BPD Really Sucks

For those that know me, really know me, you know that I have struggled with mental health a long time. A really, really long time. For years I played medication guinea pig for reasons that ranged at age 13 to "it sounds like you may be suffering from some depression" to severe pms, manic mood disorder, bipolar, anxiety, insomnia, dysmorphia, a step outside reality and the list goes on, to you just need to see a psychiatrist. It got to the point that I finally said I'm just not taking medications anymore because the side effects were doing my head in, and I was always asked, and still get asked, are they working? My answer is almost always I don't fucking know.

Fast forward through my life and up until mid 2019 we were still trying to figure out what was going on with me, or be able to narrow it down to be more productive in treating it. After multiple psychiatrists' evaluations, numerous doctor visits and MORE medication we finally arrived at an official diagnosis...and I fucking hate it. Let me explain why. I know I should be excited because finally, FINALLY, I have an answer right? Wrong. Having an answer is fabulous but being told it is thee single most difficult diagnosis to treat. As in medication can work today, but not tomorrow, work for a few days then be useless for 2 weeks.

My diagnosis is BPD, or for those that don't know, Borderline Personality Disorder. It gets better. I also have PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). That one I kind of figured out a long time ago as watching a young boy you were playing with die directly in front you and you younger sister by drowning, as in less than 6 feet from you, tends to have a bit of a lasting affect on you. I was maybe 5 or 6. I really struggle to remember my age because I don't want to remember that event at all. I'm 42 now, and it still haunts me. Couple that with numerous other series of unfortunate events (sexual abuse, more trauma from my baby nephew dying, grandparent dying, being bullied, emotional and at one point physical abuse ... again you get the picture) I struggled from that point on, with pretty much everything. 

Now, why does it suck so much, because unlike most other people I know, I do not know what one day to the next will look like. I can go to bed entirely happy and wake up with a wrath of anger I cannot really describe. I feel no emotion or extreme emotion (although mostly there is none), I am not just self conscious about my body but I have a very distorted view of myself (despite what you see when you look at me or are around me), I have sporadic self regulation issues, I'm very impulsive and impatient, I have a CONSTANTLY active brain thus why I am a serial entrepreneur and always need to be working on something or finding ways to 'make money' or do something better, I do not sleep unless I am medicated (which currently I'm on one that is highly addictive and I'm only allowed to be on for 2 weeks - DONT even get me started as to how effective this will be), when I do finally close my eyes I have what can only be described as the opening credits to a Marvel movie where it is all flashes of comic strip photos etc except mine is the events of the day or things I need to remember or do...or not do. *Big Sigh* I am just touching the surface here but I know, deep down inside me, how much this BPD sucks fucking ass. Being told we will continue to work through it, telling me DBT (Dialectical Behaviour Therapy) is one of the only aids available to me to help navigate it, although once again, not cure it. So here I am, popping pills and hoping to have good days. Aside from the fact that Mr R is a fucking champ and deserves someone so much better than me, he chooses me and I am thankful for that every second of every day. He grounds me and puts up with my shit, or rather he has learnt to navigate the storm that is me. I'm his rock. His confrontational rock. He loves it. And me. 

On a positive note, I'm out.