I'm seeing a lot of people posting lately about how it's BPD that's causing a bunch of various issues, ranging from job/relationship/loss of friends, etc.

Believe me, I understand completely how much BPD fucks with your thoughts, and how it becomes easy to act out on them.  But every time you blame BPD, you're putting the problems outside of your control.  If you instead focus on your actions, then you are dealing with something you can work on.

You can be 100% sure your SO is getting ready to leave you, or hates you, or is deliberately doing stuff to piss you off.  That's BPD.  You choosing to act on those feelings is YOU.  It's YOUR choice.

Work is stressful, which makes you short tempered, irritable, etc?  You think you're going to get fired and everyone hates you?  Yeah, that's BPD.  Not taking a second to breathe and bring yourself back into now, so you go off on your boss/coworker and get fired?  That's your actions.

I'm not trying to talk down to anyone, trust me, I'm living the struggle too.  But as long as you're externalizing things, or using BPD as a reason that you're having life issues, then you ARE out of control, and things are going to get worse.  Step back, own what you can.  In this case, it's your actions.  And those you can work on, and try to do better with.

Stay strong guys, we can make it through this.  BPD is a hurdle to overcome, but sometimes the hurdles are what teach you to be strong and grow.  

You CAN make it.  You can, and will, get through this (whatever this is for you).

Edit:  someone posted a comment and then deleted it.  I've decided to include my response here because it helped me to type it, and because the voice that's telling me to just delete everything is the one I've learned not to listen to.  The comment basically revolved around how some people with BPD just don't have that control, and can't stop the impulsive actions.  (I'll throw a trigger warning up to be polite, but I'm also not a fan of the idea of trigger warnings in settings like this).  Here is my response:


I can't speak for anyone else, only myself.  That being said, there's a slight difference which, for me, ends up being important.

For me, the impulsivity hinged on the "rightness" of the thoughts.  I could justify all these "crazy" actions because in my head all of the fears became my reality.  As long as I accepted that my thoughts were justified and valid, then my actions made sense.  So it wasn't impulsive acts, it was actually thought out ones, albeit only a quick thought.

For me, recognizing that my internal thoughts were flawed, and not based on reality is what helps temper the justification for the actions, which is what leads to less "impulsive" behavior.  

My concern with accepting the impulsivity as "just part of BPD" is to at least passively give it control over you.  If you own your actions, the good and the bad, then you can at least work in the future on tempering them.  If you just say "well, it's the BPD, I had no choice" then you're dooming yourself to failure from the outset.

All that being said, I'll throw out one other thing I've found.  It's not going to be popular with a lot of people, but I know how much it helped me, and I've seen how much it has helped some other people.

For various reasons, society has begun to encourage what I call a "victim" mentality.  Especially with BPD this means that there will always be people to tell you:
&gt; *     You're not wrong for thinking of things this way
&gt; *     You're not wrong for acting out
&gt; *     You have no control over it 
&gt; *    Oh, these horrible things happened to you, so therefore you should be excused from being held responsible for your actions
      
In a perfect world, they are right:  It sucks that our disorder causes us to have a flawed way of thinking.  It doubly sucks because most of us have a pretty shitty life story.  Everyone I've met with BPD has had some pretty significant trauma in their lives.  So we get a double whammy.  It sucks that we have to relive things, and pay even more for our trauma, and it's very convenient to try and lay our problems on other people.  It's very easy to say "well, it's everyone else's responsibility to learn how to handle me like this, they need to understand where I'm coming from, etc."  

Ultimately though, I find that way ends up creating more problems.  Because we have to live in reality, and the reality is, other people don't "owe us" anything.  If we go through life expecting everyone else to compensate for our own inadequacies, then we're going to have even more pain and more and more negative consequences because things aren't "right."  We'll push more and more people away, we'll engage in more and more questionable behavior, we'll rip our souls to tatters railing against how unfair things are.  All because we were looking for others to change their actions instead of owning ours.

Or, we can accept that WE have flaws, but those flaws do NOT have to change our actions, and our actions are what will people use to determine how they treat us.  I've done the SI, I've tasted the gun barrel, I've ripped my hair out, I've sat curled into a fetal ball with waves of physical, tangible pain rolling over me while I relived the shit I've been through.  I know that BPD is what led me to think those actions were ok, but *I* was the one who decided at the time they were acceptable actions.  If I hide behind the idea that "oh well, I just can't control myself" then I'm dooming myself to repeat those things again.  

I'd rather fight the fight, and take my lumps and continue on, for as long as I can.  Because as fucked up as this world is, there is still enough beauty and joy around to make the pain worth it.  I can't see that rainbow without that rainstorm.  I can't love deeply without feeling that pain and vulnerability because I've given a part of myself to someone else.  I can't feel that visceral joy we can sometimes feel when shit is going well without that stone of dread in my gut, worrying about what bad is going to come down the pipes.

But I can't do ANY of these things if I'm not at least tangentially in control of myself.  If I can't own part of my own body, then I can't continue on, which means I'll miss out on all that good.  

If you're in pain, if you're thinking of acting out, or worse yet, ending it, I get it.  It sucks.  I can't make those thoughts go away.  No one can.  But thoughts without action are nothing.  You can want to end things because it feels like things aren't going to get better.  But as long as you recognize those thoughts are flawed, then there's no reason to act on them.  You may want to cut, to act out, to do whatever.  But that want is NOT the act.  

We CAN temper our actions to pull ourselves back from the brink.  We can accept that our thoughts are based on those scars we got from the battles long past, and those to come.  But our actions are NOT part of those scars.  

I have a BIG problem with the idea that expecting others to change their actions simply because of our wounds is a healthy choice.  Hoping for them to?  Sure, I'm fine with that.  But expecting it is just setting yourself up for failure.  Which means the only thing you should be focused on is YOU, because that's the only thing you have power over.  And to me, giving up my power to the circumstances that have led me here is just not in it.  I'll go down fighting.

I'm obviously amped up, and I'm very tempted to just purge this all, but I've been there.  I've used the excuses and I've seen what problems they caused.  I've played the victim, and paid the price.  I'm not interested in sugar coating things; working through BPD is hard.  But it can be done, and it's worth it.  I am worth it.  YOU are worth it.

tl;dr:  Own your shit.  Work your shit.  Lose your shit.  Let your shit go.  Sometimes it's the shit that lets the flowers grow.