BPD experience
Hello everyone.. I've finally reached a point in my life were I feel like my mental health has completely destroyed everything. I'm hoping to share my experience and maybe find someone who understands and would also like to share their experience and ways of overcoming.
I'm 24 years old and I'm completely lost.. I've had to start over from the bottom time and time again due to my BPD. I've ruined all of my relationships out of fear of being abandoned or not good enough. I've lost several very well paying jobs over the years bc of trips to the hospital from failed attempts on my life. I have no family and never really have. All friends have been pushed away. The past two years have been my biggest attempt at making something worth living for. I had a baby and a wonderful partner who gave it their all. I had a management job that payed well. I lost all of that within a month. Now I sleep in my car and I have nobody to talk to. I'm trying to start over again with a new job but I can't find it in me anymore bc I know as soon as I get to doing good something will go wrong and I will fall apart. If anyone can relate and wants to share their story pls do.
@persistentBeechwood2877
I am sorry to hear about how your BPD has impacted your life. It sounds like it is a constant cycle of feeling great and falling back down. It sounds like you are really struggling right now as you are sleeping in your car. I assume that your partner took your child while you are in a car? Dealing with BPD and those fears of abandonment can be quite difficult. There are so many reasons that individuals get BPD, one of them having maladaptive coping skills from childhood that fall into adulthood. It sounds like you have gone through many hospitals for failed attempts, so I am wondering if during any of those stays, did you see a professional counselor or get told about dialectal behavior therapy? Even if you can't afford a therapist, there are skills you can try to teach yourself. What do you think about that?
Unfortunately my partner leaving me bc of there own priorities with another spouse and child before me is what caused this flare up of uncontrollable emotions and was the start of my downfall with my job and resulting in where I am now. Knowing that person was the only person I have in this world was leaving and taking my child was more than I could handle. Although the multiple attempts to seek help from behavior health have not been a complete waist and I have learned many coping skills and have been placed on a variety of medication.. that alone is not enough to control the avalanche of emotion that comes with BPD and major depressive disorder. I suffered in my work bc I could no longer preform the role I was assigned no matter how hard I tried and that put greater pressure on me bc of the high position I was in. This resulted in crippling anxiety that caused me to start drinking witch led to the conclusion that I'm not good enough and I deserve to be sleeping in my car or dead. I didn't talk to a therapist or go to a hospital bc I'm at the point where I'm afraid to try and start over. My whole life has been extremely unhealthy from child hood and I'm to the point where I can't bring myself to fix anything bc I'm completely alone and I know that as soon as I get back up I'll fall back down and I can't handle that anymore. So I'm stuck.
Oh man I am sorry to hear about how he left and took your child. I can understand how this would have been a trigger to you and caused this chain of events. I can also understand being afraid of starting over because starting over can mean opening yourself to getting hurt. It makes sense that you’re so low that you feel that the car is an acceptable place for you to be. It’s good that the behavioral health sessions were not a complete waste of your time and that you were able to pick up some coping methods. What are some of these methods and how often do you use them?
I will say that during an episode I don't have any way to apply a type of method to calm down the explosion of emotions or actions that are taking place and I think I can speak for alot of people when I say that. But after everything is over and I'm left in that state of being numb to everything I'm able to basically pursued myself with everyday mantras, smiling when there is no reason to smile, breathing and telling myself every day is a new day and nothing is permanent. I feel like I'm lying to myself but it keeps me from putting a blade to my wrist. I also try to talk to other people in the same or similar position. To me that is more helpful than most therapy
@persistentBeechwood2877
Hey, I can understand how talking to people in similar situations can be more helpful than therapy sometimes. It feels nice to find someone who can relate and isn't just a professional. I can get how it would be a challenge to use a coping method during the episodes. It sounds like during those you just have to ride the wave and hope it ends soon. With the therapy or help that you had, you did dialectal behavior therapy? I am glad that you are posting here in these forums and I look forward to seeing other users coming to post to allow you to see how they have handled theirs cause it sounds like thats what you need right now.
@persistentBeechwood2877
Hi--wow, that's so much to lose (multiple jobs, relationships, friends, partner/child, home) and I'm sorry you've had to go through all of that.
Can understand what you're saying that:
1) If you've lost so much so many times, it's hard to have much motivation to start over when you expect to fail. And it hurts so much more to have hopes for something and see those hopes destroyed. So it's less painful to not open yourself up to being injured like that again.
2) You've picked up some coping skills, but it feels like they aren't enough to contain the massive tidal wave of all of the uncontrollable emotions from the BPD, MDD, and everything associated with recent experiences (e.g. partner leaving, losing management job, feeling like you aren't good enough or deserve suffering).
***
I noticed that some of the coping things you mentioned (e.g. mantras, smiling, telling yourself things are impermanent, etc.) are a bit more cognitive or emotional in nature and involve trying to adopt a positive/optimistic interpretation. I can imagine how it might feel like in order for these things to be effective, you'd have to already be in a pretty decent state of mind, at least enough to be able to trick yourself.
Personally when I'm feeling really terrible, I can't make myself think or feel anything. I'm just kind of shattered and it feels strenuous to make myself think happy things. It's like telling a sick person lying in bed that they need to go run a marathon. 😊 It just feels sort of unnatural, manipulative, and dishonest to try to make my mind do something that it really doesn't feel like doing and doesn't believe in. It feels worse to have someone else trying to force me to do these things. One of the main motivations behind the development of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) was the observation by its founder Marsha Linehan that BPD sufferers sometimes find the change emphasis of standard cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) to be invalidating.
I personally tend to be drawn to coping strategies that are more value-neutral and don't require thinking, feeling, or being anything in particular. I can't "fail" at these no matter how much I hate myself, how angry I am, how ungrateful I am, etc. because "success" doesn't require me to become more positive or less negative. These activities involve either 1) simple behaviors, 2) shifting my attention to something that's already present in my experience, or 3) connecting with and expressing some kind of energy that I'm already feeling.
https://www.verywellmind.com/grounding-exercises-425376
https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/borderline-personality-disorder-bpd/self-care-for-bpd/
If you're looking for someone to chat with 1-on-1, HERE is a list of verified listeners (i.e. listeners that have been vetted by the community) who have lived experience with BPD and accept chats on that topic.
