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Open Letter To All With Bpd

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Theresasjourney

Be Still And Know That He Is God!
Jul 22, 2005
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If you have been diagnosed as having Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) there are few things you need to remember.
Firstly, the traits and or characteristics that you have that have caused a mental health professional to diagnose you with BPD are also traits or characteristics found in the general population. Therefore you are not 'weird' or a 'freak' or 'hopeless' or any of those negative labels. What having BPD means is that you are not coping as well with life as perhaps it would serve you to.
I maintain that BPD is primarily a relational disorder. What you need to do is learn how to relate to yourself - to find your true self and give it more credence than your false self.
Borderlines are not crazy. They react and often act very intensely to things for many different reasons. This does not mean that you are unlovable. But it is the degree to which you can learn to relate in the middle, or grey of life, between the black and the white and the degree to which you can be responsible for yourself and learn to relate to others consistently that will decide whether or not you have healthy and functioning relationships.
Secondly, BPD is quite a catch-all label, sadly, with quite a negative stigma attached to it. Do not be ashamed to be who you are or to have BPD. Remember having BPD is one thing and being borderline is another. BPD does not have to become the defining foundation of who you are, unless you let it.
Those who are diagnosed with BPD are usually in a lot of pain. Often this pain is denied and buried deep inside. It may come out through impulsive sex, stealing, over-eating, "acting out", rages, uncontrolled outbursts of anger, demanding, co-dependent helplessness that alternates with dominating and demanding intimidation of others, all in an effort to try and feel safe and to protect yourself.
Experts still argue about how much of BPD is biological versus environmental etc, the truth is you still have to get on with your life now. Sometimes meds can help. But no amount of or combination of meds is going to eliminate the need for you to work hard on yourself in therapy.
Thirdly, while those with BPD continue to get a bad reputation with professionals and people in their lives the fact is that not all borderlines are the same. Yes, many characteristics and issues can be the same but each person brings to those and to BPD their own unique individuality. You can choose who you want to be and fit that with your authentic self and learn to be consistent.
Having Borderline Personality Disorder is one of life's most profound challenges. It does not have to be a life sentence. I have recovered from it. Others have recovered and/ or are recovering from it. So too, can you.
Recovering from BPD is process. "Being borderline" isn't a crime. It is time that more people pay attention more to the agonizing pain underneath the actions of those with BPD and pay a little less attention to the way in which any given person with BPD chooses to try to survive and thus illustrates the traits of BPD.
Be clear on one thing, if you continue to treat people poorly, manipulate them or abuse them they will leave you. This is the primary way that borderlines continue to play out their own abandonment wounds through others.
You need to define yourself from the inside out and stop attempting to define yourself through others. Others can't be you anymore than you can be them. Learn to be the YOU that you have always been meant to be. You are a world waiting to be born.
Working toward recovery requires that each person with BPD learns how to take personal responsibility for himself or herself. You must learn to take care of yourself, learn to be alone and no that you can validate yourself.
Healing really is a choice. You must make that choice. If you don't make a choice to get well you won't get well.
Know that you are not alone. You are NOT alone. Many people know your pain from the inside and the others side. People do care. Be careful not to ask too much from anyone and remember even when you feel very young the world expects you to move toward "acting your age". Stop believing that you have to BE what you feel. You can be YOU no matter what you feel. You can learn to be age-appropriate even while experiences very young hurt once you validate yourself and you pain. Stop abandoning your inner-child. He/she needs you more than you think you need anyone else.
Much about being borderline has to do with various levels or amounts of dissociation. You must integrate your reality and validate it yourself in order to grow comfortable with it and in order to be able to trust it and feel safe with it.
In my own experience, when I was borderline, there was so much about me that was FAKE. Then, as I healed and unwound the ways in which my false self manifested itself into the world though my relationships; what was real -- my authentic self, at times would feel FAKE. There is a sense that the more real you are the faker you are and that in the throes of BPD, and of being fake you are actually REAL. Do not let this dilemma keep you stuck. The saying, "fake it ‘til you make" applies here. Borderlines in recovery need to walk the walk of being competent before they can ever believe in themselves as being competent. There is nothing dishonest about that. Doing is seeing and seeing is believing. It is also only through new choices acted upon that you will begin to see the kind of differences that can re-build your trust and belief in your true self.
I want to say to you that you can make it. You must choose to live long enough to make it. Things can and will change. Living on the other side of BPD -- in the "average" and so called "sane" world does not mean that life doesn't present challenges, pain and disappointment. The difference between "being borderline" and NOT has all to so with choices and cognitions. Those with BPD need to learn how to undo the illogical thoughts and the magical thoughts that get so easily confused with "reality".
Be true to yourself and to your process. Believe in yourself, your ability and your worth. Refuse to accept the stigma of BPD. It does not belong to you. It belongs to those who ascribe to it for their own reasons.
Having Borderline Personality Disorder does not make you LESS of anything. You are still human. You feel. You need. You ache. You want. Perhaps even more than the average, you feel, need, ache and want -- but that's okay. Those with BPD are also usually keenly aware of others' feelings and very compassionate (whether they can express that or not) and those with BPD are also usually very intelligent. Let your smarts work for you.
If you get nothing else from this letter from me, a recovered borderline, to you, a borderline, please know that you are not a MONSTER! You are NOT a BAD person. You do not deserve the stigma of unskilled professionals. You do not deserve to be categorized as "less than" or "incapable". You have a life script, like anyone else and you really can change it mid-stream. You really can heal. You really can feel all of your pain, grieve your losses and heal your original abandonment wound without it killing you. YOU, my BPD, friend, ARE A SURVIVOR! Don't let anyone else tell you anything else.
You deserve to live -- out live your pain and your angst to find peace, yes peace, you can and you will find peace!
You deserve to be heard, validated and believed when you tell and live your truth. Be kind and gentle to yourself. You do not have to keep hurting yourself to be heard, believed or for others to know that you are indeed in pain.
When the night creeps in so hollow and you feel like you are at the end of your rope know that you can fill what is hollow or empty in your night and yourself. When you get to the end of rope, take a deep breath, tie a knot at the end of the rope, and hold on just a little bit longer. Pain comes to pass. Panic comes to pass. All things come to pass. You are precious and you need to give your gifts firstly to yourself and secondly to the world.
If you continue to make the same choices you will continue to get the same results. Learn that a healthy amount of risk is needed to make the new choices that will give you the new and different results you need to break through the patterns that may be keeping you stuck.
If you don't know who you are -- yet and you don't feel able to love and or accept yourself just yet know that I offer you both, love and acceptance, and that it is in my writing and my work to educate all with BPD and others about BPD that I reach out to you here and now and say to you -- don't succumb to this and know that whatever maladaptive coping mechanisms you employ (defense mechanisms that you currently need) like self-harm, over-eating, impulsive sex, stealing and so forth are the best that you can do right now. When you know better, YOU WILL DO BETTER and until then know that I am one person in this world who REALLY DOES UNDERSTAND -- YOU ARE NOT ALONE!
If you don't have a competent therapist -- find one. Don't settle for anything less. If you are or feel suicidal call your therapist or local hospital for help. I know all-too-well how futile reaching out for help can FEEL. Things often aren't truly as they FEEL. Don't let your feelings stop you from what your head tells you that you need. The truth is it is YOUR RIGHT to be helped and one time when you reach out, no one knows which time it will be, you will find that hand that you've so longed to wrap yours into and hold on to as it holds yours -- it will appear -- and the beginning of your bridge back will have formed. Treasure that connection when it is offered to you. It can mean the difference between life and death.
I kept reaching out until the first time, of many to come, that my reaching out met with that special someone (therapist initially) that I had to meet, from where I stood, and what I understood, (and mainly all that I didn’t know and understand and needed to learn and find out about) in the middle of impossibility. Embrace this for yourself now (if you haven’t already) in order to begin your journey toward your authentic self and mental health.


 
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