TW: Mental health and BPD discussions.
I am often shocked and saddened by the misconceptions of BPD that circle the internet, although I will admit sometimes, I’m amused. When I was first diagnosed and going through recovery, I thought ‘YouTube’ would be a great resource to find advice and help from people who’d been through it and lived to tell their tale. Don’t get me wrong, when I watched videos created by people with BPD, I felt empowered and supported, there was a lot of useful information, but most importantly hope. However, when I was looking at symptoms and common behaviours explored by supposed ‘experts’,there was a lot of damaging and hurtful content.
One video that really sticks in my mind was from a channel dedicated to supposedly ‘educating’ people on BPD, who only spread hate and misinformation. There were countless videos on how people with BPD infected other’s minds and gave them the same disorder. There were some videos which othered people with BPD and called them ‘borderlines’, which made me feel subhuman. Now I understand having a diagnosis helps you to understand yourself and gives you the power to overcome adversity (the diagnosis was a crucial puzzle piece for me). But I’ll be honest, you should always try to separate yourself from the disorder and say, ‘I have BPD’ rather than ‘I am BPD’, and that is something you learn in therapy. Now it’s entirely up to you how you choose to talk about your disorder, but in my opinion if you separate yourself from your BPD, you can see and subconsciously recognise that you are not your disorder and can control what you do and define who you are.
So, after laughing at the witch hunt for BPD on ‘YouTube’, I thought I would devise a list of 5 things people with BPD want you to know.
1. I am not my disorder
It really annoys me when people have the attitude ‘I am BPD,so you have to deal with my behaviour’. This is not the case at all. You have the power to control your responses and you don’t have to act in a tyrannical and emotionally charged way. Just because you have BPD, it doesn’t make you an irritated person, or an angry person, or a jealous person. We react to things in such an emotionally charged way, because let’s face it, we know no better. But if you separate yourself from the disorder, you see who you really are and learn to define yourself. If you don’t want to be any of your behaviours, you don’t have to be.
2. I come from a good place
Another misconception suggests people with BPD actively want to hurt others and they’re horrible people and you shouldn’t be friends with them or date them, blah blah blah. Wrong, wrong and wrong! People with BPD do not come from a place of malice. Yes, we may have selfish tendencies, but we have these to protect ourselves from pain and hurt. And, if we hurt people, we feel awful, we really beat ourselves up over the hurt we cause others. When I get upset and shout and cry, I don’t do it to hurt others, I do it to be heard so I won’t end up getting hurt, it’s a defence mechanism rather than an attack.
Although I don’t come from a bad place, I do recognise that my behaviours are not always acceptable, and I know to have successful relationships I need to change them. But if you find yourself in a situation where your loved one has experienced ‘BPD mode’ as I like to call it, remember that they did not intentionally wish to hurt you. Be honest with them about how you feel and what was unacceptable about their behaviour, because we really want to learn how to control our unsavoury reactions.
3. I can get better
Now a lot of people believe that if you have BPD, you are going to be an emotional mess for the rest of your life. I’m here to tell you that’s completely wrong. People with BPD learn their behaviours and reactions from stimuli that they faced growing up. If you were abandoned as a child and felt your parents were emotionally unavailable, then we believe everyone will abandon us. We live in traumatic memories, and we react as though the worst possible outcome is going to happen.
But, when we go through recovery and we see that our reactions are not based on facts, but based on our perceived emotions and memories, we are given the power to understand that we are in control, we have choices, and we can get better. Don’t get me wrong, recovery is not easy because you’re trying to reprogram your brain after creating life-long habits.But if you put in the work, stay disciplined and consciously try to react healthier and avoid hurting people, I promise you can do it.
4. I love
When I was first researching BPD, I was met by articles telling me that I couldn’t love, I didn’t know what love wasand I would never be able to have a successful relationship.This myth hurt me the most. Whilst in recovery, I was also going through the worst break up of my life, which ended for so many complicated and confusing reasons, but one thing I am sure of is that it ended because I allowed BPD to get the better of me.
When you have BPD, you may have a favourite person (FP). An FP is someone that you think can fix you and gives you the validation that you crave and the love you didn’t experience in other parts of your life. Having an FP is like having an extension of yourself. I’ll be honest I’ve had a few in my life and they can range from family members, to best friends, to lovers. The misconception about FPs is that they are an unhealthy attachment who we don’t love, we just use. Reading this broke my heart and I convinced myself that I didn’t love my ex-boyfriend and I would never be capable of loving, I was just attached to people.
However, when I started to think hard about the relationship, I realised that the way I acted was out of love. I didn’t want him to leave me and ‘abandon’ me because I loved him, and I never wanted to lose those feelings. What I have realised, and what I want to share with you today, is that sometimes we love in unhealthy ways, but we do love. We face emotions harder and more intensely than others so I can tell you I love HARD, but I know the way I show my emotions is unhealthy and this can come across as an unhealthy attachment.Sometimes we allow the pain we fear to dictate our reactions and we don’t understand the concept of space and time apart or healthy communication. But I have good news, this can be learnt. Now I understand where I went wrong, and I know now how to have a healthy relationship with others.
5. I’m still going to have bad days
Don’t panic! This is not a downer. Recovery is a long and hard process, but there does come a time where you know that you’re out of recovery. It is the most amazing feeling in the world when you realise you’ve overcome toxic behaviours in yourself and now, you’re able to react in healthy ways. But sometimes there may be things that we were unable to prepare for in recovery. Sometimes the stress gets too much, and we fall again. Unlearning behaviours is difficult but remembering in times of severe stress and trauma to keep a level head is hard for anyone, let alone someone with BPD whose emotions are heightened 24/7. When this happens, please don’t beat yourself up. Remember you are human and there’s no such thing as perfect. I think it’s incredibly damaging to tell those with BPD that after all the therapy and medicine, they’ll be completely okay, because that’s not true. You don’t expect anyone to be completely okay throughout life. When this happens, allow yourself to feel, remember to communicate with loved ones about what’s going on and how you feel, take time out if you feel as though your reactions could hurt others, but most importantly remember you are strong enough to pick yourself back up again.
Well loves, there you have it the myths of BPD have been busted. The most important thing I want you to take away from this, is people with BPD need to relearn to get better. Hold yourself accountable when you’re in the wrong and accept responsibility when you have hurt someone. Please remember that nothing holds you back and everything can be overcome, you get to decide who you are. I hope this helps. Stay tuned for more segments of ‘Over the Borderline’ in future, if you want to see anything specific in future articles or if you’d like to share your story, please get in touch with us.
---- Tasha Hardaker, President
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