This And That

I wonder sometimes what people's impression is of me especially those that come from a search engine or what have you and read only one post before taking off. The comment section gives me a pretty good idea sometimes as people send forth advice for that one small segment of my life and my battle. Normally the suggestions are pretty good and may actually help if that was the only situation but of course it is not.

When I started this blog some seven months ago part of the intention was to give a realistic view of what it is like living with a multitude of mental disorders and to hopefully show the complexity of the situation. I am not someone with major depressive disorder or borderline personality disorder or generalized anxiety disorder or even post traumatic stress disorder but my illness is a combination of all four. On their own each disorder has a somewhat standard treatment plan but when they are combined the answers become a lot more hidden. The depression aspect is complicated by the borderline diagnosis for at least in my doctors opinion stands in the way of any sort of talk therapy as I may be too busy looking for a personal attack then concentrating on the actual work needed to be done. The borderline diagnosis on its own is difficult enough but again it is shifted into a difficult monster by the post traumatic stress disorder as the negative self image can go through archives of old traumas to really put me into a hole that is difficult to get out of which then adds to a depression level that borderlines on danger. The generalized anxiety disorder is fueled by the borderline and post traumatic demons as it keeps me on my toes waiting for the next onslaught to hit. Spend all of your time waiting for something bad to happen and guess what something bad will happen.

Each disorder has its own stigma and the majority of them are completely off base. I would imagine when someone hears my diagnosis they can not decide which box to put me in and that is the point of this blog. Yep I have four concurrent mental disorders and they play a huge role in my life but if you can take the time to see past all of the fancy words and see me for who I am then you might be pleasantly surprised with what you find. For whatever the reason this situation has been put on me so I do what I do best which is fight and the decision to make this a public affair in the hopes that people will stop looking at the disorders and start to look at the human being behind the labels battling to get their life back on track. Take care.

Mental Health Journey

With my blog being featured over at The Experience Project I think this is a good time to reintroduce myself. Many of the major areas of my life have been detailed to a certain degree throughout the brief history of this blog but I will use this post as a way to summarize my journey so far.

I have been dealing with depression for as long as I can remember. My family history has mental illness on both sides going back for generations. Chances are I was depressed the day I came out of the womb and have been unable to get rid of this silent monster since.

Self harm started when I was seven or eight with the intention of punishing myself so I would be a "good" child and maybe people in my life would finally leave me alone. Needless to say this did not work. When I was twelve or so I tried to end my life and somewhere in the process I realized that as the blood left my body a sort of cleansing occurred which seemed to make me feel better. What I did not realize is this new monster would stick around for the next two decades.

To be honest I have no idea why I am still alive and there are pieces of my past that are a complete blur. Sometime in my mid twenties I seemed to have found the ambition to get my life back on track. I enrolled in college in Social Service Worker program with the intent of not only figuring out my own mind but also to be in a position to help those in need. The material of the course came very easy to me and I seemed to be flying through the program. In the last semester of college my father passed away and I did what I have always done which is completely ignore the emotional turmoil by throwing myself into another aspect of my life.

I graduated from college in May near the top of the class, in June I started to work at a group home for troubled teens and in July I married my long term girlfriend. For a while I thought my life was finally on track and everything seemed to be perfect. About a year and a half after we were married we were blessed with a beautiful baby boy.

Then things started to go wrong. I was constantly sick and had a lot of problems getting to sleep at night then when I did get to sleep the nightmares made Freddy Kruger look like Big Bird. When my son was about a year and a half I booked an appointment with my family doctor for at this point I knew I was in trouble and was very quickly losing control over all aspects of my life. After a brief meeting with the doctor I admitted that on the way there I was tempted to pull in front of every eighteen wheeler that passed on the opposite side of the road and the suicidal ideations were becoming a normal part of my life. The doctor immediately pulled me off of work, prescribed an antidepressant and made a referral to a mental health doctor. I honestly thought at this point that the med would kick in and I would be back to work in a matter of months but that was not the case.

I met with the mental health doctor a couple of months later and was diagnosed with severe Major Depression Disorder with psychotic features. He switched my medication and so began the experimentation of mental drugs that I have been on over the last few years. A couple of months later Paxil was tried and it effected me in a negative and dangerous way. Within a week of being on this med my self harm behavior went through the roof and it was impossible to tell which mood state I would be in from one moment to the next. With my wife basically threatening to leave if I did not enter a hospital setting plus the push from the doctor I agreed to be admitted into the hospital.

For the next two months I went through talk therapy numerous times per week, a variety of medication was tried and I went through five sessions of ECT. ECT is Electro Convulsive Therapy or what use to be known as shock therapy. After the fifth session it was stopped as I was taking a very long time for me to regain consciousness plus there did not appear to be any real positive changes. At the end of the two months I convinced a floater doctor that I was perfectly healthy and he signed my release papers which pissed off both my doctor and my wife.

A few months after the hospitalization all of the negative behavior had reappeared and the medication that I left the hospital on was beginning to lose its effectiveness. My wife took our child and left as my behavior was to unpredictable. My now ex wife did not make this decision hastily and in a lot of ways I basically pushed her out the door (thats another post).

I went through a number of mental health "professionals" in this period with the first one being arranged by the therapist in the hospital. This is going to sound terrible but it is the way it was and is, I admitted in the third appointment that during a rough period I resorted to self harm to get through the situation. Once I told the therapist this she basically ended the session as she felt I was not stable enough to treat. The next few therapists would reach the same conclusion and stopped treating me.

Fast forward a couple of years and another bad self harm session that through the doctors eyes looked like I tried to take my life again. So back on the psych ward I went but this time it was located in the city's main hospital that did not have a full time therapist on duty because of budget cuts and it makes too much sense. Some time during this admission I decided to tell my mental health doctor absolutely everything that I have been though during the course of my life. The first version was basically just the facts with little to no detail and due to his positive reaction stating he learned more about me in those few pages then he had in the two and a half years prior. I wrote out the second edition which gave details to the facts but still not disclosing everything. Again the doctor encouraged me to keep writing so I started the final version. This last version was pretty intense to say the least and an example would be I talked about my grandfather which is one of the best relationships in my life and a couple of pages took hours to write for every single detail I tried to include in the section. Each day I would submit a new section to my doctor who would read it carefully then gave his take on it. When I finally finished this last book on my life he advised me to give it to every mental health professional that was trying to help me so they would be able to treat me more effectively.

So I figured that no one knew my brain like I do I decided to create a treatment plan that would lead to recovery. I wrote out all of my issues and what would be the best way of treating them. I handed the paper over to my doctor who completely agreed about my plan but then stated that this city's mental health system would be unable to provide the specialized help that I needed. Another part of the treatment plan was to list out the diagnosis that I felt fit me and to this day I wonder if this was a mistake for everything was about to change.

The diagnosis that I listed were Severe Major Depressive Disorder with Psychotic features which had already been diagnosed a couple of years earlier. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which was rather obvious if you look at the amount of abuse I have been through plus the flashbacks and nightmares. Generalized Anxiety disorder which tends to go with PTSD. The last diagnosis I listed was Borderline Personality Disorder and the second my doctor saw it his face lit up like a light bulb and declared it a perfect fit.

Due to the hospital not being able to provide the type of treatment that I needed I decided I would be better off back at home and seeking more specialized help in the community which my doctor agreed to. After a month of trying to contact every therapist around plus using a variety of mental health agencies for assistance I returned to my doctors office very frustrated. I told him about my problems finding help and he replied "Your too Borderline for treatment to be effective". Over the next couple of months he would add "Your going to have good periods, then your going to have bad periods which will cause you to crash and a hospitalization will be needed to stabilize you and then the cycle will repeat". Basically the goal is not to "cure my problems" but to avoid the hospital as long as possible. In my doctors eyes I am untreatable.

Do I believe the "untreatable" label? It really depends on the day. Over the last six months I have worked through various aspects of my life and I do see a light at the end of the tunnel but at the same time there are times when all of the movement I make seems to be backwards.

This blog was created so I would have a place to empty out my brain instead of trying to swallow the emotions/turmoil, a place where I can write everything down so I could analyze and try to correct any faulty thinking patterns. This blog is my therapy and for whatever the reason a lot of people seem to relate to it so at the very least I know the last three years has not been a complete failure.

Sorry for all the jumping around and like I mentioned earlier most of the above has been broken down in other posts that I have written. Any comments or questions do not hesitate to ask and I wish you all the best in your own journey. Take care

Trust

I have a massive issue when it comes to trust which is a major hurdle that I need to overcome if I ever want a clear shot at recovery. The mere thought of putting my well being into the hands of others sends shivers down my spine. This is something that did not appear when my breakdown occurred but probably started sometime in early childhood and is a main factor in the development of what later became Borderline Personality Disorder.

Right off the bat the first people you are suppose to trust is your parents as they are responsible for damn near everything right off the bat but when certain circumstances happen this is put into jeopardy creating a sort of movement that is going to take a long time to get past. I could never figure out why the people who were suppose to love me and keep me safe would repeatedly put me into situations that caused me harm. My father who could go from fun loving dad to pissed off at the world in a heartbeat created an enviroment that was a long way from being safe for a child. I never knew what mood he was going to be in so it kept my anxiety level sky high and helped mold my BPD false self in order to eliminate as many factors as possible that would set him off. You can not trust someone you fear.

Both of my parents like many around the world worked full time so my primary care giver was someone outside of the home. It was my parents responsibility to make sure that all of the proper steps were taken in order to ensure my safety and well being needless to say this did not happen. I went through a number of different sitters and I would imagine some were wonderful people but the others should have picked a different occupation. Again my view of trust was distorted for how can I trust someone who is suppose to ensure my wellbeing but continues to cause harm on a way to regular basis. Too many days were spent wondering if I was going to get my ass beat at home or at the sitters or both.

Depending on the year teachers were the closest thing I had to a responsible adult in my life but like everything else there were exceptions to the rule. Finally gathered the nerve to tell the teacher about the abuse I was taking outside of school to only be told if I was a better behaved child it would never happen. Basically the same situation repeated a year later and I learned a lesson that I would hang on to for years to come "The only person who I can trust with my wellbeing and safety is me for no one else cares what happens".

Doctors are a difficult group of people to trust as a whole. The first appointment they basically promise the world in terms of recovery then over the next period of time repeatedly fail to come through. I would imagine part of this is my expectations are off base but it seems every time I try to combat these negative thoughts with logic the only thing that comes to mind is examples from the past which are far from positive..

Therapists and I do not have the best relationships. In a therapy setting you need to be completely open in order for the best possible result but I have found out the hard way that there is something known as too much information. After my first psych stay I was set up with a therapist who has a wonderful reputation of helping those with historical abuse issues. Everything was going well for the first couple of visits until I made a mistake in the third. She asked the typical question on any progress or setbacks since the last appointment and I admitted that I hit a rough patch where I turned to self harm. Almost instantaneously this therapist decided that I was not in a stable enough place mentally to go through therapy and that was the last time I ever saw her. She was followed by two more therapists who basically came to the same conclusion after my self harm issues came out into the open. Since then I have tried to contact a dozen more therapists but once I mention that I do have the Borderline Personality Disorder all communication is cut off and this is before any of them actually took the time to meet me in person to judge for themselves how well I may respond to treatment. I have come to the conclusion in order for me to obtain treatment in a therapeutic setting in this community I am going to have to fail to mention that I am BPD and I have a lengthy self harm history. Not sure how I am going to be able to be open with someone when I believe I need to lie from the onset in order to get proper care.

Nurses. Well if you have read yesterdays post you will have a fair idea of where the relationship stands with that specific group of people. This area tends to be more separated then others as I try to figure out pretty quickly early on which are in it for the money and which are in there to help. My communication with the two groups is totally different and it has to do with trust. Very difficult to trust someone that does not look at you as a person but what is written down in a file and on paper I past the crazy line a long time ago plus that damn word untreatable is probably in capital letters.

I do try to give everyone I meet a chance to show me what kind of person they are in and more then once my original assumption was proven wrong. The problem is when the little warning flags start to appear and with the way my brain works situations from the past are quickly linked which ends up putting up the walls to keep me safe. Like I said earlier this is an area I am going to have to figure out how to get around but I am basically clueless on how to do so. Take care.

Sorting Out The Mess

Just came back from my monthly appointment with the mental doc. As mentioned earlier and rather obvious from the post earlier today it tends to get under my skin. This time he had a medical student with him so I knew right off the bat that he was wearing the good doctor face where he at least had to appear somewhat concerned of my well being. Alright on with the highlights:

- Little discussion about therapy and he actually admitted that some therapists do not feel comfortable treating Borderline clients. I said that every therapist I have encountered or have asked for help in this city of ours meets that criteria. I then said when people entered this field it is to help those in need and not to pick and choose who is worthy of treatment. The doctor again tried to bring up the difficulty of BPD clients which I responded that yes I would take some time to treat but if a therapist is going to determine who they treat by the difficulty of the case they need to find a different line of work. He was not too trilled by this comment and immediately switched the topic.

- The doc asked if I was cutting and I said no then later on he asked if I was burning and I responded with a dirty look and then he asked later on how often I was cutting and he received another dirty look. Normally he never asks so it is a little bit weird him asking repeatedly and especially about different methods but I have a feeling this was more for the students benefits.

- The doc then said that I use to counsel people before and because of this I am basically an expert on Borderline Personality Disorder. Now I have no idea where this is coming from and I can not remember having a child in my care with the BPD diagnosis nor do I remember ever taking it in school. Weird statement that I chose to ignore.

- Then treatment or the lack of it became a topic of conversation. I said they only thing that has happened in the last three years is different experimentation of meds and the first response to every crisis has been to increase the dosage. Therapy or the lack of it was brought back out into the open to which I replied I had three therapists who stopped seeing me once I made the mistake of admitting to a self harm problem which in their eyes made me seem unstable for therapy. I brought up that someone I know who is a patient of his is seeing someone who uses DBT as part of the treatment which he completely played dumb on (or maybe he was not playing). He said a number of people who work in the hospital (his office is in a mental hospital) have taken the training for DBT but he does not know of anyone who actually uses it. Have an odd feeling he thinks I am making up this therapist with DBT training so I need to get the name by the next meeting.

- Suicidal ideation came up like it always does and I like usual admit to constant thoughts about suicide which then is followed by asking if I had any specific plans which I do not. Like always I replied my child is the reason that keeps me on this side of the playing field and then he asked if I decided if it was time to go would I take my child with me. Now he has never asked this before and I quickly denied this as being an even remote possibility but of all the questions asked today this one is going to stick with me for awhile. Everything that I do in terms of recovery is to get to a better place in order to be the best parent possible and this has been my focus since day one. I understand why he did ask but this question caught me completely off guard.

Anyway that was the majority of the appointment and I do apologize for the whirlwind matter in which I tried to express it but at the moment it is difficult to tell which way is up. Oh the doctors amazing treatment suggestion was the same as always I need to get out of the house more and once all of my dental work is finally complete "we" are going to retry Nardil or another MAOI antidepressant. Thanks doc see you in a month. Take care.

Self Destructive

There have been moments in my life after I had hit the wall that leave me wondering why I did not steer to the left or the right instead of stomping the gas petal headed straight toward that cement wall. Of all the complaining I tend to do against doctors, nurses, therapists and other mental health professionals the person most responsible for my recovery is me the problem some days is I should be the last person trusted with this responsibility.

My brain does weird things that invite chaos into my life and when days are going good with the sun way up in the air I find a way to invite a storm into the picture. Strange thoughts such as remembering a fond childhood memory and instead of basking in the warmth my brain switches over to memories I have spent the last few decades trying to forget. Stupid inner voice will take a wonderful memory then provide a running commentary which will set off a flashback that will have me reeling for example: My father took my sister and I sledding which is one of my favorite memories from when I was a child and I remember the laughter and the joy we all shared for those few hours but that voice will pop up "You sure had a great time with your dad that day do you remember a few days after when your mother stepped in to make sure that he did not kill you for forgetting to put the milk away?" so now I have gone from a nice fuzzy state to a place I really have spent to much time in.

I spend to much time in my head which is something that I have been trying to work on but have not had too much luck. I know the more I focus on the negative the harder my battle is going to be but when your mentally unwell it seems every single aspect of your life goes back to it in some way. When the doctor says to not think of my illness or any other negative part of my life he might as well say go sit in a corner for ten minutes and not think about Polar Bears.

There is part of me that prefers chaos to what can be considered normal probably due to the fact my normal is chaos. This is where I have spent the most time and I know what to do to get through it for the most part. If I woke up tomorrow and my world was absolutely perfect with no negative thoughts or behaviors running through my head chances are it would drive me crazy for I would have no idea what to do.

Now when I see that cement wall coming up in the distance there is part of me that jumps into action coming up with all sorts of ways to avoid the approaching disaster but the self destructive side is a bit curious on how much it is going to hurt and if I am going to be able to walk away afterwards. Yep another area that needs to be fixed. Take care.

BPD Series Seven

Throughout the last few weeks I have been reintroducing old posts to bring more attention to Borderline Personality Disorder as May is declared the awareness month for this difficult disorder. This is going to be the last post of this series. I will tackle various aspects of Borderline Personality here and there on this blog as it still remains a major part of my life and my illness but I want to get back to writing for the moment and the difficulties that may be effecting me at the time. Anyway this post has to deal with the critical component when it comes to recovery from BPD which is the persons choice of wanting to embrace the illness and fighting to overcome it. I hope this series and the blog has done some justice for BPD and the five percent of the population who suffers from it.

It Is Not Me It Is You

All sorts of odd thoughts have gone through my brain during the course of my life. For the longest time I could not figure out why people did what they did and how come they were unable to see the situation the way that I did. Turns out the problem was me.

A high percentage of people who meet the criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder or another somewhat similar diagnosis will never be diagnosed. The simple reason is they do not believe anything is wrong with the way they think or their perception on life is faulty and the problems that they encounter are due to other peoples actions and not their own. It is not me it is you.

Over the course of this blog I have received emails were people can not believe that I am able to keep moving with the mental illness luggage that I carry. The only reasons I have is (A) If I don't fight the illness will win and this is not a battle that you lose and walk away from (B) This has been my life for so long that it has become normal to me. Borderline, PTSD and Anxiety took off basically when I learned how to walk they just have grown stronger over the years as for the depression it is a genetic birthright in my family for it goes back generation after generation. If I woke up tomorrow and I was a 100% I would not know what to do and it would probably send me over the sanity edge.

This is the problem with BPD and other personality disorders as this is not a problem that started a few months ago but a situation that was created decades ago. BPD thinking: How can something that I am doing be wrong when I have been doing the same thing for the last thirty years. The way I think never changed the only element that caused problems were the people around me so it is not me it is you. If you did what I thought (and expected) you were going to do then there would not be a problem. Your the reason why my life is going the way it is so you need to go and my life will go back to normal. Your telling me I have all sorts of problems is a way of you trying to feel better about yourself by bringing me down. Thirty years with very few problems and every time it was someone else's doing so if something was wrong with me it would have shown up a long time ago. It is not me it is you.

Most people would think that the BPD person would see the train wrecks in their past and it would be just a matter of simple arithmetic to piece it all together but that is not how the BPD brain works. Once you are able to justify a situation then that event is basically removed from memory and all that remains is the justification. When I accepted that I was ill and really started to look at past events in my life is when I realized it is not you it is me. Take care.

Borderline Personality Awareness Campaign

Well this month is officially over halfway done so lets recap the campaign so far.

The Official Declaration

1. BPD SERIES ONE - Borderline Personality DSM Criteria. All of the official qualifications needed to get this lovely disorder using examples from my own life.

2. BPD SERIES TWO - Highs and lows of Borderline Personality Disorder. The goal was to show how one person can have two completely different views on the same subject with a shift of perspective.

3. BPD SERIES THREE - A crash course on manipulation and Borderline Personality Disorder. A post that tries to make sense out of a negative behavior.

4. BPD SERIES FOUR - Borderline Personality Disorder. Basically the difficulty of living with this disorder and how it makes smart people stupid.

5. BPD SERIES FIVE - How I diagnosed myself. BPD is so obvious that my doctor never realized it then I did something stupid and opened my mouth.

6. BPD SERIES SIX - Rage? Want to see a rage? The reasons why an extreme reaction seem necessary in the land of BPD.

There it is my so called attempt at trying to put my spin on BPD and hopefully increase the awareness surrounding this potentially devastating disorder. Overall this great plan of bringing out Borderline Personality Disorder on a much larger level through the act of the official declaration seems to be rather quiet in my opinion throughout the media but again that is not a surprise.

I read over at Furious Seasons that Mel Gibson has come forward to say he suffers from manic depression (that is Bipolar for those living in the twenty first century) and to be honest part of me was thankful he did not say it was Borderline Personality Disorder. Now whether this diagnosis is accurate or he is looking for a way to get his career out of the gutter remains to be seen. Take care.

BPD Series Six

Part six of the this series deals with what most people find to be the scariest element of Borderline Personality Disorder, the rage. Like everything else on the blog someone else's experience with it may differ from my own.

Rage? Want To See A Rage?

Today the plan should of have been to stay home and just avoid society as the Nardil withdrawal has been kicking my ass. No patience, sore bones and a brain that cannot decide what kind of mood it wants to be in. The problem with my great plan was that I needed to go to the pharmacy to pick up the rest of my Seroquel pills for the month so I psyched myself up then put on my best smiley happy face and made my way out the doors. This great sense of being lasted till I jumped into my car and reality came crashing back down, oh well at least I tried. On the way to the store my brain was stuck on this notion that my meds would not be in which basically leaves me screwed. So instead of doing the healthy thing which is preparing a back up plan I took the BPD route and prepared for a confrontation or a rage as those people in white coats call it. My brain pieced together a plan of attack which was along the lines of "The hell with your excuses this is my life you are messing with" and then I ran through every possible response that I could think that they could use then prepared my response to it to ensure all bases were covered. These poor people had no idea what was coming but turns out they would never find out as my meds were there waiting.

Rage is a big part of Borderline Personality Disorder and probably a main part that fuels the stigma but rage like a lot of different areas of this illness is not what it appears. People think that when a person enters a rage that they have no control over their emotions and there is no logic just frustration attached to it, in my case ah no. For me ninety eight percent of my rages are completely in control and for the most part have been rehearsed well in advance. The logic behind it is pretty simple the person did something that I did not like so I need to make sure it does not happen again so here comes the rage. I know this is not the proper way and it is very rare that I actually go this route anymore. For a long time rage would "appear" when someone would say something that would jeopardize the stability of my very rocky false self image so I had to respond to make sure it would not repeat and sometimes the best solution to get people to listen is to yell or teach them a painful verbal lesson. I use to have this mentality that if you hurt me I will destroy you which I really probably should not admit too but that is the reality and I am very good at it. Manipulation factors in here as well and here is an example. Say you want to get rid of the girlfriend but you don't want to look like the bad guy so you set up a rage to make it look like it is her fault. You direct the conversation till she says something that could be considered as a trigger then you let the rage do all of the work which normally ends the relationship. Mentally my BPD is thinking if she did not set off the rage then the relationship would not have ended so it is her fault and I have no guilt over it even though I completely controlled the whole ending. How does my brain justify this? If she knew me better she would have never would have been led down the path that led to the rage. Nice eh. Guilt is a foreign concept when it comes to BPD for guilt happens when you do something wrong or ashamed of but everything a BPD does is right or at least it is to them. This is also the same reason why most people with Borderline Personality Disorder will never be officially diagnosed as they do not see anything wrong with the way they think and the people in their lives who keep suggesting they get help are just jealous that we have more control over our lives then they do which means they are the ones who really need the help and are acting out of jealousy.

This is a BPD slogan if you will when it comes to confrontations "I may not always be right but I am never wrong". Never get in an argument with someone with pure BPD as you will never win and they will never admit that you are right. By admitting they were wrong puts their whole self image out of whack which they can not allow happen as their entire life is based off of certain perspectives that they have created and one dent in the armor may lead to the whole mirage to crumble. Like I said when your at the height of BPD you will protect the false self image with your life and the only thing that matters is to keep their creation on a pedestal for when it falls they fall. Rage is the wall that surrounds the castle and designed to keep all enemies out no matter how much they may make sense.

For me to drop my "wall" the first thing I had to realize and come to terms with is what I was protecting was not really there. There is no castle just a bunch of ideas and perspectives of who I thought I should be to keep myself safe and not who I actually am. The real me is running around naked in a field trying to figure out what the hell happened and how to put the pieces back together the right way. Take care.

BPD Series Five

In the continuing series on Borderline Personality Disorder this little article goes through the events that led to my diagnosis. When I first wrote this post I was still struggling with my diagnosis and was trying to answer a number of questions in my head. Some three months later the same questions remain unanswered.

How I Diagnosed Myself

Back in October of last year I was sitting in a hospital bed trying to figure out a way to get back on the road to recovery and the decision I made was to put absolutely everything down in written form then hand it over to my doctor.

The first time I took on this process I just ran through my life without giving much detail more of a glimpse through the window into my soul. The doctor was overly excited about this written material and he claimed that he learned more by reading five pages of writing then he had in the previous two plus years. I took this as a positive sign so I set out to write version two of the same story but a lot more detailed but again not the complete story. Once again the doctor responded that I was making great strides by focusing so much on the areas in my head that I was moved to write what turned out to be my complete profile or as complete as I was willing to share for there are parts of my life that I am still unable to talk or write about.

This third book broke my complete life down into sections and how I dealt or didn't deal which each part. For an example of the intensity involved it took the section dealing with my fathers death was about a page in length but it took me three hours to write it. After I had completed this book, each day I would hand my doctor a couple of pages, my doctor said "every time you meet a new doctor or a new therapist give them this journal and the success of the relationship will be greatly improved". My doctor then replied in his history as a doctor he had never had a patient who was able to go into their brain and analyze the way that I am able to do. This was a huge ego boost but didn't last long for he then came back and said "this is your gift and this is your curse as your brain just can't leave anything alone so your constantly reliving events instead of putting them to rest". I thought about what he said then I decided to create my own treatment plan thinking no one knows my mind like I do so I am the best person to plan out the route to recovery.

I wrote out this treatment plan where I listed out all of my issues both present and historical then I created a recovery solution but I made a critical mistake. At the top of my treatment plan I wrote out what I believed my diagnosis should be and what had already been confirmed. The two confirmed were severe major depressive disorder with psychotic features and post traumatic stress disorder. The two left were generalized anxiety disorder and borderline personality disorder both of which my doctor agreed on a little bit too quickly. Then for some reason things began to get weird as our discussions were no longer on recovery but of me remaining stable. A week or so later I wrote out another plan of what I needed to do to get better and the doctor fully agreed then said there was no chance the hospital would be able to provide it, I asked for an intensive therapy program, so I asked to be discharged to get the help in the community and again he agreed. I saw him a month later and told him how no therapist would even let me in the door and the doctor replied this is not a surprise as you are too borderline for therapy to be effective. Which means I am untreatable in english.

The part that still bothers me is I wonder what would have happened if I had never brought up the Borderline diagnosis and if I did not would it have came to the surface. Was my doctors fast reaction due to him wanting to say it earlier but didn't for whatever the reason or did I answer a lingering question that was already on his mind. The other part is how on Thursday I am making great strides to recovery but when the Borderline diagnosis came up on Friday all of a sudden I was untreatable. Common sense just does not work when it comes to mental health apparently.

In case your wondering about the accuracy of the diagnosis I meet eight of the nine of the criteria so not only do I pass I pass with flying colors. See this past article for a breakdown of the criteria. Take care.

BPD Series Four

Well we are nearing the half point in May and I have not noticed a whole lot of Borderline Personality awareness articles out there through the media. Is this a surprise? Nope. Anyway here is part four of my little series on BPD.

Borderline Personality Disorder

Ever wanted to know what it feels like to be treated like a leper? Get a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and you will come really close. Doctors, therapists and other people see those three little letters and they run like hell. BPD automatically gives you the reputation of someone who is a master manipulator, only cares about themselves and views the world though a black and white perspective with nothing lying in between. Is this accurate? It depends on the day.

A long time ago a small child became fearful of expressing his emotions to the so called grown ups that were in his life in fear of a response that is far from being pleasant. So what is this child to do? He learns how to survive and the first step is to keep all emotions bottled up inside then to present an image that will keep him safe. This new image begins to create a new personality where on the outside it looks like he is a strong stable person but on the inside it is constant turmoil. This new self image becomes the most important factor in the child's life so he learns how to keep this image appear in a positive light and develops a system to make sure that this image is kept in tact, for the better state of the new personality the better the child feels about himself. Some people are able to let this figure be put to rest when they enter a more positive stable enviroment where the rest of us allow this imaginary person to become very real and dominate all aspects of our lives and end up with the BPD diagnosis.

Living with BPD is all about maintaining that self image that is rocky at the best of times. This inner personality only cares about how the situation is going to effect him. If someone attacks me in the verbal sense my number one priority is to protect my self image so I do what it takes and unfortunately this means entering a "rage" that will send a message to the person that what they are doing is a very bad idea. A rage looks like the person is completely out of control and has the potential of doing anything but like the self image it is meant to protect it is an illusion as the person with BPD is in complete control. The rage is used to send a very clear message that the person has crossed the invisible line that puts my self image in jeopardy which is not allowed as the better off my internal personality is the better off I am overall so I do whatever is necessary to keep it safe .

Manipulation is used to get the response you are looking for either positive or negative. I rehearse every conversation that I may potentially have to make sure that I am ready and that no surprises will arise. A classic case of manipulation is when ending a relationship is I prepare a conversation that will have the other person set off a rage in me then giving me the excuse I am looking for to make the other person go away. By doing this I have no guilt about the relationship as it was the other persons fault even though I controlled every step of the way it ended. My self image is still stable as I did nothing wrong and if the other person knew me better they would not have allowed them selves to be manipulated so I did the right thing by doing it this way. A long as I can justify it from a logical standpoint then I am fine.

Emotions don't exist for the most part in the BPD world and everything comes down to logic no matter how faulty it may be. BPD sufferers deal in a world that consists of yes or no or black or white with nothing that lies in between. The area that is avoided is where emotions exist and it is an area we do not understand as when most people were being taught how to express their feelings we were in a position where the emotions had to be buried so they never had a chance to grow and understand. What we do know is what other people expect from us in an emotional capacity so we learn how to fake it. I can appear as the most loving boyfriend in the history of the planet but like a lot of my life it is an illusion as I learned how to express my so called emotions by reading Cosmo so I know what each gesture is suppose to mean but for the most part it is an act like an actor playing a role.

Everything comes back to the self image. When my self image is at a good level I see the world in a rather positive way and my behavior reflects this. When my self image is having a rough period my depression kicks in to high gear and I have to deal with all the garbage that comes with it. Needless to say for the longest time I would do what ever was possible to make sure that my self image is kept up high and it justifies most of the actions that I take to ensure my inner personality is protected.

The problem that comes with living your life in this fashion is that nothing is real. My inner self image is a perception or how I view myself the confusion is which version of me is looking. Is it my upper self image or my lower self image that is taking it all in but the problem is neither one of them is based in reality but a series of boundaries, limits and rules that were created to make me appear as someone else not who I really am.

A couple of years ago I realized that every thought and behavior I had was not based in reality but what I perceived it to be. So very slowly I went through my head and picked every thought apart to see where it came from then tried to slowly implement change to bring out the real me which has been a royal pain in the ass because basically I had to start over from scratch and at the same time ignore the impulse that is saying if I let the BPD take control my life would be easier and it would be but not very fulfilling.

The medical and therapeutic community treat BPD like it is not treatable and once your beyond a certain point your destined to live the rest of your life in this fashion. Therapy is ineffective or at least BPD is very difficult to treat as someone who has multiple self images quickly switches from one to the other depending on stability. The goal is to finding the real self image then going to work on it. My doctors have called me untreatable but I have full intentions of proving them wrong once again. I have learned how to stop and analyze the situation before responding which has been a massive step that has made the world of difference as before my response would be to best serve my false self image now I see it from a different light and have realized not everything is a an attack so there is no reason to act as such.

A lot of people with BPD will never be diagnosed for the simple reason they do not believe anything is wrong with their logic. People with BPD run huge companies and corporations with success for everything is based off of logic and emotion never comes into play. This is perfect for a lot of work settings but the problems they cross is outside of work as they feel unfulfilled so they end up working way to much or start abusing substances to fill the void inside of them.

I made a decision to become a better person and to get the life that I deserve but to do it I had to admit that everything in my life was faulty and I have been living a lie since I was three years old. It is unfortunate that the battle is that much harder trying to overcome the stigma that comes with the Borderline Personality Disorder diagnosis. I am trying to fix myself and a little help would be appreciated not the medical community writing me off as too difficult to treat.


take care.

BPD Series Three

Another older post I brought out of the archives for Borderline Personality awareness month. This post I took a lot of flack for but I believe it does serve a valuable purpose when it comes to BPD.

A Crash Course On Manipulation And Borderline Personality Disorder

Manipulation is used on a regular basis when in comes to Borderline Personality Disorder but how it is done and why often differs from person to person. For some reason I will go through the various ways I have used manipulation to serve my false self image.

Ending A Relationship -
- For reasons that only the BPD person knows someone in their life needs to go away and in some cases stay away. The problem is if you hastily end it then you look like the bad guy and chances are guilt will appear both which are not allowed in my mind. I will basically set a trap, leading the other person into a confrontation that will appear to set off a rage (which I completely control) by the time the confrontation is over the other person is in a complete state of shock and confusion while running out the door. Now my mind justifies this as it was the other persons actions that led to the rage and if this person knew me better then they would have respected my boundaries then the confrontation would not have happened. The part where I arranged the whole thing my mind just conveniently forgets. So if I did nothing wrong then there is no reason for guilt and I am still the good guy. My fragile false self image is still intact.

Doctors/Therapists -
- The goal is to keep myself out of the hospital and to do that I need to make sure my risk factor is in check even when its not. My doctor is very predictable and tends to ask the same series of questions every time so I basically rehearse my answers long before the appointment happens. If I feel that I need a med change then I make sure the answers are there to support it but mainly it is about keeping that risk factor low. The questions that I need to watch are those about suicidal ideation and self harm. Suicidal ideation questions are answered with a "No more then normal" which is a complete truth but I also know I have been answering this question the same way for so long I doubt my doctor knows what normal is. Self harm is a bit trickier especially when your still cutting so I make sure it is down played with answers such as "I have it in control" or with the answer "Not very often" but again I know my doctor has asked once to see the marks in the fifty plus times I have seen him so the odds are one my side. Right now I am nearing the four month anniversary of no marks what so ever so the answer is no and it is actually no. I don't lie I just don't show the whole picture and the way the system is designed it is very easy to get away with it

Nurses and Others -
- When I was in the hospital a number of staff believed I was manipulating the nurses and in a way they were right but I will try to show you the reason behind it. I am someone who remembers damn near everything and I appreciate people who are honest and open with me. People are basically classified in two sections safe and not safe. If a person is safe then that is who I will go to with any problem, that is who I will go to with any question or concern and when I am half a step away from crossing the danger line that is who I will seek out. If a nurse is classified as unsafe I will do whatever is possible to avoid any interaction with them as I don't feel like I can trust them so what they get is a bunch of yes or no answers and if they try to push it then chances are a confrontation will happen that will send a clear message it is better to just let me be. How does the classification work? Good question. I ask the same questions to a lot of people then take their answers that forms the groundwork. If the person gives me some generic answer then chances are they are going to the unsafe category for my brain sees it as them looking at the disorder and not at me. I watch them interact with other patients and I can see whether or not their heart is in it. Everything to me is about safety as in keeping myself safe so the people in my life need to care about my well being or they need to go away and everything comes back to trust. If I can not trust you to give me an honest answer on something small then why would I trust you on something big such as my health and well being. I believe everyone in the world does this and if you don't think so ask yourself out of all of the people in your life why do you always go to a select few when you need help. When I am in a hospital setting I need to figure out very quickly who my rocks are so to speak because chances are I am going to need them when the wrong situation arises. It pays to know who are safe and who are not but unfortunately I do not create the work schedule. Therapists and doctors will say that the way I see someone will differ from the perspective I am in but that is only half right, the way I see someone that day may differ but I always remember who is safe and unsafe at the core level. The people in my life I try to protect with every ounce of energy that I have and make sure that the relationship is strong and healthy in all areas. To reach that level other people have to go through the testing level and the majority do not make it or last long as my personality is either to strong. My mother does not understand how one second a person can be part of my life then the next second they are gone and I have tried to explain the whole safe and unsafe thing to her but she was raised in a manner where it is important to make everyone happy. I have my fathers viewpoint on this one which is there is six billion people on this planet so there is no sense keeping the wrong ones around as there are a lot more to choose from.

A major problem is that a group of people use both self harm and suicidal gestures to gain attention through a form of manipulation which has led others to believe that everyone with Borderline Personality Disorder does this which is not only wrong but dangerous. What happens if what you saw as attention seeking was an actual warning sign of imminent danger? I don't take the chance as if someone tells me they are in danger I pick up the phone and call 911 for my conscious can not handle a missed warning sign. If someone in your life does this call 911 or drag them to the hospital every single time and if it was for attention chances are they will find a new way to get it where the consequences don't involve a police car and a psych ward. take care

BPD series two

Another post from the past to raise the awareness of Borderline Personality disorder. This article deals with the highs and lows of BPD which is responsible for most of the chaos with this disorder.

Highs And Lows Of Borderline Personality Disorder

Keep in mind the Borderline Personality Disorder highs and lows are not really emotions but based off of perception that comes from a false self image. I think the easiest way to do this is to bring up a number of different situations and show it from both the high and low perspective as it relates to BPD.

Relationships -
A) High - The person I am with is the most beautiful, intelligent, caring, understanding woman I have ever met and I will do anything to maintain this perfect relationship. The other person should be thankful for having someone like me in their life
B) Low - This person is nothing but an aggravation to me who is constantly looking for ways to bring me down and add to the misery in my life. If I could handle being alone then this woman would have been kicked to the curb a long time ago.

- This is all talking about the same person but just a different perspective so when things are going well they are really going well but when they are bad they are really bad. I have been a number of relationships that can be measured in years that were going absolutely amazing on all levels until my brain saw something it took as a threat and I ended up in a low BPD perspective then watched the relationship crumble unless I could figure out what I saw as a threat really was not a threat at all.

Me -
A) High - I am always right, I understand the situation better then anyone else in my life especially the so called `professionals`. I walk into any room and I am immediately the center of attention for I am that good. I can walk through fire and not get burned as I am basically invincible.
B) Low - I am always wrong so it is better to lock myself in the house and stay away from people so they don`t have the opportunity to hurt me. I walk into the room and everyone stares because I look like cousin It. If a situation is bad chances are I will get the short end of the stick every time. My doctors are all against me and they keep adding more and more bricks to the wall so there is no chance of recovery.

- I am also diagnosed with Severe Major Depressive Disorder so it tends to make the low perspective very low. Neither of the above perspectives are safe as the high level I don`t think I can be hurt so I take all sorts of stupid chances. The low perspective on the wrong day has led to more then one suicide attempt.

Therapy -
A) High - My therapist understands every little thing that I deal with on a daily basis and together we have made great strides in my recovery.
B) Low - My therapist surprises me that she/he remembers my name. I have spent countless sessions detailing my life yet no progress has been made of any kind. All the sessions are a paid form of torture as all the therapist does is attack me and destroy my self esteem. I am better off on my own.

- This is how someone with Borderline Personality Disorder destroys therapists as one session they are God and the next session they are the Devil all from a different perspective of the client. The problem is even on high BPD moments nothing is being accomplishes as it is not real.

Everything in recovery is about finding that nice stable place right in the middle of the high and low where the real self image is. The first step for me was to recognize the stage I was in and doing what it took to get to the neutral position and learning how to stay there. With a lot of effort I put a buffer between someone else`s actions or words and my response to make sure my actions are coming from a neutral state and not a high or low false perspective which to be honest is a royal pain in the ass but it is getting easier as time goes by. There are still certain situations that will put me into a negative state but like I said I am in recovery and not recovered.

Living with Borderline Personality Disorder is like being drunk standing on a see saw some days and you never know which way you will lose your balance but your pretty sure it is not going to be good. When it comes to confrontations the person with BPD is more then likely in a high BPD stage and will fight like hell to stay there as the other side or the low end usually means your fighting yourself and in my case a battle to keep breathing.

I hope that this post helped cleared up the differences between the two stages and remember this is my perspective and chances are it will differ to a certain degree from other people cursed by this disorder. Take care.

Borderline Personality DSM Criteria

With May being Borderline Personality awareness month I have decided from time to time to reintroduce posts that covered this section. The first one of the so called series deals with the criteria "required" to meet the diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder.

Borderline Personality DSM Criteria

Ever since I started this blog I have been spending a lot of time cruising different posts on various issues of mental health and the lack of quality information is troubling so I figured the best way to start, besides me posting a not nice comment that people should do their homework before opening their mouths, is to start with the manual or encyclopedia of mental illness. For of you that are not familiar with the DSM its real name is Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and most doctors refers to it when diagnosing a patient. They are on version five right now and the current edition, number 4, was created in 1994 but there was an update if you will in 2000. The next edition is due out in 2012. The information that I will use comes from the last update.

To meet the Borderline Personality Disorder criteria if you will a score of at least five out of nine is required, this is a test you want to fail by the way. Anyway I will list the criteria then try to explain it in english using examples from my own life. Bare with me as this is the first time I have ever tried to do this.

A quick review first - BPD consists of three separate personalities in which two are not real but perceptions and they are, well how I see them, 1) High Self Image 2) Low Self Image 3) Real Self Image. Remember the purpose of BPD is to maintain a high self image level but like I said it is not real but a perception. K, lets get started.

1) frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5.

- basically this means if your buddy says he can not come over because he is busy you take it as he does not like you anymore so you do what it takes to ensure yourself your thought is not true. Some people will cause a commotion that will ensure that they get people's attention for even if it is negative attention it satisfies the thought that you are not alone which is more important then the consequences you will have to deal with for causing the commotion. Personally this area really shows up when someone is late or cancels at the last minute and it takes a lot of work to remember sometimes things happens and it is not the person abandoning me.

2. a pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.

- there is a very good book out on the marketplace and the title sums up this criteria very well "I hate you, don't leave me". This one took me a long time to figure out but I knew I was doing it at the time. I could be in a relationship where the other person was just constantly on my nerves so my stress was high as heck and I knew I should get out of the there. The next day this person was the best thing that ever happened to me so it rules out all the insecure doubts I had the day before and then the next day that person was back on my nerves and then the next day.... it is all about perception and which personality is at work: if it is a high BPD day you are better then the queen and everything is perfect, if it is a low BPD day I really have no idea why I am wasting my time on you. It is a rather pain in the ass but once your on the road to recovery it is one of the first areas that calms down, mind you this is also a big reason why therapists do not like treating people suffering with Borderline Personality Disorder for when the person is in the positive stage therapy appears to be going great but when it is in a negative stage the person is more concerned about the therapists saying the wrong thing (in a BPD mind) so they are on guard to attack in order to serve their self image then the actual therapy involved. Like I said recognizing the three stages is a massive step so you realize what you are doing and why.

3. identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.

- pretty self explanatory the highs and lows you see with relationships with other people are the same issues you have in the relationship with yourself. Good days I am on top of the world and on bad days I spend the entire day trying to convince myself I should keep breathing. My depression/MDD really kicks in on bad days so I tend to go a lot lower.

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.

- on high BPD days you believe you are invincible so normal rules do not apply to you. In my case I do what I want for I am too smart not to get caught or I am better then the average person. Lots of fun in the high BPD stage but it is also incredibly dangerous. The sex part is basically trying to bang everyone you meet at the extreme end but being promiscuous also satisfies the attention needed to boost the self image. The sex part means nothing to me and has never been an issue but it can be for a lot of people with BPD. My real self shyness and awkwardness prevents promiscuity even on my high end BPD days

5. recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior

- I don't really like this category as they are talking about attention seeking behaviors on the extreme end. I have a self harm history but the last reason I do it is for attention and the great lengths I will go to hide it pretty much cements it. to many people are automatically labeled BPD when they self harm but this has more to do with lazy doctors and therapists who jump to conclusions. If I want attention from self harm I would display it at every chance I get but the number of actual scars would be really low as all you need is a few to get the desired effect but I have hundreds and have been "caught" three times participating in self harm behavior and two of those times I did it because I understood I was in danger and needed help immediately. When I was in the hospital the last time I wrote the people in charge of my care a letter that should have been taken as a suicidal intent letter but they chose to ignore it and I believe they felt I was just seeking attention, if a picture of my son was not running through my brain my ass would be dead. Every suicidal treat or gesture should be taken with a 100% seriousness and this category is dangerous because of it. Do you really want to take the chance that the gesture or threat is not real? A wrong response can end up with a dead body. If a BPD person in your life uses this type of threat to gain attention call the police every single time as they are a risk to themselves or others and trust me if they were in it just for attention this behavior will quickly seize to exist. I am hoping in the next version of DSM this criteria will at the very least be reworded.

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).

- I deal with depression as well so this category really does not apply to me as my bad depressive stages tend to lasts for weeks if not months. The reason behind this category is your created self image is so flimsy that it is hard to work off of it as one moment you are way up there and the next your digging out of a hole which is why BPD go through such great effort to maintain there perceived self image. It is difficult for those around the person when he or she is all over the place but try living with the damn thing.

7. chronic feelings of emptiness

- this never effected me in the BPD sense until I started to become aware of the different stages of personality and perception, Now I see my life as something I did not own or participate in for a very long time for I was to focused on keeping steady the self image I had created. Not a nice day when you realize your life has been one big lie.

8. inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights)

- BPD is created initially to protect yourself from the world that you are in so everything comes down to safety. When I feel someone is putting my self image at risk I attack for the most part as this is the basis of the disorder, I need to send a message that this will not be tolerated and make sure the person fully understands this or in some cases makes sure they do not come back. It takes a lot of work like I continually mention to maintain a rocky self image and when someone seems to attack it you take it very personally. The last person you want to get into a confrontation with is someone with BPD as our lives have been one confrontation after another so we tend to be very good at it and we don't know how to lose. A simple comment along the lines of "You should have done this instead of that" may seem innocent to someone without BPD but when this disorder is a part of your life that comment just said that you are not very smart and not very aware of the situation so it attacks the core beliefs that we had created in our self image especially when the person is untreated and has not acknowledged the different stages of personality and perception. Think of something you have total belief in and how would you react if someone attacked it, its the same thing.

9. transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms

- For whatever the reason my brain can see someone and believe that the person has no good intentions what so ever. The big one in my life is my mental doctor who a lot of the time I believe does not care what happens to me so he just wants to give me the fastest answer possible to get me out of his office. I actually have a problem with this with the majority of people in the medical community so I go in with a belief that the only person who cares about me is me so I need to be on constant guard when dealing with them. The problem is those who take the BPD stigma so seriously add to this by treating me like a leper so for a long time I saw the whole community based off of a few nitwits but within time I have gotten better mostly due to a buffer I now have in place that requires me to think and view the whole picture before responding. I try to give all the professionals a chance but very few will get a second or third shot with me which is something I am trying to work on. Another part to this criteria is what I call making people go away - I end a relationship with a friend or partner and a few days later I will not even acknowledge that they are alive or even right in front of me as my brain does not believe it should store information or emotions on someone who is no longer in my life so when I end a relationship my brain takes the name out of my inner directory and throws it into the garbage. Awhile back I ran into an ex girlfriend who I was with for over two years in high school and I was looking at this woman, who at one point I would swear up and down the street that I would love til the end of time, and couldn't figure out if I even knew this person. Later on in the day parts of the memory that contained her showed up but it took a lot of effort on my behalf to do so. If you are in my life I will go to great lengths to make sure that your are happy and safe but if you are not in my life you are no longer a concern. Everyone I meet gets a chance to enter my life in some way or another though a friendship or a relationship or even as a acquaintance as long as I can see that their is something positive about the person as I will not surround myself with negative people but when your in your in and when your out you are really out. Someone can go from a loving girlfriend to a stranger in the blink of an eye which is kind of good as I really do not carry a lot of baggage but it is sad that a person can go from one extreme to the other which causes internal guilt now that I see the picture for what it is.

Anyway five plus out of nine means your a leper ... I mean you meet the required standards to be diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, if you passed I am sorry but remember doctors are not always right and with enough work you will prove them wrong and societies stigma for that matter. If you failed be thankful but remember just because someone is BPD does not automatically make them a bad person. The part that gets me is that I was not diagnosed until I was in my thirties and when I told people of my diagnosis some of them began to treat me different and others ended their relationships with me but do they not realize the person I was a long time ago was also BPD just not officially diagnosed. Guess that tells you how powerful the stigma is when it makes smart people stupid.

***After thought - like everything else on this blog this is my opinion and my perspective. Use what you learn here as a starting off point not as a confirmed medical or therapeutic diagnosis. If the above diagnostic criteria read like your life story go see your doctor or a therapist to make sure that you are a leper .... did it again I mean BPD. Then come back and I will try to help you interpret the message that they gave you

The Difficulty Of Treatment

I wish I had broken every single bone in my body instead of having a mental illness. If I had broken my bones the doctors would have been able to take an xray, ordered surgery or place the broken pieces in a cast and then would have been able to tell me how long it was going to take for me to be whole again. With mental illness there is the probability of being misdiagnosed, a wide assortment of medication may need to be tried until one was found that worked and the doctors do not have a clue how long it will take for me to get back to a better state in life.

Diagnosing - Certain mental disorders are not that easy to diagnose and a large reason is that there are numerous disorders that have similar symptoms and accompanied behavior. Two of my diagnosis are severe Major Depressive Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder but my doctor is not sure if the depression is a stand alone issue or is it the result of the Borderline condition. The main problem that this causes is if it is a stand alone issue then medication can go along way to helping me overcome the issue but if it is Borderline then medication is not going to make a whole lot of difference as one is a chemical problem and the other is a result of a personality quirk that needs to be unlearned through therapy.

Medication - To get off to the right start with medication the diagnosis needs to be correct or else it is not going to be that effective. The medication game is not an easy one as the right med can bring you to a better place but the wrong one can be dangerous. I was put on the drug Paxil pretty early in and this drug put me into a manic state where the self harm session looked a lot like a suicide attempt which landed me in the hospital for a couple of months. The next step was a combination of Effexor, Wellbutrin, Remeron, Lithium, Zyprexa and Temazapam that did appear to work at some level for about six months or so. I took myself off the Zyprexa due to massive weight gain in a very short amount of time and within the five months that followed I slowly spiraled back out of control until a cutting session looked like another suicide attempt which led to another hospital stay. While in the hospital they took me off Effexor, Wellbutrin, Remeron, Lithium in under a week then all I could take for two weeks was a variety of different anti psychotic meds as my doctor wanted to try Nardil an MAOI antidepressant but I needed my blood to be clean before it was introduced as the drug interactions can be deadly. Through numerous cutting sessions as a inpatient led to finding Seroquel which seems to be the perfect fit as it handles the psychotic end of my illness. I was on Nardil for about four months I guess and the initial dose had to be lowered as it was causing my blood pressure to get out of whack. The realization that I needed to get my teeth fixed led to Nardil being stopped as the drug interactions were too dangerous so this left me on Seroquel and Temazapam. The Seroquel dosage has been raised pretty much every month and I started at 25mg twice a day and now it is 100mg three times a day plus an additional 50mg when I need it. Problem is my depression still has not changed and I still fight suicidal ideations on a daily basis. The doctor wants me to go back to Nardil once my dental work is done (due to the disability program limitations the process is really drawn out) which should be by September. Of course with any mental med there are going to be side effects which is a whole different battle.

Treatment - I have gone through Electro Convulsive Therapy on two separate occasions for a total of seven sessions which did not produce any major changes plus I stopped breathing during the last session so it is no longer an option. I saw a therapist three times a week during my first hospital admission who was very helpful. Outside of the hospital I have had very little luck when three of the therapists stopped treating me once they learned of my self harm tendencies/history for they believed this proved that I was not stable enough to go through therapy (I don't get it either) and since the Borderline Personality diagnosis showed up I am unable to get through the doors of a therapist office let alone set up an appointment. So the majority of psychological treatment I have gone through consists of this blog and the various forums I frequent across the web such as healthboards and crazyboards.

So that is a brief answer to why I had wished I had broken every bone in my body instead of going through the chaos that is mental illness. As far as it goes to recovery time my doctor does not believe it is possible hence the name of this blog. Take care.

Random Thoughts

I want my mother to understand what I deal with on a daily basis but I am beginning to think that no matter how much I explain it to her that she will never truly understand. Now my mom is a bright woman who wants to be able to empathize with what I am going through but I don't think it will happen to a level where we are both satisfied.

She is staying with me for the next ten days or so and already early in she has seen the sudden switch of emotions where I can go one extreme to the other in what seems like a heartbeat. One moment I am the ideal son and in the next moment I am walking that line between sanity and insanity. When I finally stabilized I tried to explain that certain words or actions tend to bring out these loose cannons of emotions and it does not matter who the other person is as I only know how to attack one way which is to aim straight for the jugular. She asked if I was able to control these emotions and the honest answer is it depends on the day or possibly the moment and I never know when the emotional onslaught is going to happen until it appears. My mom is use to dealing with me with phone calls every few days that last around twenty minutes or so which normally I am able to keep it at a safe level but now that she is here I can not put on that healthy mental role for more then a few hours at a time and this bothers me something awful. There is a small part of me that wishes for a few hours that we could trade brains so she would see the impact that mental illness has on my life and the amount of effort it takes to stay on this side of the sanity line but of course that is not possible.

This extends to my doctor who I believe all he sees is my diagnosis and not the human being standing behind it who is begging for his life to reach a somewhat normal level but instead I end up fighting him every step along the way for him to see me and not the words that are written down on the file. I am a human being who has spent the majority of my life trying to help others in one way or another and I believe that is who I truly am but what if this is just a distortion from the Borderline brain that on the high end sees everything in a positive light. The doctor has said that when things are going well I see everything in a positive light but the second something comes at me I quickly descend back into the negative Borderline mind set where nothing is good and I see everything as an attack. Is it possible that my mental illness has such control over me that I can no longer decipher what is positive and what is negative. Does my mental illness control me and defines who I am as a person. I don't know and to be quite honest I am not sure if I really want to know. Does everyone around me know that I am sick and the show that I put on clearly shows the illness and I have yet to realize this.

I have studied long and hard trying to figure out my diag