The Type Of Borderline I Am.

[Carthraziel]

I just have the urge to write. So I will.

It’s been a year now since I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder although I have had it all my life. And overall it’s been a steadily positive year. I completed group dbt therapy, incorporated mindfulness into my life, practised regular mindfulness meditations and yoga, and in addition to this I have got to a point where I do need weekly therapy any more. I still see my therapist, just once every 2 months or so.

I’ve had plenty of time to think and assess this title, which things will go away with some work and what things will stay? What does being a borderline mean for me? It means something different for everyone who has it. Stereotypically I believe the little that is thought about borderline’s is that they are unstable, quickly flipping from one thing to another with seemingly no rhyme nor reason. Often they are quite vocal about everything, and therefore quite noticeable. For anyone who has seen or read Girl Interrupted this shows a much quieter but equally dangerous version of the disorder, an intelligent girl who ‘shouldn’t’ have any problems yet she does.

If you were going to make a small graph with internal and external along one side, and visible/vocal and not visible/vocal along the other so that there are 4 categories in total, I would fall into the box of internal + not visible. I don’t think anyone ever has noticed an out of the ordinary problem.

You see all through my teenage years and young adult life I have strongly held onto the persona of being totally unaffected by other people. Someone strong and emotionally unshakable. Building high walls that kept everything out and let nothing in I always believed this to be a true personality trait of my own. But it wasn’t until through therapy that I became aware that not only was this not true but the opposite was true. Where in my head I had previously scorned other people for being emotionally affected by things I discovered that the edges of my personality are so non-existent that other people’s emotions affect me as if they’re my own. If I am with someone who feels anxious I will feel anxious without knowing where the emotion is coming from or why I feel it. If I am with two people feeling different emotions I just start feeling both at the same time and it’s very confusing. I start to not feel like myself, I don’t know which bits are me and which bits are other people. I can’t make sense of myself. I instinctively believe that I am the source of the anxiety and that I am making the other person anxious. With anger I believe it must be my presence that’s making the other person angry. When I am confronted by another person it’s like my personality has vanished, I can’t think of any valid responses, like all my thoughts and opinions have just stopped existing, I don’t know how to do anything except mirror back the other person’s personality. I guess this falls under the unstable identity symptom. Even though I am much better now that I know to identify where emotions are coming from and who they belong to I still struggle to state something about myself. It always feels like I am violating some ancient law. Because of this I usually question what I’m saying, “Is this true?” “Can I actually say this of myself?” I have no idea if this is intrinsically true or if I am literally making stuff up.

I also alternate between hyper perception of myself and disconnecting from myself. In hyper perception it’s like I am aware of every muscle move in my face as I talk, every syllable and vocal inflection is so apparent that I am analysing what I’m saying as I’m talking. “Should I be saying this?” “Is this weird?” “Is this too forward?” “Am I being too distant?” Or I disconnect, hearing speech but not really connecting it to being my voice. There’ll be a separate commentary going on in my head about something entirely unrelated. I go away from most social situations just totally unable to make sense of what happened since the disconnection/hyper awareness distorts what I’m perceiving so I’m not sure if what I did was out of the ordinary or not. Apparently I’ve just adapted to this system from a young age because no one who knows me, (who I then revealed to being a borderline to them) said there has ever been anything odd about my general behaviour.

There’s also the way that even though I have no problem with my real name, whenever someone calls me by my actual name (rather than a nickname) I feel like someone has thrown a bucket of cold water over me. At first I’m not sure who they’re talking to and then I realise they mean me at which point a general icy feeling creeps over my whole body.

I have come, through therapy, to see myself not as one person but as many personalities all sharing the same body. I don’t believe this is a step backwards, rather it was a realisation of something that has always been true. When I am not feeling desolately void I am living with hundreds of chattering voices in my head, some whispering to each other, some talking at normal volume, some engaged in a group argument, some snarling and growling, others screeching and squawking, many talking in languages unknown to me. It’s as if in addition to all the facets of my own personality, every character I’ve ever dreamt of, every fictional character I have created to write about, every fictional character I have not yet realised exists in my head, has a voice. And among them are ancient voices belonging the things unknown to me, their voices suddenly clear when I am missing something obvious that’s right in front of me. All these voices exist within me, each one a complex personality of its own, voicing its opinions through mental vocalisations or bodily sensations. There is literally so much happening in my head that I often have no idea what to say. Who’s voice should I voice for real?

The other thing I wanted to talk about was what psychiatrists dub “Chronic feelings of emptiness/boredom” which despite the excellent choice of language still doesn’t convey what it really means. I have felt empty my entire life, and it has many faces. Sometimes the emptiness is so bad it becomes like a presence (paradoxical I know...) it’s a constant presence in my life, like a lifelong friend. And because it’s always been there I can barely see it for what it is any more. I have no perspective of it. When I was younger it was like a desperate questing feeling like I’m constantly seeking something that isn’t food or friendship or sleep or sex or love. So whatever it is I’m looking for is never found which in turn creates a frustrated sensation. Like whatever I have is not enough. None of what I have matters at all because there’s a thing I need I just don’t know what it is or where to find it. Sometimes the emptiness is like a meteor has landed on planet earth and left a crater in its wake. I walk around feeling phantom pains of a gaping hole in me that is so real and physical I don’t know how no one else can see it. Sometimes it lies in the heart as if there is a huge hole straight through my chest, it hurts to breath. Sometimes it lies in my stomach as if I’ve been shot through the middle with a cannon ball and I feel like I have no stomach so I’m not hungry. Sometimes it lies in my head as if my memories and thoughts are gone. I feel neutral about everything, seeming robotic to close friends, unable to formulate my own opinions because there’s just nothing there.

Another face of ‘chronic emptiness’ is when it becomes lonliness. Everyone feels lonely at some point and it can range from unpleasant to truly horrible. But what if you feel so lonely that nothing your friends, family or partner does fills up the loneliness? Like you feel constantly isolated from everything that humans need even though it’s right in front of you. And what if this feeling persists for weeks, months... years. What do you do after years of this feeling, knowing it just never ends? What if even though you have a partner hugging you and comforting you, telling you that they love you regardless of anything, but it’s like they’re shouting it from the other end of a very long black tunnel. It makes no difference whether I’m with or without humans, the loneliness persists.

The most dangerous face of this emptiness is when it becomes like a black hole. It’s when you feel so lonely and empty and just some random act of another person is just strong enough to cause a flicker of not feeling empty any more. But this wakens a creature so terrible, it’s a ravenous thing suddenly aware of how hungry it is. And now I have to deal with it. It tells me to find that feeling and to go where I can get more of it. Except I know the means of doing this are socially unacceptable, or weird. I know this but the creature is so hungry that it doesn’t care. Older now, I know it’s better to keep this creature starved otherwise its insatiable desires destroy people around me.

Sometimes the emptiness morphs into a landscopic force within my body, a swirling vortex sucking everything into it. I walk around my daily life feeling like I am going to be sucked in with all the force of a hole in a spacecraft travelling through the depths of space. It’s like I am clinging onto random objects, holding on with everything I have to stop me being pulled into the vortex and destroyed. I am exhausted living next to this emptiness. Just exhausted. Sometimes I start to slip in, I feel myself becoming distorted and I stop seeing reality normally. I am emptiness itself, there is nothing of me. I feel hysterically like I am on top of the world and dying at the same time with ambivalent feelings pulling me in opposite directions.

A couple of times I have been so worn down by this that I am standing on the edge of a metaphorical cliff, so tired of living next to its uninhabitable windy edge that I want nothing more than to throw myself in. In reality I have been on the brink of suicide, about to jump for real, or swallow 4 packets of pills. But somehow I have hung on.

So this has left me knowing that of all the symptoms of BPD, I will never eliminate these two. I can only use mindfulness to learn to be with these feelings but no one knows, not really what I am being asked to live with.

[maddy harper]

its good to see you back posting on here again. I been worried about you.

[Kara.]

Carth, I can't read it all and I apologise for it. I want to come back to it because you have lively descriptions of states that are so difficult to describe in words. Sending you hugs and I hope that you keep hanging on, managing the different parts of yourself he best you can. I truly wish that that abysm could be made to be further and further away from you and that a sense of safety was your truth for most of the time.

[ellabel]

you share your thoughts so beautifully. Have you done much writing in your life? I am grateful that you are descriptive and it is validating. I relate to this intense emptiness so much. It just goes on year after year. And the constant micromanaging of my thoughts, feelings, words, etc. My personal mid life crisis is more about the agony of living like this for another 40 years.

I am currently in DBT and learning mindfulness. I will say it has saved me from some terrible jekll and hyde episodes. Thank you for being so honest. These kind of forums are new to me are a breath of fresh air.

We just have to remember to validate ourselves. As impossible as it can feel to do.

[alyn77]

Hi Carthraziel, I have just joined and yours is the first post I have read and i thank you for being so honest. Your life sounds pretty much like my own. In particular the mirroring of personalities - some days I can't bear busy places as it makes so much noise in my head. Also the bit about believing that you were unshakable is one I had as well. I am high ranking in the Royal Navy and my colleagues on my ship couldn't believe it when I had to leave due to my condition, as I was the calm one under stress and kept the team togetger. I am now diagnosed with BPD and it is such a relief to hear someone has had the same experiences. Thank you so much.   Alyn.

[Emma1980]

Carthraziel, thank you for writing this post, I have just been diagnosed with BPD and your post is almost like reading about my own life, especially the mirroring of other people's emotions, I always relied on my partner to make me happy. You sound very strong and I hope I can cope as well as you are doing. I wish you well.