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I'm a recovered borderline

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I'm a recovered borderline

Postby Ajaam » Mon Oct 20, 2014 10:00 pm

I hope that this is a right place for me and that I'm welcome here. First I would like to say that English is not my first language so I would like to excuse myself for all the spelling errors I may make.

Why I'm here? I haven't 'google'd' or read about BPD for a long time because it isn't an issue for me anymore. Just recently after I did sore reading about the subject I stumbled on this forum and after reading how relatives of BPD sufferer's are writing here I just... how to say it... It made me think how I have hurt my loved ones in the past, how I have manipulated them and how familiar many of these topics seem to me. I'm happy to be finally free of these obsessive thoughts and actions (thanks to both my strong toughts and medication, therapy didn't help me) but some of it is going to stay with me forever. You see a movie where a person is obviously portrayed to have BPD and it triggers so many memories of things you did. Things you should be ashamed of but instead of shame you feel pride because these things weren't small, they were clever and you are proud of your former ability of manipulation. And you think nostalgically about how many times you have changed personaes, how many lies have you told that have never been caught.

I think that I might also had antisocial personality disorder but it was never officially diagnosed so...



I hope I have been cured but I can never be sure because to be honest I don't know what doesn't it bean to be 'normal'. Have I ever been it? When I was a child I was very moody, very spoiled. I came from a family where my dad was always away, he had affairs, my parents had fights. My mother had drinking problem but on the outside everything was perfect because we had to be the wonderful intellectual family where I was the only child and a little princess. As a teen I was very rebellious. I looked way older than I was (thanks to make-up, hair-dye, and parents who favored loose parenting). I forged IDs when I was 12 a went to nightclubs, run away from home several times, got drunk, smoke, stole from shops just for fun, lost my virginity at the age of 13 and had had already 6 sex partners when I was 16 (including an abortion at 14). For my parents friend I still played the role of the model daughter. I I could say I was still an intelligent girl - I read a lot. I started reading at the age of 3 and even in my teens when I was partying and drinking I was reading way more than the most studious kids in my class. This is also why I never failed at school, though my results were also not brilliant.

And then came the time to go to university. I moved in with a tattooist boyfriend of mine (made his life hell ofcourse) and couldn't attend uni at all because when I was still living at home where was still a tiny bit discipline, but now it was all gone. I changed boyfriends (even girlfriends, I had a phase of questioning my sexual orientation) a lot and also changed universities, faculties and it all recurred and recurred. I was always accepted to university with acclaim as my tests I had to take to get in were always brilliant and wrote very good essays but I couldn't wake up in the morning to go there. I couldn't hold up jobs either.

I also couldn't hold up friendships but what's here to write about that? You all know about it probably.

I met my husband when I was 27, it was 3 years ago. He's 3 years younger than I am. Sweet, funny and a bit childish. Many women would say that he makes a great boyfriend but not a perfect husband but I knew that I wanted him and even more I wanted him to want me. I really knew that I wanted us to get married. He had never ever thought about getting married but I kind a put the thought into his head (you probably know how it works, you know?) and we got married only 5 months after we first met. The first months were of course a wonderful bliss but after that came the nightmare. I was not used to his ways. He wanted to continue his single guys life, go out and drink and have fun and meet his friends and I couldn't stand it. Of course I had pretended liking it at the beginning but I JUST COULDN'T TAKE IT anymore. I assaulted him physically a few times and he almost left me. I broke glasses at our home. I threatened to leave him. I threw tantrums. But somehow he always stayed. Even when he said he was going to leave. Or when I told him I was going to throw him out. And he changed a lot. He said he wanted to be an adult and not a little boy, he wanted to take care of us because he felt responsible for the first time in his life. And I started to feel guilt because I had been such a bitch. I had been bitch so many times in my life before too but previously I'd only felt pride or dignity. Now I felt sick. It was the first time I was fully honest with my phychiatrist (or to say almost because there are things I can never be honest about, to anybody) and I started doing research about different methods of therapies and cures. So far I'd been in therapy and changed therapeuts many times and taken Effexor for many years. But I discovered that in the USA some people have had good results with Topamax. It had some serious side effects but I thought that it was wort the rist.

So I talked with my shrink and she said that I was her first patient and to my surprise even the first patient in our country who was going to try Topamax for BPD but she was ging to give it a go. The first weeks were horrible. I started at 25 mg and I had to go to 200 mg in 2 months. I had needles in my feet and in the palms of my hands. My reaction because slow and I couldn't find right words. But I told my husband, mom and my boss what was going on and so they were prepared. After about 4 months I had no more side effects at all and I haven't had any more since then. I've been taking Topamax for 2 years now. I can't say that I'm less emotional that a normal personal because I don't really know how emotional a normal personal should be. I have cried but I cry very rarely. I don't because upset anymore when my husband goes out with his friends and I don't plot revenge and I don't suspect anything. Btw, he doesn't go out as often as he used to, probably also because now he is more mature. I'm very responsible at my job and everybody has noticed it. All my friends and also my mom have told me that I've changed a lot. And especially, my husband is very happy with my change.

I don't want to say that Topamax is a thing for everyone. I just want to say that there might be hope for everyone and the most important thing is to want to change. I don't think I would have been able to do it just with a drug and without my will. Maybe you can do it with therapy, maybe with ADs, maybe with something else but you just try. Because it's not just that you are having had time and you are suffering (and I know how much you suffer because I've suffered it all, I have scars and suicide attemts and mental asylum times to prove it) but it's that you hurt people around you. Your words, your actions, even things you don't do may hurt them. I remember hurting others just to hurt myself. Because I wanted to feel bad because I was a bad person. But you deserve happiness :)
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Re: I'm a recovered borderline

Postby Im-pure » Tue Oct 21, 2014 7:23 pm

Hi :) thanks for sharing your story and good to hear medication was something you found helpful. I believe that as a person grows older they can also become more skilled in finding good coping mechanisms and maybe change perspective, too.
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