I was born in Kortrijk, Belgium and I've had quite a life so far. If you don't believe me, read my blog. I'm suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder, which means that each day is a struggle to survive. In order to develop Borderline, there are certain biological, social and psychological factors to be taken into account. This means that the combination of these three types of factors leads to the development of this personality disorder - and probably also some other mental diseases. However, it's also possible that you weren't born with it - the biological factor - but that you develop it later in life as a result of social and psychological factors, but most people with Borderline will show the combination of these three types of factors.
As a child, I already was pretty shy and had a low self-esteem. I didn't have many friends, but I was happy with the ones I had. At elementary school and at secondary school I wasn't one of the most popular girls - right then, it were only girls - nor one of the most unpopular ones, but I was one of the brightest students of my class. And as you may have read in an earlier post, that wasn't always appreciated by my peers. However, I was also quite naïve in the sense that I trusted people blindly (and I sometimes still do, however stupid that may be... as experience has taught me...). I loved talking to my teachers, because I looked up to them. I idolised some of them, and in quite a few cases I got really attached to them. This had as a consequence that it was hard to say goodbye to my teachers every time the school year came to an end, especially when I knew that I wouldn't see that teacher anymore in my classroom in the year(s) to come. This already happened when I was very young, so this could already have been a sign that one day I would develop Borderline, especially because, later on, at secondary school, I either idolised my teachers or I loathed them: black or white. Or as the DSM-IV describes it:
Criterion 2. a pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.
Not only did I have this kind of very intense relationships with my teachers, but also with nearly everybody around me, including my friends. And the older I got, the more problems I had with respect to relations with friends, because I felt unstable and not loved by anybody, and I was so afraid that I would lose the few people I had, so afraid that I clung myself to them. But that only worked all wrong. As a result, I nearly lost all my elementary and secondary school friends when the borderline symptoms were already quite well visible, because they thought I was a freak. One moment I loved one specific friend, the other moment I hated him/her and told them to leave me because I wasn't worth their friendship, only to call that same person a couple of hours later to ask them to please, please come back. Also, later in life, I was marked because of all the people that had abandonned me, so that every time a new person/friend comes in my life, I'm already afraid to lose them and that they will abandon me once, for some or other reason. The DSM formulates it like this:
Criterion 1. frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5.
Talking about self-mutilation and suicidal behaviour, I turn to the fifth criterion of the DSM:
Criterion 5. recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior.
If you're a regular visitor of this blog, you'll know a lot about this topic already. However, I've never really told how the cutting began, have I? I was 17 indeed, when I noticed that I really couldn't handle the pain I felt deep inside of me any longer. It overwhelmed me, time and time again. Also, I noticed that I could no longer think rationally and that my emotions and the emotional me overtook the rational thinking and the rational me. So I started banging my head against the wall. This helped, but only for a very short period of time. And also in class I had these tough moments, but there it wasn't possible to bang my head against the wall, obviously. So I used to trace lines on my hands with my fingernails. I tried to converse the pain deep inside of me into physical pain. I discovered very soon that a pencil worked a lot better than just fingernails. And then, one day, I saw these scissors in my sister's room... and I gave it a go, and discovered that it was quite a relief to cut with those, because it were not just red slashes anymore, but there actually appeared small drops of... blood... and that seemed to work to ease the pain deep inside of me. Finally, a way to handle that horrible pain deep inside of me. So it became a habit, a very bad habit indeed, but it worked well for me. That's how it all began, and only later on did I start cutting with glass, just to see more blood. Blood became the biggest obsession in my life. It wasn't just the pain, if only it were just the pain! You can hurt yourself in a much more humane way than by cutting yourself, for example by holding ice cubes in your hands. But it was all about the blood, to see and feel it run down on my arms and legs... I won't go into details here, dear reader, that would only freak you out and it's still not easy to write about it, because a part of that obsession still lives inside of me...
Approximately at the same time that I began cutting myself, I had a very good friend. At that moment, it felt as if she were the only one on this planet that really cared about me, for I had a boyfriend at that moment, but he treated me badly, without any respect, and it seemed that I was only one of his possessions. I was also under the impression that not one member of my family really cared about me, nor my regular friends or my classmates. She was the only person with whom I felt at ease. The only problem was that she fell in love with me, and until this very moment, I'm still confused when I think about her, especially because I know that she is now married with a Dutch guy, and she even has a child with that man, but I'm not allowed to contact her because "she hasn't gotten over me yet" (her words). It's just not fair, where did she get the right to create doubt in my heart, for up till today I'm still not 100% sure whether I prefer a guy or a girl as my future partner. Luckily, there is God and the church, and they help me to make the right decision, and day by day I'm getting more and more sure about the fact that I want to marry a guy, but still, she created doubt in my heart, and it's still painful to think about her and about the beautiful moments we shared together. If it hadn't been for her, I would probably never have considered a relationship with a girl. Although I also have to admit that, because of the boyfriends I've had and their abuse, I have a few traumas I have to deal with when it comes to sexuality and intimacy.
I notice that today I'm even more open on my blog than I've ever been. I hope you don't mind my openness, but let me add this: I'm not against gay people, not at all. I only know that in my family, I would never ever be accepted if I were to come home with a girl as my future partner. Somehow it's still a big taboo in my family. I've seen it happen with a cousin who declared that he's gay a couple of months ago. Furthermore, I've had a few boyfriends, and I know deep inside that I want to marry a man, not a woman. But somehow, I feel a lot safer when I'm with women, probably because of the things certain boyfriends have done to me. They've harmed me so badly... there are no words for that, and I really have to start working on that trauma. However, identity crises are fairly common in people with Borderline. Or as the DSM puts it:
Criterion 3. identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.
I can't look at myself in the mirror without thinking that I'm just not good enough. I don't like what I see - never liked it, to be honest. And I don't know if that's ever going to change. Also, when I look at my arms and legs and their scars, I feel ashamed and sad. I wish I could turn back the hands of time, but unfortunately that's not possible. So I guess I'll have to learn to deal with it.
The moments in which I hate myself are diminishing in number, but I can't see myself as a nice young lady, let alone as an attractive woman for a man. I have to work on that, I know, but my ex-boyfriends never told me that I was pretty. And in general, I didn't want to be pretty, because once, when I was still a teenager, I was kind of pretty, and all those disgusting boys and even men came to me because they wanted something from me that I didn't want to give them.
Until now, I've covered a few of the characteristics people with Borderline have, but there is more. As you may know, people with Borderline have endless troubles with their emotions and may be unceasingly unstable because of unexpected - and unwanted! - mood swings and the emotions that go hand in hand with these switches.
Criterion 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).
The strange thing is that an emotion can change from one moment to the other, while I don't have an immediate cause that can declare that change. There'll surely be one, but at that moment in time, I just can't see it. Another problem is that every emotion that I feel - be it anger, anxiety, grief or... - comes in much more stronger, let's say, five- to ten-fold, in comparison with people without Borderline. In my personal case, the most painful moments are those filled with grief. Other people have this with anger, but that doesn't occur very often anymore in my life, so the following criterion is not really valid for me anymore:
Criterion 8. inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights).
However, the next criterion tells us something about a feeling of emptiness:
Criterion 7. chronic feelings of emptiness.
Have you ever felt all alone, even among a group of people? Have you ever felt alone when you were having a conversation with a friend? Have you ever felt emptiness in your heart, as if there was nothing there? A very heavy feeling, heavy as lead, that tears your soul apart? That's what happens so often. Even when I'm supposed to enjoy my time together with friends or family, I feel that empty... It's chronic in the sense that it never goes away. It just feels as if I'm missing out on something in my life, there is a place in my heart, and nobody or nothing has occupied that place. No, I'm lying, because God has actually taken that place for a big part, but there is still a lot of emptiness left there, unfortunately... And so often, I feel the urge to compensate this terrible feeling of emptiness. Then I start buying things, particularly online (read about this kind of behaviour in an earlier post).
Criterion 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 Criterion 5.
The behaviour mentioned here has never really been an issue in my life. Ok, I've spent too much than I could actually afford every now and then, and yes, I've had trouble with what I call "emotional eating", but I've never gambled, never used alcohol or drugs, never had reckless actions. Therefore I have to praise the Lord, because with my fellow Borderline patients I've seen this kind of behaviour all too often.
This tour to my life as it is nowadays is almost coming to an end. Let me discuss one more criterion, as described in the DSM-IV. I can remember that I once wrote a post about hearing voices. But there is more when it comes to Borderline, and maybe it's an idea to write about this topic in a separate post. Otherwise, this post will be really too long.
Criterion 9. transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms.
In one of the coming posts, I promise I will tell you all about my paranoid feelings and perhaps even something about dissociation. The paranoia is all about being heard and seen by cameras and microphones everywhere, all the time. But I won't bother you with the details now, I'll save that for another post.
This post was originally inspired by a video my dear friend Tissy sent me. You can watch the video here:
As for me, I can say that yes, I still have this Borderline Personality Disorder, but I think that I'm also a recovering borderliner in the sense that I haven't cut myself in over 4 years' time, I can control my emotions every now and then, for I've learnt to talk about them with the therapists and nurses around me. It's still a struggle, however, especially when it comes to accepting myself the way I am. This weekend, a visiting pastor - pastor Ben Dekker, see his website - talked to me when I went to the altar, and without knowing me, he spoke to me about acceptation of the self. I was kind of shocked because, how could he know, but he told me that, if I radically accepted Jesus and God in my life, that I'd be able to accept myself. I'd feel a lot better than I'm feeling right now. He told me that, if I started loving myself as God loves me, and if I radically chose for God and dedicated my life to Him, I would be able to let go all the negative feelings. He also prayed for me, and told me to speak up to the devil were I to experience his presence in whichever way.
In fact, now it's up to me. Do I choose to go on on the path of selfdestruction, selfhate and selfloathing, or do I start from scratch, giving myself the opportunity to love myself more than I've ever done before? Ben Dekker's first sermon was all about this: with God, you can always start all over again, because he gives you the opportunity to do so. Just go to Him, entrust Him with your sorrow and ask Him to start all over again. And because He loves you so much, because you are His child, He'll give you that opportunity, time and time again.
So now there is this difficult task to walk that path, the right path, the path of love instead of hate, the path of construction instead of destruction, the path of building things up instead of breaking things down. Will you help me to stay on that path?
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