My Black and White World
Okay…so I don’t literally SEE things in black and white. But in my mind I do. Something is either good or its bad. Simple as that. This is what it’s like to live with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).
“Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a serious mental disorder marked by a pattern of ongoing instability in moods, behavior, self-image, and functioning. These experiences often result in impulsive actions and unstable relationships. A person with BPD may experience intense episodes of anger, depression, and anxiety that may last from only a few hours to days.” [https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/borderline-personality-disorder/index.shtml]
Some people might look at that description and think “Well who doesn’t feel like that sometimes?”. BPD is so much more than just sometimes feeling a little bit uncertain about things, or feeling a bit moody, or being annoyed at someone because you’ve been arguing.
Very often in mental health services professionals will ask you to rate you mood on a scale of 1–10, 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest. On a good day someone might say an 8 or 9. On a bad day it might only be a 3. People’s moods vary daily/hourly depending on event and hormones and neurotransmitters, its just the way our biology works. But with BPD its not as simple as being a 3 or an 8. In a good moment it could be 145 where you could feel like you’re on top of the world and everything is perfect and shiny and the way it should be and nothing can be better. But then in a bad moment it could be -89 where nothing is right and you’re at rock bottom and wanting to hurt yourself or die. My mood can go from being right up at 145 down to -89 within a matter of 5 minutes, maybe not even that. You regularly get told ‘everyone has mood swings’ but BPD mood changes are so much more than just regular mood swings, they’re so much more intense and it’s not something you can brush off when it happens.
Here’s how I like to describe it:
Imagine you’re lying on a beach. The waves are coming up gently. Imagine the waves are your ‘bad or down mood’. So every so often they’ll come up, sometimes they’ll be worse/stronger than others, and sometimes they’ll take longer to leave or come back. But they’re there, coming and going, but never really causing any serious damage.
Now for someone with BPD these aren’t just gentle waves. Now imagine that all of a sudden all the water recedes back out into the ocean, and then all of a sudden a tsunami wave is hurtling towards you and there’s no way you can out run it. In a matter of minutes the wave has reached you and has totally swept you off your feet and you’re totally off balance and have no control of any of the situation. Then, sometimes as quickly as its come, its gone again. But the damage its left behind hasn’t been taken back with it. In trying to catch your balance and regain some control you’ve self harmed or been reckless or impulsive. You can’t just leave what’s been left behind, but often you don’t have time to deal with it before the next one hits.
That’s what it feels like when you have BPD. It’s never just ‘there’. It’s completely and totally overwhelming. And it happens over and over and over again, lasting hours or days. Of course this isn’t the only symptom of BPD, but I think it’s definitely the one that is most noticeable to other people.
Reckless and impulsive behaviour is so easy to fall into. I’ve resorted to a lot of really bad coping strategies, self harming, reckless spending, drinking excessive amounts of alcohol-just to name a few. Impulsiveness is a major problem with BPD- the majority of my self harming and suicide attempts were totally impulsive and were never planned. In that moment its the only thing you can think of and you don’t care about the consequences. All you can think about is making the thoughts and feelings stop, no matter what it takes.
A lot of people think that behaviours like this are purely ‘attention seeking’ or are being done in order to manipulate people. But I never ever did anything in order to purposely manipulate people or to get attention- at the time its genuinely what I thought helped me, although in hindsight it very rarely did. Impulsiveness can be really hard to control, and its something that I’m only now getting the hang of controlling. It’s kind of having to question your true intentions every time you do something- even if it’s not impulsive I still do it just to keep in the habit of taking a step back and observing things properly.
Mentioning behaviours being used as manipulation leads me nicely into my next point- relationships.
1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5.
2. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.
[DSM-IV diagnostic criteria based on relationships]
My biggest fear (as is a lot of people’s if they suffer from BPD) is being abandoned. This means that I’m constantly analysing every single relationship, looking for signs people are going to leave me or that they no longer like me etc which can lead to imagined abandonment when you start over-analysing things. I constantly need reassurance that people aren’t just going to leave me. I get incredibly attached to people faster than you can imagine, and not even just slightly attached- it’s so intense that it can actually be really hard for me to be away from the person. But at the same time I’m also super bad for pushing people away, purely because it’s easier than them leaving me, because to someone with BPD that’s ultimately what’s always going to happen.
Trusting anyone seems impossible sometimes. My current battle is trying to open up to people and tell them that I’m not feeling 100% right now but in the back of my mind all I can hear is “Don’t tell them anything because they’ll leave you because everyone does”. I don’t even have to word to explain how distressing such intense attachments are- its a conversation me and my mental health mentor have been having every week at the minute as she’s desperately trying to convince me that not everyone is going to abandon me. I would love it if I could believe her, but right now I just can’t- and it’s absolutely nothing personal towards anyone it’s just my way of protecting myself.
So you’re probably thinking that I haven’t mentioned manipulation yet (absolutely hate that word because of the negative connotations with it- I’m in no way saying that it is a bad thing when I use that word, it’s just the only way to describe it). But people with BPD are often described as being manipulative- I know I have plenty of times, even by professionals. But, I have never ever ever gone out and done something with the intention of manipulating people. I’ll hold my hands up and say I have manipulated people but its never been intentional or to be spiteful- it’s just a defence mechanism that I’ve learned because in my head it means that people are less likely to leave me. It used to (and still does) really hurt me when people say that I’m manipulating them purposely because I genuinely don’t realised that I’m doing it, I’m not that kind of person, its a totally subconscious behaviour. Everyone has defence mechanisms that affect them without realising, and for me (and many others) that’s one of mine. If there’s only one thing that anyone takes from this post its this: PLEASE don’t ever say that people with BPD are being purposely manipulative- they’re not.
‘Splitting’ a term that’s used a lot in terms of BPD- this is where the black and white comes into things. With BPD everything is seen as one thing or another, it’s either black or white, good or bad etc- there’s very rarely an in between or shades of grey. You either love someone or hate them- and that can change within a matter of minutes. You’re either on top of the world or at rock bottom. Its exhausting because it goes from one extreme to the other, often without any warning.
I could honestly write a book on BPD and how it affects me, but I’m very conscious of how long this post already is. I feel like I’ve only really scratched the surface with things here, so I may potentially do posts on individual parts in the future. But I’ll put some useful links here for anyone who wants to know more!
