So I've struggled with BPD for 8 years now and it wasn't until earlier this year that I was diagnosed. This is because for those 8 years, I was without any support at all and I lived those years in complete and utter confusion as to what was wrong with me. I'm still learning more and more about myself and my experience with BPD every day and it feels like torture as it worsens by the year. Every one of those years I've attempted suicide at least once a year.

 When all of this began, I was self-harming as a means of coping with all this destructive, jittery energy that engulfed me, making me act incredibly "crazy". I found that if I didn't cut myself in secret before it got bad, I would continue to act absolutely ballistic and I'd get punished for it. My mom would simply say "don't you think you're overreacting?" and would yell and scream and punish me for the self-harm or if I tried to speak to guidance counselors at school about it. She'd threaten to take me to a mental hospital and make me beg for her not to by saying "No one will want to hire someone who's crazy". She discouraged therapy heavily, out of the fear that I'd talk poorly of her because she treated me with such verbal and mental abuse. So I went all those years without any help and hating myself, wondering why I can't just control myself and my emotions. Wondering why one second I was my usual self, full of love, and then something would set me off and suddenly I'm engulfed in nothing short of absolute hatred and anger - hatred for everyone around me and myself the most of all. 

I'm 20 now and just trying the best I can. I moved away from my mom at 14 to escape her crazy abuse to live with my dad. The BPD symptoms continued when I lived with my dad. My dad and my family with him could see how unbelievably depressed I was, but they're the typical picture perfect family and I was treated like a stain because they simply couldn't understand what I was going through and had zero empathy. They're the type of people who wonder why I can't just "control" myself and they tell me I have no reason to feel the things I feel. They honestly think I'm distant, unloving, and a little bit evil and out of touch. Whenever I would hurt myself, my dad would just yell at me for not taking responsibility and seeking help. I was 16, I had no idea what I was going through or where to even begin to seek help. Explaining this was like talking to a wall. That was when I took to smoking weed heavily, and when they found out, they grew to despise who I was as a person. They outcasted me and made me feel unloved by purposely excluding me from family activities and then shaming me for not being apart of them. 

I moved away at 18 by picking up a job as a caretaker for my best friend's elderly grandmother. As part of the job, I got to live in a small cottage behind their mansion, on the beach. It seemed perfect. But shortly after starting the job, I found myself working for an unreasonable family that treated me like a slave by extorting me and making me work insane hours with insane standards. I was so drained because I never had any time for myself - all my attention and dedication went to the elderly woman I cared for and eventually her daughters and grandchildren. I was cooking meals for the entire family, cleaning up after the entire family with rigorous and ridiculous standards, grocery shopping and running all the errands. Basically I lived their life for them and if I slowed down in the slightest to live for myself I'd get verbally and emotionally manipulated. 

After a long, 12 hour day at work every day, I'd come home to a boyfriend who expected me to cook for him, clean the messes he made while I was at work, do his laundry, pack his lunches, and go and buy all the groceries. He contributed to absolutely nothing and would get mad at me for expecting any help. I made very little money as a caretaker so supporting the two of us off of only my income became difficult, and eventually all my money went to supporting him. I'd buy groceries for us and necessities, go to work, and find that he would eat weeks worth of groceries in a single day and I'd have to go shopping all over again, frequently, nearly all the time for JUST him. He knew I had no money (literally went weeks with $0 to my name) and was starving myself and continued to eat all the food and then ask me what I was going to buy him for dinner. He literally gained 40lbs and I lost 40lbs that year - weighing only 86lbs by the time I broke up with him for cheating. To this day, his family and him think I was toxic and "emotionally manipulative" because my BPD ran absolutely rampant that year.  Whenever I communicated to him my frustrations for not doing anything around the house, spending all his money on gaming computer parts instead of groceries or fixing his car so I'd stop being his chauffeur, he would say "well its your fault for not telling me to take out the trash and you're just crazy!" It was the worst year of my life, I was struggling so much and was unbelievably suicidal. He and I broke up and I moved back in with my parents right after I turned 20. 

I'm still absolutely struggling with the aftermath of all the shit I waded through over the years. I'm trying to find a therapist but it's a struggle amidst this COVID-19 dilemma. I'm really, really hoping someone can load me with some resources or something to help me learn how to cope with the following:

- extreme episodes of rage and self-destruction. sometimes it gets so bad that in the middle of an episode, I'll black out for a bit before I reemerge and people hate me for things I don't remember doing. One time my mom prodded me into an episode by watching me cry and then saying "well why don't you go cut yourself then like you usually do?!" and I yelled back, "FINE I WILL!" I blacked out and the last thing I remember was rushing to the kitchen knives to cut myself. My mom accuses me to this day of trying to stab her and rushing at her with a knife but I highly, highly doubt that. 

- feeling like everyone hates me and despises me for my struggle with mental illness

- feeling completely and utterly alone, as if the world is void of genuine kindness and i will remain misunderstood for the rest of my life

- mental breakdowns. like all the time. like to the point where it interferes with my work and my relationship with my current boyfriend. I feel like it's because I'm still struggling with all the abuse I endured last year - the worst year of my life. I'm finally starting to regain the weight that I lost as a result of depression, poverty, and a shitty ex boyfriend, but my health has been impacted in numerous ways. 

* - how?! how how how?! do I have a healthy relationship?! My current boyfriend has been amazing, cooking me food all the time to help me regain my weight and get my strength back, comforting me when I'm anxious and depressed. But I know he doesn't understand what I'm going through and he's understandably scared of me when I have a breakdown. I hate scaring him. He'll yell at me and say, "what's wrong with you?! what's wrong with you?!" and be aggressive with me because that's how he reacts when he's frightened. In the deeper folds of my brain I understand he's being aggressive because he's worried about me, but the less logical part of my brain is telling me he's an asshole who doesn't love me and wants me to die, and I go ham crazy central. 

-* distorted thoughts. Oh it's awful. This is what drives me mental. They tell me I'm unlovable and everyone would be better off if I was dead - I have nothing but pain to offer them and they actually secretly want me to die . You know, the usual. 


If you've made it this far, you're a trooper and I appreciate you so unbelievably much. From this moment forward we are blood brothers. Godspeed.