Borderline Personality Disorder

Hi there all,

I need some advice, thats why I am here...here is my story.

I am a 19yr old female, and I have recently been diagnosed with BPD (about 2 weeks ago). It all started about 5 weeks ago, one night I was fine, bit blue but using 'normal' coping mechanisms like watching a movie, and going to bed. The next night I was feeling really 'bad' not in control of everything that was welling up inside me, I tried all my 'normal' ways to cope, they just simply did nothing to relieve the turmoil inside, so I turned to a razor and a bottle of pills. The next morning I realised that this could only be the very begining of a downward spiral, one that i didn't want. So I contacted my local mental health team and made a self refferal. unfortunetly things went down very quickly and the next week I self admitted to an emergency department after a massive overdoes and major lacerations to my body. I was of course datained and put under the care of the team at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. I spent a week there with the outcome of nothing, I was going through a phase they said. So I tried to get on with my life, uni, family that kinda thing. Still cutting the whole time. I moved out of the family home and into a shelter for a while, but things were just getting worse. I was having these 'episodes' of depressed mood and suicidal thoughts and actions daily, its like the floor just falls out from under my feel and no matter what I do I cannot pull myself out of it, that is until I finally am so emotionally exhausted i collaps into sleep or it just switches off. During this time I was assessed by ACIS, rated not as a priority and left pretty much to my own devices. About 2 weeks ago I was admitted to hospital for a suicide attempt, detained and diagnosed with bpd. I do have some old but very upsetting childhood trauma that I am working through with a councellor and a psycologist. And I have been put on 200mg of sodium valporate by my doctor. It's just not doing anything, I am having these 'episode' pretty much daily, I hate that I have cut and I am trying to stop by doing other things like holding ice or flicking a rubber band or peeling glue off my hands. All the doctors tell me to call ACIS emergency helpline if I get bad and last night I did, I had harmed myself really bad (making me feel worse) and I was just sinking deeper and deeper so I rang them, I got a mental health nurse who pretty much yelled at me and told me off and threatend to send the police out, I am not a very self assured person at the best of times and I just couldn't hold my own so I just listened and cried.

So that comes to my question, I feel that I have exhausted all the avenues of support and help, and things are just as bad as they were when this all started 5 weeks ago. I am intelligent, well adjusted person 90% of the time and this makes me want to seek out help and not let myself give up but I just can't see any other option.

Thanks

((HUGS))

 to me it sounds like you are in a crissis, and you need to focus on getting help for the short to medium term. Meds take time to get the full effect, (6 weeks plus), it takes time to find the ones that work for you. You need to stay safe, and therapy is great.

Is this your first bout with self-harm? To be diagnosed you need to have lived with these symptoms for 6 months or more, do you feel this is the right diagnosis?

Stephanie

The Basics of Recovery
1. Remaining hopeful and envisioning a future growth and development. 2. Having the right to choose – without it there is no motivation 3. Knowing that you are not a label or a diagnosis. You are a living, changing person, not an object. 4. Speaking for ourselves. When others speak for us we are devalued.	I don’t like negativity. I don’t like seeing myself as a victim. And I don’t believe misery loves company. I’m recovering from my illness because I know I don’t have to be this way. AMI-Québec member
5. Establishing our own homes in the community where we can choose our roommate or live alone. 6. Acknowledging the need for friends, peers and intimate relationships. 7. Realizing that peer support and self-help groups keep us grounded and connected. 8. Protecting and nurturing the spirit within us. 9. Knowing all things are possible and that to be alive is a miracle

Recovery, as we currently understand it, means growing beyond the catastrophe of mental illness and developing new meaning and purpose in one’s life. It means taking charge of one’s life even if one cannot take complete charge of one’s symptoms…. Recovery is a deeply personal, unique process of changing one’s attitude, values, goals and skills and or/roles.