It’s not easy struggling with BorderlinePersonalityDisorder and along with that often comes other mental health issues. What is difficult is not getting a proper diagnosis…once that is achieved, the recovery starts.
So many professionals are not skilled or knowledgeable to help persons with this condition. Too many medical professionals overmedicate them to silence them. Once in a blue moon, they will find a compassionate and knowledgeable therapist who gets it and many times that is where the healing begins.
Yet, there are many who never want to get help and see the world as having the problem and not them. They don’t understand why family and friends often withdraw…sometimes to save themselves, other times because they just do not understand. Most of the time it is because they feel awkward and ridden with guilt for not succeeding in making this person happy. Too many times they feel it is their responsibility to maintain this person’s equilibrium and happiness.
Loving a person with this condition is not so hard. Love is love, right? You love with the good and the bad and the in between. It is the self-preservation that takes time to access. It takes a while before you realize it is not always your fault that your friend, lover, sister, brother, cousin, mother or father are upset with you. In fact, it rarely has anything to do with you.
It takes so much energy though. It is so exhausting! When you actually love this person, you ache inside. When this person is confronting you, you are shaking many times and wondering what you could have done better…sooner.
It is a wheel of constant confusion, suffering, guilt and when he or she is happy with you, you feel so good inside but you are still wary of when the axe will fall once more on your head for not being the person he or she needs and expects you to be.
echoes
of discontent
haunt her
I love you, I hate you
you abandoned me
again
heart squeezes
head spins
still no answers
It is a win/lose situation until…
(c) Tournesol ‘ 19/01/05
Stop the Stigma 