Hardwired To Self Destruct: BPD And Me

Last June, I was officially diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, or Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder, as it's being referred to more often in a clinical setting. This diagnosis followed a long period of internal speculation, and a “most likely has it” from an assessment in Celbridge. It wasn't a life shattering revelation, but it did explain a lot of things. The fights and rows I'd gotten into in the past and how quick I'd go from 0 to 90. The pervasive feeling of emptiness that seemed to be more severe than traditional depression (not that that's a walk in the park). The impulsivity when it came to drinking, substances, spending. It made me fearful for the future too, even though I'd been able to secure a place in a DBT program.

I'm weary of writing disclosure pieces on mental health. They always seem so futile, and with an undertone of “poor me” no matter how I try and avoid that. However, BPD is one of the most debilitating and misunderstood of the mental disorders, so perhaps this piece can help in easing that. God knows how many results when you Google it end up demonising those with the disorder, like we're ticking time bombs and manipulative monsters, as opposed to humans dealt a shit hand and trying our best.

Borderline personality disorder is part of the Cluster B subset of personality disorders. It has nine pieces of diagnostic criteria, for a diagnosis five or more must be met, meaning there's at least a hundred different ways they could be combined. They are intense efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment, unstable personal relationships that alternate between idealisation and hatred, an unstable sense of self, impulsive behaviour in damaging areas (sex, drugs, spending), frequent suicidal thoughts and behaviour, emotions that can flip on a whim, chronic feelings of emptiness, outbursts of rage and intense paranoia or dissociative symptoms. It's not known entirely where it comes from. Genetics may play a role in it being inheritable, environmental factors such as neglect or trauma have a high likelihood of being a cause or contributing factor at least. What does this all mean for someone who has the disorder however?

Like the title says, it's almost as if you are hardwired to self destruct. Everything that can go wrong, all too often goes very wrong. All the symptoms play off and feed into each other, like a cruel jazz band. Your emotions run so intensely that you're often left exhausted by them. The chronic emptiness ties into the impulsive behaviour, as you'll do anything to fill that void, no matter how risky it may be, the suicidal nature meaning there's hope it may well kill you. The fear of abandonment and following horrible feelings are made worse by the fact that the mood swings and outbursts often drive people away. The idealisation of a person in a relationship becomes a fierce burning hatred, hatred is too light a word, when something goes wrong, this flipping is known as splitting. The difficulty in managing your relationships and emotions has a profound effect on your life, in DBT you have to learn skills that many people take for granted, something that really stung when I went in for therapy.

It's easier to write about the symptoms and effects in second person than think about how the disorder has affected my life, much less put those thoughts to paper. It's…fucked me up to be quite frank. To give you some statistics, 80% of people with BPD will attempt suicide over the course of their life, with 10% being successful in their attempt, meaning I saw the diagnosis as almost a death sentence. Every emotion is felt a hundred times more strongly than normal, meaning even if things aren't actually that bad, they still feel That Bad and it's hard for me to take myself out of the situation to gain some perspective. The chaos of everyday life and your late teens/early 20s has been a lot harder to just get through, never mind manage, because I can go from 0-90. Small things can set me spiralling into a suicidal state, and even though I've done distress tolerance, a lot of the time I want it to get to the point I do something stupid, because I grin n bear it through the rest of my life and this is the only option to quit and be free I have. I’ve gotten attached to people mentally, look up “favourite person” for more info on this phenomenon, and when there's some small thing that goes wrong, or a larger thing, it's fucking crushed my heart. I hold myself back from getting close to people now because I know that pattern is unhealthy, and if you trust no one you can't be betrayed. Even with that consider I find myself analysing my interactions with people, looking for disquiet or a sign they hate me, because I can't imagine a life without conflict being there, and it's hard to stop myself. I've done a lot of very reckless things involving drink and other things, anything to take the emptiness away. Arguments and disagreements turned into bitter rows because of splitting, creating drama that could have been avoided had I known what was going on in my brain and been able to pull the breaks before saying something I couldn't take back. Even now, when I know that I'm splitting, the things I want to say still stay in my brain. This isn't to excuse the things I've done and said, I've hurt people, and the cards might have been dealt in a way making it more likely, but the choices I made were mine, and the consequences are ones I have to live with. All I can do is focus on treatment, and strive not to do harm in my interactions.

That last point brings me to a larger point to be made about the perception of the disorder in public consciousness, and within our own community of sorts. The popular stereotype of someone with bpd is that they're manipulative, dramatic and attention seeking. This means that we can't disclose to friends that we have the disorder, it means professionals don't take us seriously, and it obscures the fact that very often we're the ones who end up being manipulated. However at the same time, there exists a reaction against the stigma that goes completely in the opposite direction, where there is no accountability and the idea we can do harm is laughed off. It's a hard pill to swallow, but the fact is that we have a disorder that affects our mood and personality, and means there is a likelihood for us to act in ways that are harmful to others. It doesn't mean we're monsters, or that people who don't have the disorder don't do the same things, it just means that there are parts to us that need to be managed. It's easier said than done, accessing therapy is almost impossible whether you go private or public, despite the glib posting about it by some people. The process itself is a long and drawn out one, lasting a year, where you essentially have to learn how to deal with everything as if you hadn't known how to before,something I found to be somewhat infantilising. Believe me, dealing with the disorder even with the help of therapy is an incredibly difficult thing, but it's a very necessary thing, and it's something we can do.

If I had to give one final piece of information for people to take away from this, it's that if you think dealing with someone with the disorder is hard enough, believe me living with it is a million times harder. We're not monsters, we're not too much, we're people, dealt a shit hand but trying our best.