The Borderline Legacy

This is quite a negative post but a lot of people I know with BPD, including myself either don't drive or have a job or both. I wondered why this was. Is it because of our childlike mindsets? Our inability to regulate our emotions or our constant fear of abandonment?

In my self-help group, out of about 10 people only one person had a full time job and drove. One person had a job but didn't drive. I know people in their thirties, still living at home unable to drive. 

I fear that I will become this legacy. I am holding down a job, just about, at the moment but the thought of driving lessons makes me want to run a mile. And I live alone, but in my dad's flat so I always have a parent available if needed and barely pay any bills. I have it quite easy some would say, but I disagree. No-one with Borderline Personality Disorder has it easy.

I am scared of becoming jobless, relying on benefits, alone, unable to drive and look after myself. 

Is this fear irrational? I don't think so. 

I found this quote which is quite derogatory but holds some truth:

The boss gets painted black as soon as he says something the BPD doesn't like. The interpersonal relationships with coworkers go south. The BPD acts impulsively, not considering how their actions may affect their job performance. They are often involved in substance abuse. They don't care about money until they spend it all and need some.

This is somewhat true for SOME people with BPD but not everyone. I've been in the position of the boss being painted black, relationships with colleagues becoming damaged and acting impulsively by resigning. But not so much the rest of it.

I still wonder, why people with BPD seem to be one step behind the rest of the population. Is it their legacy? 

BPD Patients Are Being Let Down By Services

Mental health services in the U.K are failing patients. Southern Health and Sussex Partnership both had to apologise for failing patients on multiple occasions, leading to deaths of both patients and members of the public.
It is a vicious circle if you need mental health help. You tell the service that you feel suicidal but they dismiss it and tell you to 'have a bath' or 'light some candles.' THIS DOES NOT HELP. I don't even have a bath!!!
They don't believe you when you say you are suicidal, then you attempt it and they are sorry but not sorry enough and they send you home, back to danger, back to being unsafe, scared, alone and depressed.
It feels like you have to be half dead to get help. It has got the stage where you have to harm yourself to get the help!
Don't even get me started on Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) stigma in mental health services, The amount of professionals I've seen who, the second they walk in the door I can see in their eyes they are already writing me off, as an attention seeker, drama queen. They don't take me seriously.
According to the NICE guidelines for BPD (that don't sound very nice!) patients with BPD don't benefit from hospital admissions as their condition cannot be resolved with medication and they need to learn to live in the community. That is all well and good but when you are suicidal you can't even get out of bed, let alone live or function in the community and the majority of people with BPD suffer from depressive episodes. Apparently (according to an old psychiatrist I saw in one of my admissions) "People with BPD like the attention and like being in hospital."
Yes, I love it! I love being shut away from my family and friends, having to ask for my tweezers or plug my phone in to charge at the nursing station. I love being sat on a hospital bed looking outside and wishing I was hanging from one of the trees.
Apparently we also get attached to members of staff, but quite frankly we can get attached to anyone very quickly and very intensely as it is a symptom of the disorder.
BPD often comes with other mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, eating disorders and OCD, so if we are not hospitalised for our BPD we could be hospitalised for a different condition. Also, the medication we take is often for the depression or the anxiety, not the BPD itself.
Due to the high impulses of BPD sufferers we are at risk of dying from impulsive self-harm or accidental death. And we often abuse alcohol and substances which puts us even more at risk.
To conclude this rant I would like to express that BPD is a serious mental illness and at least 70 per cent of people with BPD will attempt suicide in their lifetime and between 8 and 10 per cent of people with BPD with complete suicide which is more than 50 times the rate of suicide in the general population.
to point out that
So yeah, don't take us seriously, we are just attention seekers!

BPD Stigma

Borderline personality disorder is misunderstood. People think we are attention seekers, bipolar, psychotic, selfish, incapable of healthy relationships when actually we are just humans struggling to cope with an overload of emotions in a messed up world with too many expectations and pressures. It can be alienating, exhausting, depressing and crippling living with BPD but we try our best.

Things Never To Say To A Depressed Person

• Chin up
• I know how you feel
• You need exercise
• It's all in your head
• Get a different job
• Think positive
• Stop feeling sorry for yourself
• Is it your relationship?
• Look at how lucky you are
• Everyone has problems
• Life is hard
• I'm having a bad day too
• Is it the weather?

Books And Films That Deal With Mental Disorders

Films

• Girl Interrupted
• Sylvia
• It's Kind Of A Funny Story
• Silver Linings Playbook
• My Mad Fat Diary
• The Roommate

Books

• Girl Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
• The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
• It's Kind Of A Funny Story by Ned Vizzini
• Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick
• My Mad Fat Diary by Rae Earl
• Suicide Notes by Michael Thomas Ford
• The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson

Mental Health: Helpful Sites

http://www.mind.org.uk/
Mind - a mental health charity - their website offers support for those living with mental illness and their family/friends
http://www.rethink.org/
A mental health charity
http://www.time-to-change.org.uk/
A charity campaigning to end the stigma and discrimination surrounding mental illness
http://www.samaritans.org/
A suicide hotline
http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/
The Mental Health Charity
http://www.metanoia.org/suicide/index.html
A lifesaving piece of information

Crazy But Talented

There seems to be a slight link between insanity and creativity. Many famous writers, poets and artists were mentally ill, such as Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf and Vincent Van Gogh. There are not only the creative but the Mathematically minded such as John Forbes Nash who is a famous Mathematician who suffers from schizophrenia.
Is there such a link? Do the mentally ill have hidden talents or the talented have hidden illnesses?
Apparently schizophrenics are usually rather artistic and creative and people who suffer with bipolar disorder, when on a high, can be very creative and motivated.
Those with depression can scribble out a poem that informs even the happiest of minds just how bleak life can be. So it's not all cheery.
But there seems to be some kind of link between the mentally ill and the talented.
I'm not saying I am talented though.

Stephen Fry

Stephen Fry is an amazing person I think.
I can identify with him in 2 main ways. He is gay and he has mental health issues. As am/do I.
I've just started reading his blog, and one post about loneliness caught my eye. Fry comments on how he is often lonely, which for such a famous person seems absurd. He says he does not like his own company. Which is also absurd because he is an amazing person.
Stephen uploaded a video to YouTube about how he is proud to be proud to be gay (no that's not a typo, he is PROUD to be PROUD OF BEING GAY).
He says he will never apologise for being gay as why should anyone apologise for love?
Last month there was hype about Fry attempting suicide via overdose. I am so glad he did not succeed, as the world would be at huge loss without such a great man.
I will leave you with this quote from Stephen Fry - one of the greatest celebrities their is:
“At least 260 species of animal have been noted exhibiting homosexual behaviour but only one species of animal ever, so far as we know, has exhibited homophobic behaviour — and that’s the human being. So ask which is really natural.”
Stephen Fry

Chin Up: Depression

A depressed person cannot put their chin up and just be happy. You can say to them "But you're loved, you have a job, a good life, family and friends" and that won't change anything. Someone who is down because of a job loss, bereavement or relationship problems has a reason to be down and they are down not depressed.
Depression does not care whether you are ugly or pretty, fat or thin, poor or rich. 
As Stephen Fry claims, mood is like the weather. It can change, it will get better, it cannot be controlled.
Depression is the thunderstorm, the rain, the snow. Happiness is the sunshine. 
Bipolar disorder/manic depression is the two extremes of moods. The dark dismal depression, where everything is rubbish and life is not worth living, and then the mania - when you are filled with thoughts and ideas, you believe you can solve the world's problems, become famous, write a book, you have loads of energy and cannot stay still, your mood elevates.
There is no point in getting annoyed at a depressed person for being depressed.
You wouldn't get annoyed at someone for having heart disease or cancer. There's no reason for someone to have cancer, just like there is no reason for someone to have depression. They just do.

                                         Stephen Fry talking about bipolar disorder

If you know someone who’s depressed, please resolve to never ask them why. Depression isn’t a straightforward response to a bad situation; depression just is, like the weather. Try to understand the blackness, lethargy, hopelessness, and loneliness they’re going through. Be there for them when they come through the other side.
It’s hard to be a friend to someone who’s depressed, but it’s one of the kindest, noblest, and best things you’ll ever do.
-Stephen Fry

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/08/23/best-and-worst-things-depression-help_n_3802904.html

Don't Call Me Crazy

So a new programme began this week. 'Don't Call Me Crazy' follows the lives of teenagers in an inpatient psychiatric hospital in the UK, suffering from various mental illnesses. The unit - The McGuinness unit, has now been replaced by a brand new modern unit called Junction 17.
After staying at one myself, for 2 weeks, I found this programme rather interesting, yet also sad. Sad because of the illnesses the young people have and sad because of the way they are treated.
My stay at a psychiatric unit was a rather positive experience.
The people there were not restrained in front of other young people, which they are in the McGuinness unit.
One of the patients who suffered from depression, anorexia and also self harmed, refused to be weighed and eat. At the unit I was at, the young people had to eat, and did. They were weighed. They were supervised a lot of the time to ensure they were not exercising and moving around, especially twitching and fidgeting slightly to burn off calories. They went to the toilet and were not allowed to flush the loo until the staff had checked there was not sick down the toilet, which is a way of purging (vomiting).
On the positive and motivational side, one of the patients who suffered with acute OCD told the camera how "OCD does not define her as a person."
The patients raised awareness of the stigma surrounding mental illness and shared personal insight into their minds. All in all it was a very worthwhile programme. It was widely talked about. I read this article in The Guardian which advertised and promoted the programme which raises awareness surrounding mental health.

Lack Of Mental Health Awareness And Support

There is a serious lack of support for people suffering with psychiatric illnesses.
There is little awareness too, for the conditions which affect millions of people around the world.
Discrimination should not exist in the year 2013. Or even in the year 1913 or 1813.
Mental illness is just a core part of being a human. It is hereditary, it runs in families.
I heard the awful story of a poor 21 year-old woman who suffered from depression and was feeling suicidal, so told her college who rang the police. The police found no-where safe and secure for her to go other than the police station, so she spent the night in a cell.
Mental illness is not a crime and therefore the poor woman should NOT have been treated like a criminal and put anywhere near criminals.
People NEED to be educated on mental illness...

January Schofield

After reading Michael Schofield's book, January First, I felt compelled to write this post.

January First

January Schofield (known as Jani, or previously, Janni with double 'n's) was born on 8th August 2002 (8th August is also my birthday!) By the time she was six years old she was diagnosed with onset-childhood schizophrenia. 
'January First' is her father's poignant, moving account of the Schofield family's struggle to cope with the mental illness that was tearing apart their beloved daughter. 
I cried a lot whilst reading the book, however in the closing chapter which was written in July 2011, Michael says how Jani is now on medication that is helping a great deal, she is not so violent, and she has many more moments of happiness. 

Jani - just a sweet little girl.

I heard about Jani when I was on YouTube one day and a video popped up about 'America's schizophrenic child'. Jani was seemingly born mentally ill. A devastating article from The Mirror in October 2012 explains how Jani's younger brother, Bodhi, may also have schizophrenia, he has currently been diagnosed with autism. 
Jani barely slept as a baby and would look around at things that weren't there. She was an extremely imaginative child but by the age of five she was becoming violent, biting, scratching and hitting her parents like she was fighting for her life. Soon after Bodhi was born, Jani tried to attack and kill him. She also started hitting the family dog, Honey. Her imaginary friends were in fact hallucinations - telling her to hurt herself and her family. Jani was always a very clever child with a high IQ, she hated going by her real name 'January' and frequently changed it. She was very good with numbers and her imaginary friends often had names that were numbers, such as 400 the cat. After masses of medication was tried and different diagnoses were suggested, Jani was diagnosed with schizophrenia. 
Jani's father Michael had a mentally ill mother, and another relative who suffered with schizoprenia who ended up committing suicide. Susan, Jani's mother, had a relative who also had schizophrenia. As a child Michael had ADHD and as an adult suffered with chronic depression and reguarly took Lexapro, an anti-depressant.

The autobiography/tale of a family is so truthful and raw. I was crying when the family cried and smiling when they smiled. I felt so much for poor Jani, as she would never be able to have a normal life - go to school, college, get married, have children. The frustration and anger that Michael felt at Jani's schizophrenia for ruining her childhood/life was so obvious in the book, and I was also angry at the illness for ruining a young child's life. The ending is happy, as happy as it can be, as Jani is a lot better (although never will be fully better as there currently is no cure for schizophrenia). Michael saw it as: try and give Jani the best life we can, keep her alive, make sure she is happy. They were given Jani from God, Susan feels. Although there are challenges that come with looking after her, she is also their daughter, their child. She is gifted with extreme intelligence, but also beauty and when she is herself and not under psychotic behaviours, a lovely sweet little girl.

Jani's parents have set up a website, The Jani Foundation, which highlights mental illness in children and offers support for those suffering and their family.