I haven’t felt like posting or writing much. This inability to write actually started after I decided to coauthor a book with someone I consider a close friend. Her name is Sarah, she lives in North Yorkshire & she is brilliant. She has been on the podcast a few times & if you listen to the podcast you would know that she also battles borderline personality disorder. I quickly realized that she is a much more knowledgeable author and knowing this gave me the courage to try to do more with my writing… Then as life does, it suddenly became more difficult to write. Suddenly more was being required of me from work, from home and just many things keeping me from writing.

Since more of my time was being spent away from home, I just couldn’t get back into the swing of things. No productivity or creativity made me feel like I may not be the writer I had imagined I was.

I find myself battling these type of thoughts no matter what I do. Since realizing my issue with writing, or rather my lack of writing… I thought I would just post this response I answered to a question on Quora a few months back. Here is that response.

If people with borderline personality disorder are such bad people, what are they to do with the rest of their lives? Where are they supposed to go? When they’ve destroyed basically anything good and also self-destruct?

Individuals with borderline personality disorder are not bad people. We, in a way, remain children. We were the ones that were hurt, neglected, broken-hearted, beaten & abused, left to fend for ourselves after surviving traumatizing events.

As the saying goes, “hurt people, hurt people!” Sadly, for the PwBPD, it isn’t just the pain of childhood that helped create the various dysfunctions we consistently experience. This type of past treatment in combination with underdeveloped parts of the brain and what society can witness is even the nicest of people with borderline, can transform into emotionally charged nightmares, especially when it comes to relationships.

We can easily discard and dissociate, think irrationally, become obsessed about being abandoned to the point of paranoia, and our emotions can become extremely hard to manage. This type of dysfunctional thinking leaves most borderlines relying heavily on coping mechanisms (mostly toxic mechanisms) to get through stressful events. Of course, these coping mechanisms will vary in levels of destruction, but the borderline is only seeking an effective method of painkiller and to avoid the perceived disappointment or rejection that might arise, even if, but for a moment. The route the borderline takes to stop the pain is not important. We EXPECT the rest of the world to understand that we are just doing our best to survive.

The borderline brain becomes a place similar to Neverland, where one remains a “lost-boy/girl”, never wanting to grow up, and also never feeling wanted. Like orphans, we rely heavily on reliable coping mechanisms and survival strategies, even the ones that lack manners. We live inside of our heads A LOT, as we don’t want to experience all of life as most of it is overwhelming and this creates a dissociative state. Shielding our fragile emotional state from being exposed. We don’t do this intentionally; it is a shift of modality in the brain. We can be in reality one second, and with little effort the next second we can shift to autopilot. We can go from the most generous of people, to hell bent on taking all that we can from others, just to feel alive and to validate our existence/importance.

PwBPD, aren’t all bad people, we can be very hospitable, some of the most generous and considerate of individuals. The problem is, no one notices the moments when we MUST have our needs met. This fact, most everyone else would consider for maybe a minute or two & shake it off, maybe even saying to themselves “I am just having a bad day.” To the borderline, this was the only missing piece required to start the internal chaos that leads to devasting outcomes in relationships.

We are good people, hell we can even be amazing at times. We were born different, experiencing early on in life that people cannot be trusted, aren’t reliable, or even lovable unless of course we meet certain conditions. We learn early how to meet our own needs and to use other people as “a means to an end”. The problem is we grew up never trusting anyone, because the people we were given as caretakers, left us to do it all by ourselves. (Some never become successful at taking charge of their own life, consistently relying on someone else to do it.) We learned how to suppress our immense sensitivity to others failing to meet our expectations. We look at people in terms of survival. Who has the thing we need to survive? If they can consistently meet one of our needs, we maintain that supply as long as they can deliver, we collect those kinds of people, and all others are seen as tools or temporary resources. We imitate others because our personality never had the chance to develop properly, out of necessity we adapted to live in survival mode.

People with BPD are not inherently bad, but rather the remnants of unpleasant childhood experiences and faulty neurological wiring. I would suggest that you live by being a manager of this disorder, manage your intentions by setting personal goals. Remind yourself that everyone is out here just trying to survive. Explain to those closest to you the things you need in order to feel better.

I have also concluded that some relationships may cause a Pw/BPD to suffer even more. I know it isn’t always easy, but those relationships aren’t healthy for a borderline, and you will not thrive in that type of environment. Start paying attention to your autopilot mode. A plane with a pilot has a much better chance at arriving at his/her desired destination. You must continue to tell yourself that no one can care for you better than you and maybe that will help eliminate the need for others to do it for you. I have been working very hard at becoming the parent I always wanted, for myself and my children. Beyond that, I really don’t know what to say other than, YOU CAN DO THIS! I’ll be cheering you on from Oklahoma. Even though this last picture was taken in Texas at The BIG Texan.