My diagnosis and what they mean to me.

It took a horrible turn of events for me to get diagnosed. I don't think anyone gets a diagnosis at a good point in their life, everyone has that one event that started it. For me it was having my appendix removed. Strange I know, but thats what happened.

It was September 2015, I had returned from living in Philadelphia for a few years. I was staying with a friend, I was due to go back to Philly at the end of the month. My visa has required me to physically be in England for a period of time, so as far as I was aware I was going back to the life I loved. Then disaster struck. I got sick, a few days I dealt with stomach pains and put it down to something I had eaten. But when it moved to my right hand side and became almost unbearable I knew something was wrong. 

I went to A&E on September 11th, a Wednesday if I recall. I was admitted immediately and had tests to confirm I had appendicitis and would be having the offending organ removed in due course. I was on a ward and pumped full of painkillers. I didn't end up having the surgery until the 18th, after I got blood poisoning when my appendix there a hissy fit and exploded. I had the surgery and expected to make a speedy recovery, except that didn't happen. The pain was still there, still as intense. I noticed the scar was on my left hand side, so when the consultant came to check on me I queried this. He told me because it was keyhole it was done that way and not to worry, the pain would soon go and I could go home.  

To cut a long story short I spent 3 months in hospital, I was discharged on December 1st. During November I ended up getting annoyed I was still in pain and being accused of lying about it so I self harmed. I was moved into a crisis house and there I tried to commit suicide. I ended up attempting a total of 4 times before being sectioned. Whilst sectioned I was assessed by a psychiatrist who asked me about my mental health and why I had tried to end my life. I had suffered from depression since I was a teen due to family problems and also when my mother passed away shortly before my 21st birthday. It was after an hour long session of him asking questions that he said the fated words.

"You have emotionally unstable borderline personality disorder."

It hit me like a freight train, I knew little about BPD except what I had seen in the media and 'Girl interrupted'. BPD isn't favourable portrayed, people are shown to be manipulative drug addicts addicted to attention and using sex as a weapon. I was told to research it before my first appointment with the local mental health team and then ask them any questions I had.

I was told BPD is incurable, only manageable. It's a chemical imbalance and brain physiology illness. It required years of therapies to learn correct coping behaviours. I ended up with more than one diagnosis. A plethora of mental illnesses. 

1. Borderline personality disorder, mentally unstable type.

2. Severe depressive disorder.

3. Severe anxiety disorder.

4. Agoraphobia.

5. Post traumatic stress disorder.

It took me a good year to even come to terms with all this, I shut myself away from people I loved and struggled to do even basic tasks like getting out of bed. Mental illness and physical disability don't mix. They both make the other worse...

The stigma of BPD needs to be broken, I lost friends because they read about BPD and how manipulative sufferers are. People didn't know what to say to me, I said the wrong this because I couldn't correctly articulate my feelings and emotions. I am going to get better, I am strong. I want to use this blog to show my journey, to show what I go through and feel. Good days and bad. So I can eventually say,

"Bye, bye borderline".