Living with BPD (emotional unstable personality disoder)

June 02, 2019
If you follow me on Twitter, YouTube or Facebook you will have probably seen me talk about BPD which is Borderline Personality Disorder or otherwise know in the UK as EUPD. EUPD stands for Emotion Unstable Personality Disorder.

It's taken me a while to write on my blog that I struggle with a personality disorder. Why, because they are very stigmatised. It's 100 times harder than saying "I have depression" the word "personality" makes me feel like something is wrong with my character. It feels like since I got the diagnosis that everyone is just making fun of me because I was so used to being diagnosed with Depression, anxiety, anorexia and Autism. My Twitter, YouTube and Facebook are much much smaller platforms than my blog and that's why they both felt like a safe haven for some time to talk about my personality disorder and to not talk about it on here. If you would prefer to watch a video on living with BPD (emotional unstable personality disorder) I have inserted the video I recorded last week at the end of this post. It also might help the information written in this post make a bit more sense.
Living with a personality disorder is pretty tough. It's a very conflicting illness for the person who struggles with it. You have very black and white thinking with no grey area. No two people struggle with a personality disorder the same way. Each struggle with different things. To be diagnosed with BPD/EUPD you need to meet five of the nine traits/ symptoms which are:

  1. Extreme fear of abandonment - This can be done by making sure you are the one to abandon someone before they abandon you or by making sure you avoid people abandoning you. The panic someone can feel isnt just lonlieness its an internal crisis when someone leaves you.

  2. Intense rapid mood swings - People with BPD/EUPD can have very sudden changes in mood for no apparent reason and it can happen in a split second. It is incredibly confusing and exhausting for the person. Every emotion, every feeling, every reaction is a million times more intensified than the average person.

  3. Impulsive behaviours - What impulsive behaviours are is when the person doesn't think of the consequence of their action(s). AN impulsive behaviour can be things like spending sprees, alchol abuse, drug abuse, self harm ect.

  4. Suicidal behaviour and self harm - It's not uncommon for people with BPD/EUPD to have chronic suicidal thoughts/ intent as well as self harm.

  5. Dissociation - This is where someone looses touch with reality/ doesn't feel real. You can feel like you are looking at the world through glass.

  6. Unstable self image/ identity - Not knowing who you are when someone leaves you. It's also not as simple as liking someone's company it's litrally not knowing who you are without them.

  7. Chronic feelings of emptiness

  8. Unstable relationships - not knowing your significance in somebodies life. You can be over clingy or not clingy at all. You can love someone one minute and hate them the next.

  9. Splitting - This is where you feel very split between decisions. It could be that you go from idolising someone you love to absolutly hating them, sometimes without a reason and you cant do anything about it. You can also feel you want help to keep you alive/ safe and at the same time just wanting everyone to leave and let you hurt yourself. You can become very frustrated and angry. It's not uncommon for people with BPD/EUPD to have explosive anger.
"Attention seeking" is a medical term that is associated with BPD/EUPD. The truth is that the person isn't being attention seeking through their behaviours. They use the behaviours because they have no idea how else to show their emotional pain. Because with BPD/EUPD emotions are so intense they can be incredibly hard for the person to understand/ vocalise and at times behaviours show people how much they are struggling. The words "attention seeking" personally I think should be banned. the behaviours are a symptom of something else going on. 

For some, BPD/EUPD can be linked to emotional, physical and sexual abuse and general trauma from childhood like bullying (amongst other things). Not knowing any other way to cope you revert to turn inward on yourself. Being your very biggest bully saying horrible nasty things to yourself because you feel you "deserve it". Over time you believe the things you say/ said about yourself even if they aren't true. They become very real. It's because of these false beleifs that people with BPD/EUPD are more likely to lash out and no it's not because they are mean. It's because they emotionally hurt all the time.

Please let me know in the comments what else you would like to learn about BPD/EUPD and if you want to learn how it effects me personally I would be more than happy to speak more about it.

Becca x






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Comments

  1. Hey!! Thanks for the post. Mental health disorder like depression really ruin your life completely.
    I know this because I gonna through this horrible state of mind. To overcome the depression I searched for the best Counsellor In West London. Finally, I get rid of it. Hey! you have shared really a great post.

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    1. You're more than welcome for the post! They truly do ruin your life especially if you don't have the right support systems in place. But, you can get better or at least live a less symptom life in a functional state holding down a job ect.
      Becca x

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  2. I agree with everything above, when my therapist suggested that I may have BDP I didn;t want to believe it, I thought this was going to stop me from doing so much when in reality it opened my eyes so much, and I finally got the help I needed to move on past this, and become better. Great post!

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    Replies
    1. I am so glad it helped you get the help you needed and deserve! I didn't want to believe my diagnosis either but slowly but surely it's all starting to make sense to me and I'm understanding myself much more.
      Becca

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