Nurse Asking About BPD Experience - stnhels (Helen)

Hi everyone

I feel really anxious about coming here to ask this, I feel like I am intruding where I shouldn't be, and I hope you won't be offended or want to run me off the site.

I'm a student in my first year of a mental health nursing course in England and have a strong professional interest in BPD. At the moment I am attempting to write an assignment on the subjective experience of living with BPD. My focus of the assignment is looking at difficulties with (if i can call it that and not offend...) interpersonal relationships and the effect this has on the everyday lives of people diagnosed with BPD - ie. how it impacts on relationships with family, friends, boyfriends/girlfriends/spouses, accessing and maintaining mental health support, education, employment, etc.

I would really like to be able to get a well rounded understanding of this as I am aiming towards eventually becoming a BPD nurse specialist, and obviously the best way to gain that knowledge is to speak to people who have BPD.

If anyone who reads this would be willing to reply to me, I would be everso grateful but I fully understand if everyone just wants to tell me to get lost. I will confirm right now that anything that is said WILL NOT be attributed to any specific person - confidentiality is top priority and not only because disclosure is against my professional code of conduct.
If anyone who does reply wants a copy of the finished assignment then i will happily email it to you once i have written it and before i submit it in January.

Thank you so much for reading this, and if you do feel like replying, thank you.

Regards
Helen

Hello Helen,

One thing that BPD needs, is more understanding, so I will happily contribute from my own experience.

I'm single but seeing someone. I'm 44. These are a couple of my concerns when in a relationship.

I have severe adandonment issues. If I do not guage my thinking, I may project feelings of rejection and adandonment on my partner. This manifests in 'self sabotage' behavior. But because I am aware of it, and particularly that I may project it, I am careful to manage this continuously. I do supress it to some extent, but mostly try to realize it is coming from me, and not him. I must build strong enough self awareness to realize when I am wanting to project, so that I do not do it.

I also have severe self identity confusion. This can make me appear moody, or changing, or unpredictable. I try to keep stable, but most important to me in a romantic relationship, is to self express and be attached to my feelings (so my partner may understand me). This is a lot more difficult than it sounds. I am obsessed with feelings, and often struggle to know what I am feeling (mostly fighting detachment from self and inner emptiness). If I am unable to express feelings (good and bad) to my partner in a healthy way, I feel that he will leave me because I am nothing (empty).

Cutting and suicidal ideation is another issue. When I am in these states, I am nurvous to express this (although my partner is understanding and approaches me as a friend who listens and cares). My concern is not the behavior or the suicidal fantasys, but that in expressing these to him, it will in turn depress him and make him feel down. So, I try to keep these conversations closely linked to myself, not generalized, so it protects him from becoming sad. I also feel guilt here, that I am giving him a depressing conversation and feel as if I must 'get happy' to make it up to him and to protect him.

Hi Helen!

I wish there were more people like you out there. Maybe there is hope for us yet :0).

Being BPD is like having a constant struggle with yourself of contradictions. You feel you love something, yet you can name 10 things about that very same thing that you hate.

You love someone, but when they let you down, you paint them black and want to cut off ties, but then the next day you wake up, you're not as mad about being disappointed, and you realize that not only are you NOT going to cut off ties, but now you're going to marry that person.

It can be pure hell.

My interpersonal relationships are stormy at best. I am trying to have a healthy relationship with my current boyfriend, because I'm in therapy and have been learning about myself and better ways to react to choices and situations. I cannot say that I am always able to do the right thing, or say the right thing, but I am WAY better at controlling my outward behavior. A lot of times on forum, I will say that I may not be able to control my emotions, but I can control my output (behavior that affects others).

I'm not a cutter, and haven't threatened suicide. So I don't meet that criteria. But I do tend to pick at my nails and the skin around my nails until it bleeds. I don't necessarily know if it is some sort of release, but it does make me feel better and get rid of some of the nervous energy.

I wouldn't mind being a subject if it means furthering the understanding of our disorder to someone who has their heart in the right place.

If you would like to PM with any specific questions, I'd be more than happy to answer them.

Thank you for having an interest in us!

AMP

Surveys and studies of this nature must be approved by AllanZed.
You can PM him if you'd like to continue this.

-SmileXx