We Are Borderline
I am Borderline, so I don’t mind speaking for all of us. I know we are all not the same and should never have the same label. We are unique individuals, just like the majority. However, we are all emotional and affected by the small encounters that ravage through the lives we live. It often crosses my mind how my mistakes are never unnoticed, and I am punished repeatedly for them, coincidentally by the same people who have blessed me with this Borderline Personality Disorder. What I can’t understand is how they have found no wrong or cannot admit their wrongdoing in their actions. The latter being the worst of the two.
Meanwhile, I am setting in the background with so many options to have my justice. I cannot find the evil that those same people have made me out to have Disabling me to bring judgment upon them. I have not any actual ideas why other than I don’t like to hurt people, and I never have purposefully done so. In reality, I am the one with the BPD and have made a mess of my life, not theirs. As my so-called family and friends continue to live their lives while I am struggling to put… Well, I am not trying to put back together life but building a life with actual values, purpose, and meaning. A life I can relax and not be so tense all the time. Continuously looking over my shoulders when I decide I want to get out of my house. Will I always fear people and allow them to destroy my soul?
A System That Fails
I cannot explain the heartbreaking sadness that I feel for the ever so many wrongfully diagnosed borderlines. The reality of it is is has been easier to say it’s bipolar or depression than to have to deal with the Borderline themselves. We take more work than your average case of mild depression or a little anxiety. When I received my Borderline Diagnosis, I never heard of the disorder. Why is this? Why is there not more awareness that this debilitating disorder exists? So we can change the outcome of the lives being affected by BPD and the common comorbid diagnoses that go along with it.
As DCFS employees knocked on our door like recurring visitors throughout most of my preteen years. I became suicidal around 12 with thoughts of suicide at just nine- years- old. After having kids of my own and witnessing how small and fragile a nine-year-old can be. Ultimately, I remain in shock and devastation. I was thirteen when physicians wrote a statement that my mother was incompetent to raise her four children. I did not receive this information for nearly two decades. When I was trying to find medical records, I found a facility from my youth that hadn’t shredded or destroyed them. Then I look back in disbelief. My entire life could be different if someone would have listened to that doctor.
A Dream For Borderlines
How would we act and react if the universe gave us a better life, a life without Borderline? What if those of us with the Created Borderline live a life trauma-free? We never suffered in our adolescent years with sexual, physical, and/or mental/ emotional abuse. How about the Borderlines that had different genetic makeup, and they cared less and smile more? What if Borderlines didn’t love so deeply?
I’ll Explain
Loving that deeply should not exist in this world. If you’re wondering why I will tell you why. We fall in love with just about everyone we meet more than twice. After the second encounter, we are already wondering how we can help said person or make them like us. We befriend those who we should run away from. For example, your husband’s ex-girlfriend or your ex-husband’s recent girlfriend. Yes, I am guilty of this and I am a repeat offender. I also want to clear things up a bit, I don’t just mean get along. No, I mean full-blown let them convince me we were besties or I would just do things for them like babysit their children because I do not have the power to say no. My kindness is mistaken for weakness, but it really is my greatest weakness. I didn’t know it is the root of what is killing me inside.
Giving your last ten dollars to your friend because you don’t want to see them go without. Better yet, getting a giant house for you and so-called friends that really are using you and sucking the life out of you. They don’t pay their rent on time and use everything you buy and eat all your food and find yourself behind on your own bills. Then wreaking havoc on your own life cause you’re too afraid to say get the fuck out of my life cause it might hurt their feelings. Even if your feelings get beaten and hurt, because why? Well, that is simple Borderlines do not feel worthy of anything. Those same people or those people with a fresh face we always seem to befriend are the ones who make us believe we are mistakes and we do not matter.
It’s Automatic
When people define us with BPD, they are instantly judging who we are as a whole instead of an individual. There are many innocent Borderlines in jail because of the label Borderline. Ronald Cotton is one of those people. Although he was released in 2010, he still spent 30 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. Many also believe the executions of 1976 had been of persons with personality disorders with criminal records, and many may have been innocent of the crime that put them to death. It is Automatic for those who are hard to handle. I suppose you could say we are problematic and some believe we are untreatable.
Untreatable BPD Is A Lie
Isn’t it funny how Borderlines have many names like liars, manipulative, and the worst worthless or waste of space? How Borderlines are hopeless. Well, those who speak those words are intentional liars. They prove it with scientific facts that Borderlines to not manipulate or lie to hurt others or intend to. “Data shows that the prefrontal cortex shuts down when those with BPD become stressed, therefore preventing them from purposefully lying or manipulating. In simple terms, people with BPD react without forethought or premeditation”. I cite this from This Is Not The End: Conversations On Borderline Personality Disorder. You can find great informative information by reading the book. You can find it on Amazon.
How I Know
I am an example that BPD is treatable. I still have a lot of work to go and I recognize this. The miles stones that I have stomped on are also recognized. My emotions are still all over the map cry all the time. Getting my emotions more like the majority I have excepted may never happen. Being afraid of abandonment, rejection, and failure may fade away one day, but for now, they stick with me like the very bones in my body. Terrified of making friends or allowing anyone to close. I don’t like to leave home afraid of what is coming next. I often feel like my life is a scary movie plot because it doesn’t seem as if this is actual life.
Work has become an issue for me. I once worked sixty-plus hours a week and even multiple jobs. Being a labeled workaholic, actually. Pre-suicide attempt, I was outgoing. Nobody was a stranger to me, actually, I had no identity of myself so I became tiny fragments of the people I surrounded myself with. Still struggling with identity and self-worth, I have reflected on the past ways of my ever so changing Cameleon like behaviors.
How Have I Changed
When my emotions get the best of me I no longer go into self-sabotage. Sometimes I have to eject myself from the current situation. I have to think about my every thought when I am upset so I do not re-act out in my normal Borderline way. My Three greatest fears abandonment, rejection, and failure. Those fears also put me in a situation where I leave the current setting so have time to myself. If I didn’t follow the plan my team and I set, disaster would strike. It is still very hard to keep my mind on what I like to use the phrase “rational Savannah” with my three greatest fears.
Since my BPD diagnosis, I have made many achievements. I am proud of my achievements, but I am more proud of myself. First, I became an advocate for suicide prevention and mental health. I have published two books. Started a YouTube channel, a podcast, and a website. My latest projects are up and coming are Project Fear Box and an online support group.
All People Can Achieve Dreams
Project Fear Box is near and dear to my heart. I am funding and making these on my own. They are boxes of ages 1–19 that you can’t open but a slit big enough for a small piece of paper. On, that piece of paper is a fear one is ready to overcome. The idea is to slip the paper into the box and that fear is locked in the box. Repeat until you are fearless. Then the owner of the box when ready can do what they want with their box. They can keep them, destroy them, or pass them on. The power is theirs, and that is the point. Also, giving a feeling that’s perfect stranger can care, and the world isn’t as evil as they had thought.
Starting a peer-to-peer online support group became more and more appealing to me when realizing we didn’t have any mental health groups in my area. I get more and more excited about this daily. Having many options available to the public for free. The most important feature will be the mental health sponsors. It’s the same concept as AA, but for mental health. This also gives the ability to have one-on-one conversations for a more personable approach. Along, with these projects, I make and sell wooden log signs and crafting my skills. You can Also look for Let’s Talk About It: Word Vomit II At the end of August, beginning of September.
