BPDRecovery.com: Forums

Hi, I also only just discovered that there is such a thing as BPD and that I have it. My psychiatrist knew for 3 years, but it didn't occur to her to tell me this. All this time I thought I was just being treated for eating disorders and depression. Until I started having rage fits and hitting my boyfriend (only twice I think, and not hard, but still..), then I did my own research. My psychiatrist confirmed the diagnosis for me...
Reading some of you guys I feel like I'm not even BPD enough to deserve having a voice here. I have no childhood trauma and my life is not so screwed up just yet, although I feel it getting worse.. I'm just over-emotional, impulsive, excessive, I have hurt myself in all kinds of ways (2 times taking pills (one sort of suicide attempt, the other emotional blackmail), snorting pills, alcohol abuse, self harm, cutting out chunks of hair, trying to strangle myself, pushing people away, risky sex, bulimia and a little anorexia).
Finally I have met someone too wonderful to lose, and I'm afraid of messing up. I make huge horrible scenes for nothing, I even broke up with him for 10 minutes last week, and this week I'm accusing him of cheating on me just because he didnt call me and came back late on the day he went with his basketball team to play in another city.
I feel like the last few weeks and everything I read about BPD are part of a nightmare, too horrible to be true.
Are we like this forever? Do we get better?
Help me. I don't want to lose the man I love.

Hey hey redsocks

I guess you're part of the percentage of people who have no childhood trauma yet have bpd then
Anyway, welcome here.
Folks on this site tell me that we won't be like this forever. They say we can recover.
As for me, I was getting better. Then last weekend I had a meltdown where I lashed out at people. So I guess recovery is sometimes a back and forth thing.

Wow, redsocks you are not alone. My story is really not so different (well, in some ways it gets pretty complicated, but I might go into that more later)-I'm basically in your boat. I actually also self-diagnosed myself BPD, and though I had no psychiatrist confirm it, I am fairly confident I am, I just have never been to a psychiatrist. And I am engaged to be married to the man who I have loved for almost 10 years now, and the only person on earth who has an inkling of my condition, and still loves me and remains loyal, despite all the times I have hurt him. I am desperate to fix myself, if there is no cure, at least to find a way to manage this chaos I am trapped in, because I have been given a rare chance at a life I didn't even dream was possible, and I am not about to let myself screw it up.

And redsocks, you're not gonna screw it up either. You have a wonderful man, and that is a wonderful thing in your life. Don't lose sight of that or stop fighting for it. Sometimes I am so filled with shame over the horrible things I have said and done to my fiance, that I feel like I simply can't go on, that I have brought the world nothig but bad. But it is my fiance himself who reminds me I am precious to him and what we have is precious to him. If he finds it worth fighting for still, I have to keep working at it.

I will say something else- it was three years ago that I self-diagnosed myself BPD, and reading what I did at the time and feeling the way I did, I thought it was a death sentence. It wasn't curable, that I would be "crazy" my whole life and never have a normal life. Maybe you are feeling that right now. But we aren't crazy, even if some days we act like it. I have studied psychology in college since my discovery of BPD, and I understand it a bit better now. We have a handicap, something extra we hafta grapple with and overcome that most people don't. But it can be overcome, it can get better. I believe this even if I don't always see the results. I know it in my heart. BPD is only a part of who we are, not the sum total. Don't forget that, don't ever believe that BPD defines you. You are unique and have so much to offer and are challenged to make a life for yourself despite this. And you can, redsocks. Think about a wonderful moment with your man, and let yourself smile and cherish that memory, and promise yourself you'll make even better ones in the future.

@meremortal:
As yet I have no real experience of recovering from bpd (in fact the 'bad episodes' just seem to get worse. But I can pass some advice on recovering from bulimia: you know bulimia is basically binge eating and then - well - plain binging.. Recovery means not doing either of these anymore. I learned from my psy though that to stop binge eating first you have to stop binging. You have to learn to take the bad feeling without the 'relief' before you can get better. And also, even if you screw up here and there, it's only that: a screw up. The day after you can go back to being better.

I just had a meltdown today. And it was horrific. One of my worst I think. ANd over so little. It started off because my boyfriend wrote on his facebook status that swiss people are like sheep because they have no culture. Having spent a long time in switzerland, i took it personally, and started criticizin his argument as shallow and propaganda and finally comparing my boyfriend to a colour-blind dog - which he took as an insult. This started a fight because I am convinced he doesnt know how to take criticism (and does it happen to anyone else that you feel you cant even trust your convictions anymore?) and he said it was me being bpd and i said that was really low and blah blah all this somehow escalated into me doing some very bad things to myself which i'm even too ashamed to mention, and then physically fighting with him whe he tried to call my psy..Finally, like if it was only dream, I stopped feeling like that. And its really hard to make a bridge between now and then. It's hard-wrenching. And both my boyfriend and me are very sad...

@the islander
thank you, it was really nice to read ur message and feel optimism and camaraderie. I think I understand you. On my side I feel so guilty bringing the man I love into all this shit. When I have a bad episode, I find it reaally hard to believe that he can love me. I feel: what is there left to love? But at the same time, could we live ourselves having thrown away this opportunity to be with someone so wonderful? So struggle onwards we must :P hi-ho hi-ho

Redsocks,
I'll recommend you what others on this site have recommended me: look back to that past incident and see what you could / should have done instead. Use the 5 steps. Retrace where you went wrong and what you would have done, given the choice to reverse time.

And secondly, what can be done now to repair the current situation / damage?

The hardest thing to do is to love yourself. I've discovered I have to heal myself & love and respect myself before I can enter an enriched stable relationship with a man. You have just begun an intense healing process. I would recommend asking the people you love to join a DBT family support group. It will help your healing process & develop more empathy between you and your loved ones. Knowledge is power.