Feeling so lost, confused, scared and desperate...HELP!

Hi, I'm Deb and have just been shown this forum and wondered if there is any advise out there.

I just don't know what to do, on one thought I feel that there is just no hope, that there is only one answer, suicide! But then I think about my GF.. Well ex GF and I think, no I love her, and I know that she still loves me, but at the moment says she cant do anymore than friends.

I've had mental health issues for a long time, as far back as I can remember. Have self harmed since I was 14 and had several suicide attempts over the years, but no one has ever really bothered to look in to why, its always just been depression, gone from one anti-depressant to the next, increasing the dose time after time. But always just sent home with no help and to deal with all on my own. I started to see a psychologist in Jan 09 but stopped in the may due to moving away from the area to be with my GF. I have been waiting to see someone since then. My Civil Partnership ended early 09, as my wife couldnt deal with my self harming, and kicked me out. Strangely it was one of the best things to happen, My friend at the time and I got to know each other better, and fell in love, with her knowing all my history, the suicide attempts etc. We ended up becoming more, even talked about moving in together.
The moving in kept getting delayed, as she felt me kept having issues, and would it work, I was feeling, we wouldnt be having these issues if we were together. Most of the time, things were caused because I was going off home to bed alone, and couldnt cope with not being with her, seeing her. I didnt really understand it, just knew I hated being apart. She even admitted, when we are together, things are perfect, are amazing, but when we are apart things can be so bad. I hated being apart.

Six weeks ago things went totally out of control, I hurt my GF (mentally, I couldn't physically) while she had family down staying with her, it ended with me in A&E after taking an OD and Self Harming. My GF being the one to find me, walking in thinking I was dead, dying.
Since then she called things off, and its gone from friends to more to nothing to more to friends to nothing to friends. Its been really hard and confusing. The community mental health team were bought in to help, but I didnt get any, didnt see anyone, until a few days ago. The CPN was talking to my GF constantly telling her to just back away from me, that I was just being a brat, ignore me and my behaviour would stop, every time they spoke the CPN would tell her to just ditch me and even asked her if she wanted to remove her name off as Next of Kin. My GF said no, she wants to still be there, but Im guessing is really confused what to do as the professionals should know best.

I'd never been assessed for anything, never even had it mentioned to me that it could be anything other than depression, even though I never really felt 'depressed'. However my GF and I had talked about it, as she thought I may be Bipola. We looked in to things more and it actually looked like I actually was more BPD. Two days ago, after just feeling at the end, that there was no hope, I wrote a to do list before I committed suicide, packing my flat up etc so no one else had to do it, leaving things, eg car to people, that sort of thing, someone came around to assess me with the view to admitting me to hospital. Upon talking to me, they actually agreed that it did appear that I had BPD, that admitting me would actually do me more harm than good but felt I really needed to get a diagnosis ASAP so I can start getting the correct treatment. So now at the age of 37, Im finally getting the assessment, I should have had probably 20 years ago.

Things with my GF, friend what ever we happen to be today, aren't great, very muddled, we both want the same thing I feel, but then she is just to scared, doesn't know what to do. I've asked if we can try things with being together, so I can show her how different things would be, but she is just to scared to try it, risk it, where I just feel in my heart, how different it would be as my problems were always about not seeing her, about going to bed alone, wondering if she still loved me, every time I went to bed. She feels like she has lost her best friend, but Ive not gone anywhere, I'm still here, still want her more than anything, but she is to confused, to scared, and still hurting, from finding me at deaths door. I do understand that, but all I want to do is be there for her, look after her, and show her how different it would be, if we were together.

She is reading up as much as she can on BPD, in fact it was her who found this site and pointed me to it. But I keep reading stories of how people have had to end relationships, leave them etc, and its not what I want to hear, to read. I know things can work between us, I just know it, when we are together, it is amazing, we are both so happy, we get told it all the time that you can see the love in our eyes when we look at each other, its only when we are apart that its not... so why cant we give it a try being together.

She has told me, she is here for me as friends, and thats the best I can hope for at the moment, it hurts, but I rather that than nothing. Do you think I should ask her to come along to my assessment with me, so that she can ask questions etc, can see how, where she can get help to deal with it too?

I'm just so scared of loosing the love of my life, I've never felt about anyone, like I do for with her. She is my life.

But as I said at the beginning, I feel with out her there is no point. I don't want to feel like that, I dont want it to sound like this is blackmail etc, but its just how it is. I have no one else, only her. No immediately family im in contact with, no real friends, just people I know. With out her, I dont see any hope.

I really am struggling with the two sides of my brain fighting each other, what can I do?

Hi Deb,
I'm also 37 and only got my diagnosis in Feb. I also has a suicide attempt then when I realised my wife was seeing somebody else. All the feelings of "I can't live without" that you mentioned I can really remember very clearly.

I was wrong though. I don't think I have ever hurt so much as during that period, but I have recently met someone else myself who makes me extremely happy. However I am learning not to be reliant on her. I want it to be a healthy relationship where we add to each others lives, but do not actually need each other - just want each other.

I learned one key thing that got me to this point, through the hell. I learned that no emotions last for long periods at a time. Thus, when the pain feels too much, and I am tempted to self harm or worse, then I just have to remember two things....
1/ The feeling is not going to last... eventually it will go.
2/ The impulse to hurt myself is just me wanting to escape the feeling. If I actually did kill myself it would be an accident, because once the feeling has passed, then so will the desire to escape. All I have to do is wait. Hard but easier than the feelings after self harming or waking up in hospital!

I vividly remember forcing myself to get into bed and just lie there one night... just to keep myself safe until the feeling passed. And it did.

Whether your girlfriend goes or stays, you need to find the ability to make yourself happy. In my case that meant separating out my BPD behaviour from who I am at my core. I don't like my BPD behaviour... it causes me hurt and problems. I do like who I am apart from that.... and I can learn to modify my BPD behaviours over time.

I was feeling, we wouldnt be having these issues if we were together. Most of the time, things were caused because I was going off home to bed alone, and couldnt cope with not being with her, seeing her. I didnt really understand it, just knew I hated being apart.

Oh the fear of abandonment. It's a tough one! I seem to have had some success with it over the last two months though. When I first started dating the girl I met recently, I would cry when we were apart. I didn't know why for a while. Then I realised it was fear of abandonment. Taking things at a normal, (way slower than I wanted) pace has been tough. My norm is to create as intense a relationship as I can, as quickly as I can... just to get over those fears of abandonment (not that I realised that I was even doing it!). I have made a point of doing the opposite this time. It's not easy. It has hurt a fair bit. But it is getting easier, and it is the best start to a relationship I have ever had. Why put myself through it? Because If I create something that is very intense very quickly then I will not trust it down the road. I will feel that it is a sham that I created.

Right, that's enough of my rambling on!
Ian.

I have no answers. I have no game. I am staying away. For good, for now. The last person that approached me turned out to be a stripper who wanted me to visit her in her club so she could squeeze me for some money. Real classy. Exactly what a man with borderline personality disorder needs, a stripper courting her services. At least she was honest in our initial conversation, she said she was going to school to get her marketing degree.

The separation/abandonment thing, apparently, I have nothing to worry about. At least, that is what my friends tell me. My friends tell me there's nothing wrong with me. That I'm fine, that everything is peachy with me, that I am just unhappy. And while I am on mood-stabilizers, I still have triggers, some stronger than others. I still see toxic people, toxic situations, and I try to avoid them. One of which is relationships, which I still can't do. (You borderlines that talk about being in intimate relationships sound like you are on Neptune to me, I must say, so I must really be a freak of a borderline to the rest of you.) I love too much, too intensely, the emotions I cannot handle, overload. If anyone shows interest in me and I actually like them and it falls apart, mood-stabilizers or not, it's the final straw...I will most likely disappear and never return, no one will ever hear from me again. I am at that point. My mind cannot handle the onslaught of losing someone like that. Not again. I am at that point. That accumulated pain has grown into a "giant psychic squid".

So, not the best advice. But, maybe, sound advice. Stay away, maybe. My dialectical behavior therapy begins this month. So there is hope for me. Possibly. Until then, I'm just chillin'. Giving money to a stripper. Just not to that one stripper that tried to squeeze me, she's "meh" to me. I found the gray. Not Sasha Gray, the porn star. The gray area. When I realized what was up and that marketing degree-seeking stripper wanted me there to sap my funds, I immediately started looking around the club and found a different stripper, one I liked, one that was responsive to me, one that made amazing eye-contact with me, and talked to me...we had an amazing rapport with one another. Out of the whole club of sluts and whores and gold-diggers in that place, I found a stripper that was a certifiable gem in the rough, one that was worth my time (in dollar bills). So that's good. That's therapy. Perhaps sad and pathetic. But, fantasy for a dollar, and I'll take that for now. Happiness is what you make it. I must survive. And for now, it's a stripper named "[name removed]". So I am going to go seek her out again. (And she is named after my favorite fallen pseudo-suicide chick [name removed], so I love her even more.) And, who knows, in a couple of months time, perhaps I will be paying her for sex. I can budget a $150 a month to have wild-monkey sex with a woman I really would want to have wild-monkey sex with. And why not? Most girlfriends cost way more as far as time and money and headaches, so I would consider myself streamlining this process. So I will see if I can acquire this female for my own. It's probably the only "relationship" I am capable of anyway. Like I said, I think you are all crazy for being in (and seeking) relationships, if I was intimate with someone right now I'd probably shoot myself just from the mental processing required. So, like the film Vision Quest, this is my Stripper Quest. Wish me luck everyone. I am about to embark on something that should make me marginally happy. The title/theme of this quest: "how much is that kitty in the window?"

OK f mae, that just totally and utterly confused me, but thanks for replying.


Optimistic thanks for your reply,

I learned one key thing that got me to this point, through the hell. I learned that no emotions last for long periods at a time. Thus, when the pain feels too much, and I am tempted to self harm or worse, then I just have to remember two things....
1/ The feeling is not going to last... eventually it will go.
2/ The impulse to hurt myself is just me wanting to escape the feeling. If I actually did kill myself it would be an accident, because once the feeling has passed, then so will the desire to escape. All I have to do is wait. Hard but easier than the feelings after self harming or waking up in hospital!

It's so easy to know this in your head, but to believe in when you are in that bad state of mind, its hard to remember. I've done it before, I will do it again. It's just so hard at the moment when there is so many things going on in my head.

Whether your girlfriend goes or stays, you need to find the ability to make yourself happy. In my case that meant separating out my BPD behaviour from who I am at my core. I don't like my BPD behaviour... it causes me hurt and problems. I do like who I am apart from that.... and I can learn to modify my BPD behaviours over time.

Right now I dont like myself at all, I have hurt far to many people. I'm not really sure what is me, and what is my BPD behaviour. I know I have a lot of work ahead of me, I just hope I can do it with my GF by my side... she is what makes me happy.

At the moment it is all just spinning, going round and round in my head. When you got your diagnosis did you get information that helped, start to get help you needed straight away or did you just get told you had BPD and then left to your own devises.
I guess the not knowing what to expect is something that is really worrying me at the moment, also having to wait to see when I even get the appointment for this. The not knowing is so hard, Its what winds me up so much.

Little Miss Trouble wrote:OK f mae, that just totally and utterly confused me, but thanks for replying.

Further evidence that I am on Neptune, isolated from everyone else, even from "fellow" borderlines.

And the record keeps spinning. What a f'ing joke this life is for me. Someone let me off. I am nauseated.