Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a highly stigmatized and poorly understood mental illness that affects approximately 14 million Americans, or 5.9% of adults in the United States. dismiss these early signs as "bad behavior" or "adolescent anxiety" when in reality the person is really in trouble.
To find out how people knew (in hindsight) that they had borderline personality disorder, we asked people who live with him in our community to share what it was like to grow up with a personality disorder. borderline undiagnosed, or perhaps not yet developed. .
Here's what they had to say:
1. “Since I can remember, even in my first year, I have always been extremely sensitive to everything. I remember that I would always feel different and really alone… Looking back, it really happened around the age of 14. . I am now 20 years old and have mastered certain aspects, but it is always a battle that I fight everyday. "- Julia F.
2. “Impulsiveness, reckless behavior and the difficulty of maintaining healthy relationships. Black and white thinking, self-injurious behavior ... pushing and pulling people in and out of my life. - Melissa R.
3. “I always thought that I felt everything a lot more than the others. I would be very excited about the things that the other kids didn't seem to care about. I remember jumping up and down because my team had a point and I looked around wondering why no one else was as excited as I was. I was repeatedly told to calm down, to shut up, and even when I expressed my outrage at an injustice, I was told there was nothing I could do. - Melanie M.
4. “A friend of mine, who I thought was my best friend, wanted to sit next to another girl in the classroom next door. When she said that to me, I threw myself on the ground and I cried my heart thinking that she hated me. At that time, I hated her for my soul. I cried for days because of this. - Lenka W.
5. “It was like things were good, I could always find a negative in everything… [it was like the wall that was always higher could never reach it.” - Stephen J.
6. "Extreme sensitivity. I would idealize people, then push them away. I was most afraid of giving up. The anger would consume me and I felt that I could only get rid of it if I hurt myself. Then I would feel horribly guilty and be ashamed of it. I remember scratching my face and my hair when I was 4 years old, I think. - Amy W.
7. “Going from being a best friend with someone to hate their guts, then becoming a best friend again after a while… My self-harm as a teenager… having only two or three close friends growing up. I had a lot of trouble making and keeping friends. I was very sensitive to emotions and I hurt myself easily. All of these things that I can now see as signs of my borderline disorder. - Michelle M.
8. “I was diagnosed only a year ago, but looking back, everything makes sense. As far back as I can remember, I was extremely sensitive, I had very fluctuating moods, including intense anger, and I was self-injurious. I panicked about any sudden change of plans, and I was terrified of giving up. It wasn't until years later that I realized that it was much more than depression and anxiety. - Kelsey M.
9. "Make impulsive, life-changing decisions without thinking about the consequences, moving from city to city and job to job thinking that my problems would go away if I moved to another city. I now have a very unstable work history and find it difficult to find a job. - Pam M.
10. "Dissociation. Feeling that you are out of your body - as if it were not even your own, is the most terrifying feeling of all time, and was the main symptom / sign that I had something different from depression. No one ever really talks about dissociation, and I don't know why, it horrified me more than anxiety attacks. It's like that seemingly endless huge brain fog. You can't think, you can't speak, you just can't function. You feel completely numb from the inside and the outside. For me, it gets so bad that I feel like "I don't exist" and it's terrifying. Especially when you think you are the only one feeling this (which has been the case for me for months). - Alexis W.
11. “I felt like I was always alone, like I was not worthy of having friends. I am in a better place now and have been in treatment for five months. "- Isobel T.
12. "To be extremely sensitive, to want to be everyone's best friend, to be incredibly hard with myself, to think that everyone was talking about me behind my back, to love people too much, to be co-dependent, to think in absolute , be very black and white, constant fear of abandonment. "- Marissa L.
13. “All my life I have been extremely sensitive. If an adult raised his voice a little, I would burst into tears. Furthermore, once I reached puberty, I could never have a stable relationship with my peers. My friendships were always top-down and one-sided, especially since I became a teenager. I never had self-esteem and I started cutting when I was 13 years old. I was first wrongly diagnosed with depression and anxiety. I always wondered why I was so different, why didn't other kids love me? Now it makes perfect sense. - Jessie B.
14. “Black / white thought. Am I a good / bad person? I love you / I hate you. Never leave me / I want to be alone. With each of these problems, it is extreme and intense, there is no compromise, no balance or stability. - Roma S.
15. “It was a constant from top to bottom. I had no stable friendships. I felt insecure and had low self-esteem. Often, social interactions induced intense emotions that completely overwhelmed me and made me feel isolated and invisible. I felt without anchor and I didn't know where I belonged or if I would ever find someone who would love and understand me. I was so afraid that my friends would leave me that I tried everything to make them love me. I started self-injuring at 14, desperately trying to keep myself grounded and gain recognition. - Mona B.
16. “As far back as I can remember, when I was little, I deliberately pushed people to test their limits and somehow prove to myself that I was not a lovable person. As a teenager, it mainly showed my total inability to manage breakups and extreme impulsiveness, self-harm, constant suicidal thoughts, etc. All of this has been ignored by everyone around me as `` being a teenager '' and `` seeking attention ''. result I have struggled for years without treatment. I'm still in shock to have survived this to be honest. - Lucy R.
17. “I had serious problems with over-spending and self-harm. I was so moved by things that weren't even real (fictional things or fun things) and the constant changes in my moods were difficult for me to handle. Now I have been diagnosed with borderline disorder and looking back I see that I have had it for quite some time. It feels good to have a name now. - Mackenzi D.
18. “I felt lonely, unwanted and so different.” - Seth B.
19. "I get really emotional about almost everything. Sensitive to violence, I couldn't even handle violent TV shows like CSI. Even reading books immediately put a mood in the book - it would make me happy or sad depending on how it ended. I was and still am more sensitive in my interactions with people. I would be easily upset even if they didn't want to upset me. I thought for years that something was wrong with who I am. That everything was wrong in me and that it was my fault. Even at 9, I hurt myself. I hated myself and had no confidence in myself. I was diagnosed with both borderline and bipolar at the age of 19, and it all made sense. All the things that I thought wrong with me actually had a name. Not that it made him easier to accept. I am now 24 years old and I am finally starting to accept that this is how I was made. And it's not my fault. - Meghan W.