Fahckmylife's Blog
Crap adult, OK human.

I want to talk about another serial thing people. Ugh GAWD, I know OK? Roll your eyes if you want or just move on – it’s fine. Nobody’s forcing you to read this but if you’re the kind of person that’s rolling your eyes at this, maybe you need to read it. Now before I go any further this isn’t gender specific, although I can only honestly speak from a female perspective and I clearly don’t aim to speak on behalf of anyone else, but I think it’s time people opened up or were opened up to other viewpoints. And I think Irish people are coming around slowly to some of these issues but there’s still a long way to go.
So anyway, here goes…. le sigh….
Mental health issues are a super important of life that goes ignored. We’re supposed to silently deal with things and just pretend they don’t exist. Solider on. Don’t burden anyone with our problems. Keep your head down. And even if you try to get help, it’s not always there and our services are completely underfunded. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we’re a nation that buries our faces in pints. A big nation of ostriches.
People can be really unhelpful when you’re dealing with a crisis. Sometimes, people sit around and think they can diagnose things from their armchairs when your behaviour becomes problematic to them. I’ve heard everything from bipolar to narcissistic to describe me – coming from people who probably spent a few hours looking up misinformation on the internet. I’ve been unhelpfully discredited for having real feels and told to ‘be positive’. I’ve been told I’m not capable of change and treated like I’m helpless or a pain in the hole because I don’t fit into neat little tidy boxes of what counts as sanity. And yes, I do have mental health issues but nobody ever guessed them right.
This is not a pity party – it is fact.  I have had anxiety issues all my life – as far back as I can remember, but there was something more and until recently I wasn’t sure. Now, the point of me talking about this isn’t looking for special treatment or pity – it’s more to show that this is the way it is for me and I’m sure other people – and that anxiety and depression aren’t the only mental health issues that face people – and that perhaps some are more stigmatised than others. Recently I was nudged (by a professional) towards a diagnosis of a personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, and my experience since then has been a very strange one. Immediately afterwards I Googled the shit out of it, although in my heart I already had had my suspicions that this was what I had for several years, and to my horror the information I found a lot of the time was not only wrong but actually completely horrible.
I think the internet is great in that we can source information on nearly anything we want BUT when it comes to needing solid concrete evidence people can brandish their own experience as fact. The disorder itself is way more complex than the majority of the information was that I found. I initially backed away from the internet, convinced from what I’d read that I was actually a terrible person. Now, I’m not saying that I’m perfect by any stretch, but the things I read that people (nonprofessionals I found out later) about the disorder used words like ‘all’ and ‘every’ and even in some psychologists chimed in with how we can’t function like normal people and are essentially a lost cause. Like we are unloveable. Like we are fucking helpless and incurable. I’m sure in some cases this may be true but the nuance of a disorder that has many different symptoms and manifestations on a scale was completely lost in this sea of negative information (and a lot of it misinformation). I saw people talk about their ex-partners as if everyone with the disorder was the same and the person was not just an asshole. I sat back and thought about how I was probably a total mess and would never get anywhere ever – just like I had kinda thought anyway.
I can’t speak for everyone with BPD. I can only speak for myself but the way it manifests itself with me may not be very obvious unless you’re very close to me. And if we’re honest, how close am I really ever going to let you? I mean I’m a bit of a contradiction. I crave intimacy but have a hard time dealing with it. My mood can change quite suddenly multiple times a day. I bend over backwards to make people happy but if you piss me off I’ll cut you off without a second thought. I could sit down with you and share personal details in a genuine and friendly way but still, wait for you to fuck me over. I feel everything in extremes from love to anger to sadness and I have tried to keep it all contained which is exhausting. I’m perpetually bored or listless and have no idea what I want out of life. I find it hard to focus. I end up in dodgy situations because I blindly assume things.  I alternate between insomnia and oversleeping.  I deliberately self-sabotage things.  If I don’t like feeling something I distract myself with damaging or dangerous vices. I feel like I seem needy when half the time I just want to be left on my own. I panic. I feel like I have no skin and I’m stupidly sensitive. I chain smoke and stare into space a lot. I break up with people before they inevitably break up with me. I have extremely poor impulse control (although this is getting better). I get irrationally angry when I feel someone is trying to control me. I would never really say it but I crave validation (ooops!) and a compliment makes me glow like after you eat Readybrek.  I react quickly to things and regret my decisions. A lot of the time I feel like I have zero control over anything or myself. I get overwhelmed when I’m stressed and can’t function.  I feel misunderstood and a complete lack of support.  And sometimes I wish I just didn’t exist.
The things I’ve read have pointed towards a link between BPD and abuse. It is actually much more likely that someone with this condition will lead to someone with BPD ending up in an abusive relationship, or hurting themselves. A high percentage of people with BPD have eating disorders, self-harm and attempt, and often commit, suicide. Over the course of my life, without going into too much detail, some of these things have happened. I’m not sad about it. I don’t know any different and I have peaks and troughs with it. I’m not looking for pity but I’m sick of seeing so much misinformation. I can honestly say that I was a bit of a bastard until I was in my twenties when suddenly I copped on (Oscar had a lot to do with that) and have strived to make myself better, regardless of not knowing what was wrong with me.  But it’s still there and probably to an extent always will be.
The more independent I became, the stronger and more confident I was. But it’s hard to tell where I begin and this ends, whilst trying to maintain the idea that ‘this does not define me’ in my head. I feel so much and I don’t know whether there are parts of me that exist separate to it or not. I get goosebumps from music. I cry looking at cute animals. I love people so fucking deeply. I genuinely care about things. I enjoy sex sooo much. I write and draw with my feels. I’m honest and enthusiastic. I am a good partner most of the time. When you’re happy, I’m happy for you. But still, I feel pathetic. I mean this blog is me oversharing. The negatives and reading all these opinions on the matter, which are hard sometimes to differentiate from facts, mostly point to me being a complete dickhead.

Am I a dickhead? Tell me I’m good. Tell me I’m good.
Clem (Kate Winslet) in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (I really like her in this) and Tiffany Maxwell (Jennifer Lawrence)  in Silver Linings Playbook are both really accurate and identifiable characters depicting BPD in films. Clem particularly struck a chord with me but there isn’t a whole of bunch of them that aren’t lazy and stereotypical and make people with it look like stalkers or murderers or whatever – and I’m pretty sure I haven’t murdered anyone yet. Anakin Skywalker in the last two of the series has been thought of as a sufferer, which I find amusing to be honest, but I think the evil has gone too far there. Apparently, he does display some of the symptoms but I can’t stand his shit acting long enough to think about it. Fatal Attraction is probably the most famous of all of them, with the auld ‘bunny boiler’ but this just adds to the bolloxology and stereotypes associated with BPD.
It’s not helpful to tell people who you think they are without a fucking qualification. It’s not helpful when someone confides in you to more exercise. It’s not helpful to judge people or tell them that they’re ‘looking for attention’. It’s really not helpful to tell someone who is trying to improve themselves that they can’t. It’s annoying as fuck, as well as wrong, to tell someone they’re being dramatic when perhaps you’ve been the asshole and they have no metaphorical fucking skin to protect themselves. I don’t think anyone with this disorder fucking chose it. I think this works with many disorders and mental health issues where people are so quick to dismiss them. I’m not making excuses for my bad behaviour and I wouldn’t do that. I’m not blaming anyone else. It is what it is but people should really get their head around it not being a choice, offer an ear and educate themselves with proper resources.  The symptoms and variations aren’t applicable to everyone in every case and it doesn’t make us bad people and in many cases, we’re trying to improve ourselves and handle things as best we can.