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Borderline getting by

Elli-GCasual Contributor05 July 2019, 8:58 am AEST

Borderline getting by

Content note: post includes suicide, self-harm, self-hatred, and probably a few others I haven't thought of. Please take care of yourselves.

Hey all, I figured I'd put together a little bit about me and where I'm at. What brings me here and all that.

I've struggled with my mental health all my life, but at the end of last year things took a turn for the worst and I ended up suicidal and self-harming. I have a lot of hatred for myself, and have a very hard time accepting where I am and who I am. Accepting, and even knowing, really.

I started studying again last year after a few years away, and I found something I love more than I even thought I could love something. But that brings with it fear of failing at it, and a sense of not being good enough. Which is difficult, and can make me feel hopeless; like I will never succeed at this thing that I love so much.

I also started seeing a psychologist for the first time last year. Initially I just wanted to give up some old habits that weren't serving me too great, but it turned out that those habits were actually how I coped with anxiety about my situation in life. That anxiety turned out to be much stronger than I thought it was, and I started having weekends where I couldn't get out of bed.

Fast forward to this year, and an incident at work saw me present to the emergency department with suicidal ideation, through which I met the community mental health team in my area. And it was they who suggested I might have BPD. The psychiatrist I saw didn't give me an official diagnosis, but aparently behind the scenes he talked with the mental health nurse and that was the conclusion; emotional dysregulation with BPD/Cluster B personality disorder. They told me to look for DBT practitioners, and I have been seeing a new psychologist since then.

So that's where I'm at. Trying to understand where I'm at, and what's brought me here, but also trying to get an idea of where I might go from here. What is possible for me, and what does "healing" and "recovery" look like? I think I'm mostly out of the woods in terms of being a danger to myself, but I still have incredible mood swings going from down and hopeless to happy and cheerful in the blink of an eye. I'm not entirely sure about my psychologist at this point, still getting to know him and understand what he sees for my journey, and I kind of feel like I'm stumbling around hoping to stumble into some healing.

Thanks for reading this far, I know it's a lot. I look forward to being a part of the discussion here, especially hearing how everyone deals with MI and maybe getting some ideas for stuff to try. See you all soon.

3 replies

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In response to: Borderline getting by

TeejSenior Contributor05 July 2019, 10:50 am AEST

Re: Borderline getting by

Hi @Elli-G 👋🏻

I resonated lots with your post. It sounds like life has been rough lately.

I usually don’t like giving advice here to new members but your post was so similar to some of my experiences. I am not a medical professional or expert. However, I have been in the mental health system for nearly 8 years now and a member here on the SANE forum for 3 years and so have some ideas and experiences to share that may or may not be helpful to you.

I’m wondering if you are seeing the psychologist through community mental health? It’s a bit tricky if you are because it’s hard to change. If you have no choice about which psychologist you see then I think it’s important you work out what you need from them ie. what is affecting you the most and stay working on those things. There are some helpful articles on the sane blog (one about working with a therapist) and fact sheets about lots of things. Also a google search about working with therapist or how to get the most out of therapy helps.....and of course others members ideas here.

As as far as DBT goes I think it helps if you go in with an open mind if you do it. I’ve done it twice. I’ve watched as it’s become life changing for some but not everyone. For me personally I think I had too many expectations that it would fix everything. I’m really glad I’ve done it and use some of the skills frequently but it hasn’t been life changing for me yet. It’s a good life skills course.

I have more to write but will leave it here for now (brain fade 😳). I hope you find the forum helpful and supportive. Will come back with more thoughts later.

In response to: Borderline getting by

Gazza75Senior Contributor06 July 2019, 11:38 am AEST

Re: Borderline getting by

Hi @Elli-G , thanks for sharing your story with us. It sounds like you have come a long way already and you should be proud of that. I was diagnosed with bipolar 2 over a year ago after a pretty severe manic episode. I was hospitalised for a few weeks, but, have been pretty stable since.

Maybe the mood swings are what you need to try and get on top of or understand the most. Perhaps a change of pyschologist will help with that. It sounds like your doing what you can to help yourself and I hope that others here can give you comfort and some ideas if possible. I know the feeling of stumbling around, doing a fair bit of that myself right now.

The main things I try and do is to eat and sleep well and exercise as much as I can. I really fell of the rails from not sleeping enough.

Take care.

In response to: Borderline getting by

Ali11Senior Contributor06 July 2019, 1:19 pm AEST

Re: Borderline getting by

Thanks for sharing your story @Elli-G, it sounds like you've had a tough and complicated time.It will take time to trust your new psychologist, in the meantime, do you have a good support network that you can surround yourself with?

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