Hello and thanks for coming back to read part 2! I hope part 1 helped the people that needed it. For this part of raising awareness for BPD, someone has kindly sent in their BPD story to share with you all. She has asked to stay anonymous and I respect her wishes! All I can tell you about her is that she is a compassionate, kind and strong woman and also a mother. For the purpose of this blog post, I will be calling this lady the warrior.
A warriors story:
(Please note that some areas have been paraphrased.)
The warrior has survived many hardships in her life. She struggles with self destructive behaviour such as alcohol abuse, drug abuse and risky sexual behaviours. She is also highly impulsive and will continuously put herself in dangerous situations such as putting herself at risk of being sexually assaulted, taking a lot of drinks because she had been drinking and even entering into toxic relationships on impulse. These relationships often landed her in impossible situations that she found hard to escape from. She believed the reason she couldn’t leave these relationships is because she had a lack of boundaries and felt too weak to leave. The excessive drinking has unfortunately led to a condition named alcohol dependency disorder and this is where your body needs alcohol daily because it has got used to it. She also no longer gets drunk from it and usually manages the condition with a few sips of wine a day.
Having her son Caleb is what calmed her symptoms down. Her symptoms were at their worst between age 13 and 38 and that was due to her son coming into her life and giving her a new reason to keep going. Although things have settled down with addiction, it is a daily battle to not drink or take drugs. It never truly leaves you and it takes a lot to not give into temptation. With her constant battle with BPD, she has no known coping mechanisms. The only way she copes is by avoiding her triggers by not being around people who take drugs, having a stable home and concentrating on raising her son. Also, she stated that accepting things she cannot change and seeing the positives in them helps. She used to dwell on not having many friends and it used to get her down but she has now accepted that having a small circle of friends who love and understand her is much better. She has to stay on medication to remain stable and feel well enough to cope with daily life. She is on antidepressants and mood stabilisers. On the medication, she only has a severe mood swing once every 3 months but it usually has to be triggered.
Conclusion:
I want to personally thank the warrior for putting her story forward to help others. Perhaps some BPD sufferers that read her story can relate. I certainly did. It was very brave of her to tell her story to try and help others. I cannot personally relate to alcohol and drug abuse, but we all have our addictions however small they are. If anyone else would like to put their story forward, then please contact me and let me know! Whether it's BPD, anxiety, depression or anything. Sometimes, sharing your story helps to reflect on how far you've come and helps you to know the next steps in your healing process. I hope that the people that read my mental health blog find new coping mechanisms and know that they are never alone in their suffering. I would also like to add that my inbox on my social accounts are always open to people that are suffering if you ever need someone to talk to. When you first message me, please include the word 'stigma' in your message so I know what you are messaging for as most of the time, I get hundreds of messages. Or simply say you have seen my mental health blogs and wish to talk. I am happy to talk to anyone about anything mental health related, talking about it always helps!
Thank you all for reading and I am sorry for the wait for this one! Life has been so busy lately. But my next blog post will be for the guys! So attention all men, the next one is for you!
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