The following quotes from the third story of recovery from BPD in Beyond Borderline : ‘ I Am Not Just a Box in the DSM-5’ really spoke to me. It’s full of truth and hope for recovery. Facing our darkness is the way we move towards the light. It is something I so firmly believe.
Mostly I was hell bent on protecting my own misery, because it was the only dependable companion I had ever known. Even if I think back to my “happy” high school years, that self critical, loathing voice was my closest companion.
Driving a wedge between my true self and this negative, hate-fuelled version of myself was a truly Herculean effort. It took years to put enough space between the two selves for me to even begin to reecognize the existence of this voice. It took months of true ambivlence about life to wake up one morning and look at myself in the mirror and see the utter defeat and sadness that had taken over. It took another round of treatment in an alcohol facility to grasp some whisp of hope that if I could cut the shit, stop the self destruction, I could have a better life. My true self deserves better. The little girl who danced around effortlessly in pink and purple sparkles deserves better. The girl who talked to strangers, just because, deserves better…..
I honestly dont know how I survived all the torture I put my body through. I don’t know that I believe in a ‘higher power’. I don’t believe in fate…. But there has to be some greater purpose to my life that what it has been so far. And in my darkest of days – of which there have been many – I have always found solace in the small ways of making life better for other people. So if my story, if my pain, can help save someone else from making the same mistakes I have, then I guess it was worth it.
Today I woke up energetic. Today I did not plot how I could become invisible. I can once again look people in the eye. Don’t get me wrong – I still have my moments of despair. …. But I can look in the mirror and see beyond all the psychiatric and other sorts of labels that people have ascribed to me. Yes I may be a borderline, raging alcoholic, depressive, former anorexic patient. But I am also a friend. A daughter. A sister. A niece. A cousin. A soon to be teacher. A life long student. I am becoming dependable. I am ambitious I am intelligent. I am a woman.
My life and path followed a dark, twisted road. But each wrong turn has made me stronger. At the end of the day I am who I am today because of what I lived through. Some day I will be able to look at it all and be grateful….When that day comes I may just surprise myself and be happy to be me, in spite of any box the world tries to put me in.
Emerging From The Dark Night 
So lovely.
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🙂 There is hope
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I like this! 👍🏼❤️. I’m learning a *lot* about the reality (beyond the medical model stereotypes) from BPD from you. Thank you for that 💓💓
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Its such a maligned and misunderstood condition. I dont think you get to be so called BPD without first being Highly Sensitive and deeply intuitive too. 🙂
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I think you’re right 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼. Honestly I’ve started delving into it, from a neurological perspective, seeking to understand 💞. I think what may be going on is a heightened fight-or-flight stress response, that would absolutely be predated by high sensitivity and high intuition. And a very efficient nervous system, much higher developed than that of the average population. But that’s just my theory, and I’m an outsider in that I don’t experience BPD firsthand, that I know of 😊. What say you? 💜💙
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Totally agree. I think a hyped up nervous system that is never lovingly soothed or de escalated lies at the root of it. Its a failure of maternal holding which affects transmitters and chemicals as well as neurobiology but it can be over come later with empathy. There is research now to show that.
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Plus we are all born intuitive and absorbent of energies that surround us. This book by Mark Wolynn I’ve been reading goes into the epigentics of trauma carried from a parent even in untero.
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