What is BPD?
Borderline Personality Disorder or BPD is a personaliry disorder that is a severe mental health condition that affects the way you understand yourself, the way you react to the world around you, the way you cope with emotions and the way you navigate relationships. It is made of a pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects and marked impulsivity, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts.
BPD is made up of five groups of symptoms: unstable behaviour, unstable emotions, unstable relationships, unstable sense of identity and awareness problems. Symptoms of each vary so the combination of characteristics that create BPD is different for everyone.
It's usually diagnosed in teens and young adults, though it may also be diagnosed later in life. About 1.6% of the general population has BPD, statistically more women then men will be diagnosed. Guess what? I was diagnosed as a young adult and I am female.. I guess I hit the lottery lol.
On the right we have a ‘normal’ brain, on the left the brain of someone with BPD. Brain scans have shown people with BPD have amygdala’s that are noticeably smaller than the general population, and may even have undergone atrophy. The smaller the amygdala, the more overactive it is. This means when people with Borderline Personality Disorder, experience an emotion, they do so more intensely than the general population, and the ‘cooling down’ period takes much longer.
It's not known an exact cause for BPD but the main cause that has been seen is trauma in childhood/adolescence. Could be bullying, abandonment, physical/mental/sexual abuse, or any number of other reasons.
So what does it feel like? (My experience only)
It's intense! All emotions are heightened! When something gets you frustrated, you're not just frustrated you're raging. When something makes you sad, your not just sad your inconsolable. When you feel lonely, you're not just lonely you feel empty. Trying to regulate this is impossible for someone like me. It's even worse when you split. Splitting is when something/someone triggers you and all of a suddenthe love or like you had for someone/something turns to absolute hate and disgust. It could be a simple as someone saying the reason they don't like the music you like - as happened to me in that very scenario back when I was 15, before I knew what BPD even was and it caused great hate for that person.
I was diagnosed at 26 after years of depression and anger. I was and still am in a bad place when it comes to my BPD. But having an answer is a blessing. Knowing I'm not just a horrible person, I'm not who I am when my BPD acts up is amazing. Knowing why I am this way helped my mindset a lot.
I struggle every day with my BPD, whether is my anger, depression, anxiety, physical pain, dissociating, or splitting. It's always a struggle. It always requires you to always be on your toes to keep your mind in check.
Me as a teen. I felt hidden away, masking to fit in. My smile was fake. My smile wasn't able to shine amidst my mindset.
I belive my BPD was caused by bullying and
abandonment. I was bullied and abandoned in many ways as a kid and teen. From the distance in my relationship with my father, to being bullied for my weight, to being literally abandoned my my friends. Everything caused me to hate myself. Caused me to be depressed, and anxious not knowing what to expect from someone. I expected the worst, and still do. I wasn't happy then. As you can see above that was my smile, it was small and hardly there.
Now, I know all this about myself. I try hard to be a good person, a kind person, and a supportive person. I try to hold my emotions in check but I can't always manage to do so. But I know why I do that and why I can't control it every single time. And I don't feel crazy for my BPD episodes. I can smile now, even being in as a low mentality that I'm in, I can finally see there is a me in there.
I can see who I really am.
I can smile again!
Comments