Back to the beginning.

Since I neglected to explain exactly what Borderline was in my first post, I'll go back and explain.

This is the diagnosis from the DSM IV.

BPD is manifested by a pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in (5).
2. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation. This is called "splitting."
3. Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.
4. Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating). Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in (5).
5. Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior. 
6. 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). 
7. Chronic feelings of emptiness. 
8. Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights). 
9. Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms.

I spent probably 15-20 years of my life consistently nailing 7-9 of these symptoms.  From my best guess, I was exhibiting signs of major depression as early as 8, and possibly Borderline as well.  Some people think you can't diagnose personality disorders in kids, but by 8 I'm pretty sure I was getting about five of these consistently.

I know I was self-mutilating by about 10, and maybe earlier.  It was the only way I could keep myself in check emotionally.  It's funny, thinking back, I never knew that I was wrong, or different.

By high school, I'd figured out that there was something wrong with me.  I couldn't survive without peer approval; it was how I managed to feel good about myself.  Not that every single day of my life was a pit of misery, but the bad days significantly outnumbered the good.  I started asking for help around 15, I think.  I was told that "real people don't go to therapists."  Think of the message this sends to your child.  I knew I needed help.  I'd downed a large chunk of a bottle of Tylenol at about 17, but me needing help for that meant that I was a lesser person.

I didn't get any sort of help until I was in college.  I was probably 19 before I had the courage to go to a therapist.  However, because I was an undiagnosed Borderline, I wasn't getting the help I needed.  I made a game out of seeing how I could manipulate my therapists.  Not because I really wanted to, but because I needed to test my boundaries and see how much I could get away with.  Did the therapist really care?  Sure, usually they did, but they never saw through my crap.  

In the same year, I had dropped down to eating about a snack a day, and I was sleeping 12+ hours a night.  It was all I did other than going to class and work.  Not that I never went out, but given the choice, I picked sleeping it off.  I talked to my therapist at the time (we'd had one whopping session) and she informed me that my lack of eating and constant sleeping was because I hadn't found Jesus.  She refused to give me a referral to a psychiatrist.  Luckily, I had one hell of a dermatologist, who I told about everything, and she immediately gave me a referral to a psychiatrist.  I'd spend the next few years being drugged out of my gourd to theoretically keep me functional.  Let me tell you how much I fucking hate Lithium.  Hate.  I was taking 14 pills in the morning, three at lunch, and two at night.  I'd started on sleeping pills by then, because all the drugs were totally destroying my inability to sleep.

I was still a mess.  I dropped out of a prestigious Landscape Architecture program.  I'd been picked 8th out of pool of probably 60 people.  Only 20 were selected at all.  My teacher encouraged me not to quit, but I couldn't handle not doing well at it, and let's be honest...I fucked up everything else I touched, so this failure was coming.

At 22, I made one suicide attempt in March, and in November was remanded to the loving custody of a Texas state mental health facility by court order for downing a bottle of Xanax and apparently being rude to a police officer who wanted to send me home from the ER.  I don't remember any of the second incident.  It happened less than a month after my wedding.

This went on and on.  Finally at 29, I pretty much lost it.  I stopped eating for three days before I checked myself in to a mental health hospital in Georgia.  My psychiatrist at the hospital gave me a number for a therapist.  I called her.  On my initial visit, I remember her asking me if I'd do anything to stop being who I was.  I cried.  That session, I got my actual diagnosis of Borderline Personality disorder.  Ten years of therapy, and this woman nailed it in less than 10 minutes.  She recommended a therapy program for me.  For 6 months, I spent $390 out of pocket per week going to individual and group.  Six months, and I was a whole new person.  I could actually cope with things.  It was amazing.  I felt cold, sometimes, and like I felt nothing, but simple life events no longer caused me unspeakable agony.  I could actually go to social events without having to sneak off to the bathroom and cry and cut myself to handle the people. 

And that was really the problem.  I didn't have any sort of gradation on the emotional pain scale.  Someone hurt my feelings?  Felt like someone I loved had died.  Got embarrassed?  Same level of agony.  Everything hurt.  Marsha Linehan, the founder of the therapy I did, Dialectic Behavioral Therapy, says that being Borderline is like having second degree burns all over your body.  Everything, even the slightest touch causes uncontrollable agony.  To control it, Borderlines do whatever we have to.  We binge eat, we self-starve.  We overspend.  We cut, burn, scratch, and injure ourselves however we can.  We manipulate everyone we meet.  We're quick to judge, and our love can turn to scathing hatred in a second.  We always know people too well, so that when we're afraid we're going to get hurt, we can strike first, with deadly accuracy to totally cripple the person.  But 2 hours later, we love you so much, and never want you to leave us.

I haven't hit more than 1-2 symptoms at a time, and in very short duration since I graduated from Minal and Stephanie's class.  It's been tough sometimes, but I no longer stare at the future and want to die.  Lately, it's the hardest it's been since I graduated, but it's still a million times better than it was.

So there, have some back story.