Day 3:

Behaviour:

Yesterday I posted the criteria for having Borderline Personality Disorder. In order to be diagnosed with this illness, you need to have 5 or more of the 9 criteria.

People with BPD have longer, deeper and more extreme reactions to situations. They are susceptible to impulsive behaviour in an attempt to relieve themselves of the unbearable emotional pain they experience. They also take a lot longer to come back to base point than a person without BPD.

This emotion is backed by a very real fear of abandonment. For instance, I spend most of my time worrying about being left by the people I love the most. I have no friends and this is because I have made sure that I get rid of them before they can abandon me. I feel so lonely sometimes but would rather that than be abandoned.

We also have a pattern of unstable and very intense interpersonal relationships. I have had so much pain in relationships. People with BPD do something called "splitting" which means we view others as either all good or all bad. There is nothing in between. I can love someone one minute and despise them the next. It is so confusing not just for me but for others. For this reason I have decided that I cannot have another relationship, not ever.

We have intense mood swings. I often display inappropriate bouts of anger, I feel great sadness, panic or despair. My moods can change 57,000 times a day. It is confusing and frightening. Most of the time I can't tell how I am feeling, I can't label my emotions because I am feeling too many things at once.

Tomorrow I will continue. I am finding this really hard and almost wish I hadn't started but this is something I need to do. No- one knows about BPD and I have lived with it my whole life. I don't suppose anyone is even reading this but I will try my best to raise awareness.........