Recently diagnosed with BPD...confused!

So I was hospitalized last weekend and was discharged on tuesday. They hinted around that they suspected I had BPD by leaving little brochures on my night stand and asking me if I knew what it was, etc.

I ignored them. I mean how could they possibly know that I had that within three days of me being there. Anyways today I was bored and decided to read the literature they gave me. The next thing I knew I found myself glued to the computer screen with my heart pounding at the realization that I have BPD. I just know....I meet the criteria, I fit the profile, I am like the poster child for this disorder...well maybe not the poster child.

You know the whole I hate you, don't leave me thing. I am always doing that. I have pushed everyone away expecting their return and when they don't come the irrational storm of sadness sweeps me off my feet and takes me away into the land of self pity, where I feel completely and utterly abandoned. Then I don't know who to blame at first only to decide later on that I am not good enough. I constantly ask the question "Why does everyone leave me?" Or "How is it that everyone around me is getting along fine in life and I am a lonely failure?"

This discovery to me is rather bittersweet because on one hand I have to accept this reality but it makes me question my sanity when I have had a complex long enough about being crazy. On the other hand it is an answer, one that makes bone chilling sense thus maybe I can help myself by doing whatever I can to understand it.

As I am typing this right now I am very impatiently waiting to hear from boy that I have talked to within the last twenty for hours but since I haven't heard from him in "so long" I am wondering already if he has forgotten me and I am fighting the urge to blow up his phone and his email and his IM address to purposefully scare him off that way I don't have to sit here and wait in anguish wondering if I will ever hear from him again and if I do when? How long does this have to continue? This is a very, very huge constant with me. It is my reality. It is tremendously painful.

The suicide attempts have rendered my left-hand almost useless (I am left handed) I have lost my hair from overdoses but is currently growing back, my liver has been used and abused and I have cut. In addition my mother killed herself when I was six. That makes me predisposed and then further likely to live with this plague because she abandoned me so young when she was all I had.

What I want to know is will I ever function like a normal human beng or will I end up jobless, homeless and alone with no one to bury me when I die...will I rest in peace beneath a nameless headstone? Tough questions, sad ones to ask, but nonetheless cross my mind everytime I am abandoned and then I wonder is this the last time? How many more disappointments can I take before I take my life? How much pain can one person take? Shakespeare wrote tragedies because they are real. My meager insignificant life is simply that, a tragedy except there is no one in the audience to watch, no one to applaud and no one to gasp when I fall.

As far as I know I have never met anyone else with this disorder, but now there is hope. Maybe I am not as alone as I thought.

In addition to therapy, which you should be seeking out, check out this website:

http://moodgym.anu.edu.au/welcome

It's easy, you can do it at home, and it WILL help you, if you stick to it. Also, try to just remember that now that you KNOW what's causing you problems work to empower yourself against it instead of letting it make you a victim. It will not be easy and it will take a very long time. But people have overcome it and that means you can too, no question about it.

Speaking as someone who is jobless, homeless, separated (although I have not given up hope there) and also recently diagnosed (4 weeks).....
The only way is up. Put it this way. I'll talk from my own experience rather than generalising. Getting the diagnosis has explained my whole life for me. Everything fits. I now have a choice. Previously things just "happened" to me. The knowledge of what is behind my behaviour has given me some control. It opened a small window where I can choose to go against my instincts when I recognise them as being BPD and not healthy for me or those around me.

The choice I have is to do some work on myself and attempt to change those behaviour patterns (already I have had some success with it - and some failure) or to go back to a life of hell. There is no contest for me. I have been forced in the last few weeks to face all the fears of abandonment and loss of security. Guess what, it's not as bad as I thought it would be. Living in a hostel is not fun, but it is just a stage. I will get sorted out.

My diagnosis has meant that the horrendous fear of myself that I have experienced as long as I can remember has left me. I can play out destructive/criminal/insane scenes in my head and not worry about them actually happening one day "by surprise".

I am 37 and have had years and years of failures in relationships, work and worst of all worried that I may be "crazy" meaning psychotic or suffering from dual personalities. I had been with many therapists and had given up hope of ever being "cured".

The diagnosis for me has been wonderful. It has opened up a possibility of life where I felt there was none. You can't get help if you don't know what you need help with.

For me communication will always be the key. I have a tendency to cut off from other people and live in my own head. That's bad. As long as I can stay open and communicate then at least 1/4 of the battle is won. The rest is just recognising and modifying behaviour. It's not easy because the behaviours (like phoning 20-50 times if a text is unanswered after a short time) are compulsive. I previously had no control over behaviour like that. Now that I understand that it's part of the disorder I can do something about it. I already have in just a few weeks. Like I said, I have not managed it all the time - that would be expecting too much, but I have made massive progress.

We could be a lot worse off.
It is a choice between putting in a little work or living out the rest of your life feeling like you did before - no contest.