Borderline Personality Disorder

BPD is different for everyone but for most it's the inability to control moods and emotions, experiencing rapid mood swings often on a daily basis - angry/erratic/ impulsive behaviour that can sometimes lead to self harm, putting oneself in dangerous or stupid situations, anxiety, self medication, fear of abandonment and bouts of extreme emptiness and depression.

I've had BPD since I was a teenager and it's something I've continued to struggle with most of what I mentioned above throughout my adult life.  I guess the best way to describe how I live is like I'm on a see-saw, one second I'm up the next I'm down, and it's extremely hard to balance in the middle.   There is so much stigma attached to this mental illness (name doesn't help much either) that I often find myself reluctant to talk about it to people I don't know. People often brand it as a women's illness which is a load of rubbish.

One major point about this disorder is that people often would never guess that you struggle with this stuff - people comment on me being quite outspoken and dramatic and have a tendency to say what I think all the time which on one hand is obviously part of my my personality, but is something that ties in with this also and can sometimes prove to be problematic.  At least I can say I'm not boring I guess! 

Some of these points might sound fairly common/normal to a lot of people, but this is about an extreme level of these feelings/emotions in which the slightest problem or thought can escalate into something quite irrational and become a massive issue.  I have had occasions where I will completely break down and end up hurting myself and unfortunately, my partner/family usually experiences the brunt of these episodes, that can be about something as trivial as an egg being cooked the wrong way.  It's not nice for anyone involved, but with a combination of therapy and medication I have managed to control my emotions to a point where I can live a fairly 'normal' life.

The point of writing this blog is no more than to collate and share my experiences of going through pregnancy and becoming a mother with a mental illness. I am 30 years old and I live in Brighton with my boyfriend Henry and our cats Sissy Spacek and Jeffrey.  I was studying Nursing until I became pregnant, and I work part-time in a pub. I like everything horror related, painting, collecting kitsch junk and making spooky music.  I don't like eels or milk.