if anyone managed to get stable and healthy, howd you do it?

i thought for the hundreth time i was getting better, but, as usual, turns out it doesnt last. the empty feeling is back and it keeps me from eatin again. i dont want to eat, food grosses me out. i have no motivation or focus for anything. i feel low and incredibly down on myself again. i feel lonely and sad almost all of the time. i feel desperate. ive started feeling out of control and wanting to harm myself again. as im writing this, i realise i dont want to be here anymore. again. i wish i could do anything to improve or feel ok and not make my friends and family worry and be happy, successful and uncomplicated, but i just, i dont know, i keep failing at it. i cant do relationships of any kind. i end up messing up and hurting people who deserve better as well as myself. i dont even get the different levels of relationships and differences between strangers, aquaintances, friends, romance ect. i just dont want to be in pain anymore.

if there is anyone who did manage to get better and healthy and have healthy, constructive relationships and friendships id really appreciate hearing about them, both for hope as well as insight or advice. im really trying to keep this constructive and learn anything from this, but it is so hard.

im sorry im so weak.

It's really sad that no-one's replied to this...
I don't think it's possible to become healthy and stable from this...

I think you can to an extent..

You will always have BPD..no different than someone having Bipolar disorder or even a medical illness

But you can make the amount of episodes lessen.

For me..

Its a healthy environment first..when I got out of Choas..My symptoms were ALOT less. And you need to become aware when youre getting into Choas.

Medicine might help take the edge of but for me, it doesnt work. I went down from 4 meds to just celexa every night..

A support system is key to..The lady who Im staying with is just awesome

And Dbt for me has helped..I do get myself into some troubles..I can not wrap my brain around interpersonal effectiveness and that tends to push people away but Im learning

All others have been extremely helpful...I use a lot of distress skills..

Like I said, you always will have it but if you get mad enough you can say ###$ YOU BPD you dont own me

Hi there. I started a new treatment about 18 months ago and it's helped tremendously. After 30 years of struggle something works. Writing this on my phone. ..tax appt. I will be back.

embrace the void
stay away from annything stimulating (inclueding relationships sex booz etc)
excersise
make sure you have all the allone time you need (at the cost of everything you job your friends etc)

Dear Camlidae,
you are not weak. This is hard. BPD and all it brings is....hard.

if I may share...

I was diagnosed in my 20's. It's been rough. I am almost 54.
2 years ago I was so done, so hopeless, I had developed a suicide plan. Concrete for the first time in many years. I had tried everything. Had given up on the last therapist a few months before.

It was random I ran across another option. Something non traditional for our disorder. But gaining traction. Zen in it's core and basics. Refined and customized to get you out of your head and into you body, into your emotions. Feeling, feeling intensely, is not an enemy. Emotions are here to teach us.
It's hard to explain in an post.

It's worked for me. Within about 6 months I was no longer suicidal. At this stage, I am back into sports, I still have my job and tho challenging, I feel better there and handle the complex personalities of my work place a great deal better. My social life picked up. I am ok with being alone or with people. It's NOT that I feel happy all the time and never feel bad. But I understand it, and deal with those feelings differently.
This is the best I have EVER done in 3 decades.

The biggest thing I guess is I am hopeful and curious about the future. I belong here.
BPD is a rough experience on life. Way rough. But it can get better. It's not easy. But if I can do it. Any one can do it.

Hope this helps, hope it gives you some encouragement. if you want to know more I will do my best to share what I have learned.

I hesitated to reply to this question because it seems arrogant to suggest that the answer is yes.

For me the answer is "more stable and more healthy", which is a lot better than it was.

I agree with the writer that said discussed zen bhudism. For me I kind of discovered a bhudist type of thinking emerging from the lessons I've learned, rather than finding solace from a pursuit of bhudist thought. (I think other bhudist traditions besides Zen might be applicable)

I believe many people have also found help from DBT.

So it can get a lot better.

as you point out Msangeedepp:


"Like I said, you always will have it but if you get mad enough you can say ###$ YOU BPD you dont own me "

Yes. get a little anger going. You are, all of us are, MUCH MORE than our diagnosis.

We can get help. We can help our selves find the right solutions. What worked for me will work for other people.Some.Not all. But there are things out there untried. Untried by me. Untried by you.

Centerpath,
yes this is Zen. Much wisdom and worth here, Zen. And Also...teachers who can illuminate things in us, give light and understanding to things we are unaware of.
BPD is not a " diagnosis game over." It's more like a place on a map. Once you know where you are, you have choices where to go. For us, the warning is: Terrain is rough! But, with a guide, you can get out.

You can get out. You Can.
It's real.

Zen is the entry. What you enter is you. Your life. Your thoughts. Your feelings. You enter you.
from there, you learn to accept YOU , embrace ( yes the void and much more )
and invites you to explore who and what you are.

It's hard. It's beautiful. If I can do this...you can too.

let me know if you want details. do my best to share.

-- Sat Apr 06, 2013 2:33 am --

Kitkat93x wrote:It's really sad that no-one's replied to this...
I don't think it's possible to become healthy and stable from this...

It is possible.
it is possible to become healthy and stable.

You're not a weak person-it's okay to seek help, whether that's from a doctor or psychologist etc.

I think the things about being stable and healthy is that you have to be consistent about it. You have to keep working on it..it's an ongoing thing. More like a journey as opposed to a destination. What this really means for me is that I often have to work on the same issues over and over again. It really is about persistence and perseverance-a real determination and motivation to get well and stay well-no matter what method you use in order to do that..the method is just the means to an end. You have to be really committed to recovery basically.. I think that's what I'm saying. I think that the method is less important than your dedication..that basically if one thing doesn't work for you, then try something but keep trying basically.

Right now, it sounds like you're experiencing a lapse or perhaps a relapse in your BPD symptoms i.e. that your symptoms disappeared for a while but now they're back again. This is not a failure on your part in any shape or form-sometimes these issues just flare up from time to time but the thing is, you have to nip it in the bud now and sort it out before it gets worse and before you get to the "collapse" stage where you stop trying altogether. Good luck!

I would have answered much more confidently if you had asked a week prior. However, when I first read this post I was having a horrible horrible time and thinking I was diving head first into another episode and was feeling rather doomed.

BUT. There is a suspicion that it was not a "BPD episode" but rather an "over medicated" episode... because I'm actually getting better. So, I lowered my meds and I'm already feeling better again <crossing fingers> Hopefully this was the problem this past week and I'm actually truly getting better.

This is a question that probably needs a book. There actually is a book written by someone who has recovered from BPD, Putting the Pieces Together: A Practical Guide to Recovery From Borderline Personality Disorder by Joy A. Jensen. Its pretty decent, I just finished reading it.

The most important part for me was constantly removing the parts of my life that were causing me problems. If there was a trigger, I got rid of it. Its just... I can't function if something is always keeping me down. I dropped out of college. I became an independent contractor. I broke up with boyfriends. I quit jobs. I disowned family members. I moved across towns, states, the country. I got a service dog. If something was causing me a problem I got rid of it, if I couldn't get rid of it, I got away from it, if I couldn't get away, I fixed it. My entire life has literally revolved around lowering my stress levels.

I also kept myself in therapy. If anything, therapy is my sanity check. It allows me to not have the stress of being worried if I was crazy or if my friends were crazy or whatever. Just one more stress level down is a tremendous help! And there's a lot of things a therapist can help with that are difficult to describe. But the easiest to describe are the sanity checks.

Lastly was medication. I was a HUGE hold out for medication. I didn't get on it until I was 29, and that was really a waste. I was simply afraid of it. But if BPD is destroying your life, and is making you want to die, what are you trying to save by staying away from medication? Just lifting off some layers of stress can make a huge difference to the quality of your life, so let medication try lifting off a few layers, or a lot. Its worth a shot, and you can always stop if you're uncomfortable.