live it and I don't understand it. Some days it just sucks. Always wish it didn't.
Burrow, I'm so sorry. It's incredibly painful to go through the symptoms, and when you add the friendship problems on top of that...
I have bipolar and generalized anxiety disorder. I think they keep me from even making friends in the first place. Sure, it's hard to understand these conditions, but then, we'd expect our friends to deal with it if we had say, congestive heart failure, or lupus, wouldn't we?
woah that's a mighty confusing response up there. hope someone can make sense of it (esp. terry)
i deeply relate. had a chernoble meltdown myself this evening and now find myself suddenly single. man what a day. what a LIFE.
*hugs*
Sure, it's hard to understand these conditions, but then, we'd expect our friends to deal with it if we had say, congestive heart failure, or lupus, wouldn't we?
We sure would. I wish the rest of the world saw it like that. Grrrrr
I dare say I am risking a bit of a flaming for this comment, but here goes. Friendships come and go for all sorts of reasons. There are people who cannot stay the distance, whether or not one has lupus, a personality disorder, an autistic child or just like to dress in daft clothes. I've had two hospital admission because of depression - and being a qualified psychiatric nurse at the time didn't exactly help matters. Some of my friends couldn't hack it and left. Some stayed with me and I will treasure them always. But, at the end of the day, while my depression might EXPLAIN some of my behaviour, it certainly didn't make it acceptable or easy to deal with. At the end of the day, if a person has tried their hardest to be a real friend, to take account of, and accomodate various less than lovely traits associated with various diseases and difficulties, then so be it. SOmetimes people just can't cope - and I guess folk are going to say that someone with heart failure just has to, but everyone has their tipping point.
I look back on the time when I was depressed, and man, I was a pain in the a*** ( some folks would say nothing's changed!). So, while I would prefer that everyone loved being around me, I can't blame them for not.
India
But the thing is, that's not me all the time. And the difference between me telling someone that I have lupus and me telling someone that I have BPD is that the second one may make them run away or treat me differently from the get go. The freak outs are huge and are very very different from what happens when I am not having a borderline snap.
*shrug* We can think about it both ways (and I do definitely see it your way a lot), but then it just makes me more ashamed of having BPD, which I shouldn't be. If someone leaves because you have heart failure everyone sees that person as an ass, but not so with mental conditions. It's not ok in the first instance, but is in the second. I think that's the point. My close friends know that when I freak out it has little if anything to do with them.
Just from my perspective (I have PTSD, depression, and have recently been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease like lupus), I was overwhelmed by the disappearance of the vast majority of my friends who had stuck by me through all of my ups and downs brought on or exacerbated by the mental stuff, but who simply did not know how to handle any physical changes, and fled en masse. Go figure. The guilt is somehow greater too, as is the pity.
hi all, i've just come across this site, because my hubbys ex as bpd. i used to be friends with her to. my hubby is going to court for contact for his child(she won't let him see his daughter at all). i'm trying to understand that the way she is acting, is rly not her, but her disorder. at the same time i'm angry with her for denying mu hubby contact. but i don't hate her, as i have a mental illness to(ocd, traits of bipolar) we used to be such good friends, & from what i have read, a person with bpd either sees u good or bad, no inbetween. my question is, is there anyway that we/i could get her to see that we are not evil people? & even i will be willing to look after her child if she gets ill again. but i can't see that happening if she won't allow any contact at all. i rly want to understand her, as i know that rly shes a kind & lovely person...thx 4 any replies...lorraine:)
I love the name of your blog.
I wish more people in my life got it that I am angry -- god damn pissed off and ready to slap someone -- much of the time because, well, that is inherently me.
I'm not proud of it. I don't LIKE it. I do as much as I can to change it. But there are some physiological things about me that make it difficult for me to stay regulated emotionally.
For me, I often can't let people get close enough to me to get them to the stage of understanding this. I piss them off or drive them off or hurt them until they run away. I asked my husband of 12 years to leave last summer, and have been crying about missing him ever since. I didn't ask him to leave for no reason -- it was after five years of DBT and I knew it was a good thing in many senses, but the fear of being abandoned has become the nightmare of feeling abandoned (even though that didn't technically happen). Now I'm alone.
I don't know. I'm also a kind and lovely people in many contexts. All of those except the important ones -- the ones where there are deep and meaningful relationships.
Living not just on the border, but on the surface of life,
Just me.
I have a friend who I just adore. I have always wondered why life was so hard for her. She is beautiful, brilliant (IQ over 150) and an amazing musician. But rarely does a day go by where there is not either anger, or some other upset. I have hung in there with her and have really tried to be supportive. It is getting harder and harder. Not sure how to handle this. Thanks for any imput.
My dearest friend of 12 years has cancer and bpd and when I wrote her a loving, caring note told me that I was only a professional liason, to stay out of her private life and that she'd report me to the boss if I continued these unwanted actions and contacts. I am devastated. I considered her the sister I always wanted. Do people with bpd really mean to hurt you when they say things like this or is it just the illness talking? Do you think she will be kind again?
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