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scriptshrink · 7 years

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Borderline Personality Disorder: Intense/Fluctuating emotions, personal experience

Hey there. I have borderline personality disorder, depression and bulimia. Figured I’d put all that time I’ve spent analysing my emotions and thinking patterns to good use and write up how I experience BPD. This relates to how I experience the intense and fluctuating emotions.

Reminder that this is all my personal experiences. They’re not universal amongst people with BPD.

TW for cutting, suicidal thoughts, violent thoughts, violence, eating disorder, depression.

If I’m not feeling something really strongly, I’m feeling nothing. That ‘I don’t know how to like things casually’ post is really accurate. And if I feel nothing I’m really aimless and bored but without the drive to do something. I don’t tend to do anything unless someone else gives me something to do, my usual hobbies tend to be just as boring. Usually I end up sleeping or watching TV shows to pass time. A lot of my day to day life is finding distractions, because I’m bored. Always bored. So bored. To Do lists work really well for me because they give me things to do, rather than make me think them up on the spot. I guess I must have some kind of normal emotional reactions but I can’t think of any times where that happens, I’m bored. When that goes on too long, I’m tired/depressed. If something enjoyable happens, my day suddenly revolves around that or it’s fleetingly good and then I’m tired and bored.

Below are the most common emotions that I have actual ‘episodes’ of. They tend to last at least five to ten minutes up to a few hours. Rarely, a standard high will last overnight/through a sleep. Both the depression moods can go from minutes to weeks.

Highs: Standard, weird. (These are the terms I use to describe/differentiate between the types of high/up moods I experience.)

Standard highs are great. You know when you drink coffee for the first time and you get so wired? It’s a bit like that. My brain gets really energised and I come up with new ideas for things and start planning them out. I also work on existing projects, if I think to direct my energy to them, because the energy doesn’t really mind what I’m working on, creativity and drive is on 100%. Sometimes I talk a lot, in conversations or to myself. If I’m nattering to myself, I find it hard to stay on one topic, everything leads into something else or a new idea comes up and takes over. Physically, my heart sometimes races and I get a weird feeling of anticipation in my stomach. It’s really frustrating because it’s like something exciting is about to happen but nothing is and there’s no reason for it. Uh, if I’m talking to myself I tend to walk really fast, usually I kind of stroll everywhere but during highs I’m really power walking, not quite to breathlessness. I find that if I do the power walk and talking combo, when I stop walking for more than five or ten minutes the high goes away. Sometimes I clean, usually making a resolution that this time I’m going to get my life on track for real, organising everything, setting things up, maybe even cooking. Energy level wise, I feel like I could probably run a marathon but I never do much more physical than cleaning/fast walking.

Weird highs: where I have ideas and weird but funny/important/interesting (at least to me) thoughts that I *need* to tell people. It usually leads to me spamming a couple of friends with FB messages, unless someone happens to be online and engages with something I say. Like, I might send someone thirty messages in an hour or two, starting with an idea for a business, fleshing this plan out, also do you watch Daredevil because I just started and its awesome, why do shows have love interests all the time, hey so I want to touch that body but not in the sex way??? Does that even make sense? It should make sense. Im taking you off the list of people I have a crush on and putting you back square in the friend list because I need room for daredevil. Why are there spiders in my room? This is really freaky. Theres a spider on my bed noopeeee. Never going to sleep again. Hey have you seen this tumblr post. It reminds me of you. Oh did you end up eating anything? You need to eat. Hey, how do you think zombies know to avoid walking though fire? Because they do seem to know in the walking dead, which suggests they have some kind of self preservation instinct. Unless they know there’s food in the fire, then they walk in. So not much self preservation. What part of the brain would need to be functioning for that? New project for holidays: an extensive report on the bodily functions of zombies and the necessary brain areas needed to achieve them, along with the resultant emotions that they could hypothetically be feeling.

And so on and so forth. Usually with degenerating spelling and grammar. If, however, the person responded to say, ‘Do you watch Daredevil?’ with ‘omg yes, who is your favourite character?’ then the weird would probably be focused to Daredevil commentary.

Weird highs tend to simply be less coherent, less productive and with an undertone of anxiousness or uncomfortable energy. Sudden loud noises or shadows or other scary/superstition things feel a lot more frightening. Like, I *will* be afraid the Joker is in my cupboard, especially at night. Think about it like a standard high being the energy that comes from downing a dozen energy drinks and a weird high is when you’re incredibly sleep deprived to the point where you’re past tired to energised.

Anger

Anger was actually the first thing that made me think I might have BPD. I’m not actually sure if it’s triggered by anything or my brain just randomly makes the switch but I go from zero to raging-enough-to-murder-you in like, ten seconds. Like, so much angry energy inside that I have to move. I shake my hands at my sides a lot (I also do that when I’m stressing out), again, lots of power walking and talking. Violent thoughts are really big when I’m overwhelmingly angry, sometimes I’ll self harm or want to self harm to try and let the anger out. I have this idea that I’m full to bursting with this energy and cutting will let some of it bleed out. Alternatively, everything and everyone pisses me the fuck off. Like, breathtakingly angry (for some reason that phrase always occurs to me when I’m mad). Best example is from when I was on a psych ward. There was this lady, A, who did not shut up. She’d talk about herself and her husband (switching between how good he was and how he’d abandoned her), telling everyone that they were beautiful and shouldn’t be on here, getting upset (although she never yelled). She did not stop. No one liked her much because she didn’t listen, just talked. And I didn’t like her either but I work in hospitality, I have an excellent customer service face. But one night I flipped into rage mode and was pacing the ward. Mad about most of the people, about the announcements that were always going on, about not being allowed to leave or being able to get outside. And I turned a corner, saw A at the other end of the hall and was utterly furious with her because she didn’t get the fucking message, she kept talking, just fucking say something A, I fucking dare you, I will rip your head off. I was 100% ready to try and break her neck if she talked to me, my hands were like…phantom urges to do it. And she walked past me and said I didn’t look okay and I said ‘I’m not’, and she obviously realised not to talk to me. So I went three or four laps of the ward wanting nothing more than to physically rip A’s head off and wondering if today would be the day I actually did something because I’m on a psych ward, why not? (Because even when that furious, I know the difference between legal and illegal so I am aware that I can’t actually use an insanity plea. Being borderline doesn’t erase your awareness/knowledge of things.) Then I saw one of the girls who was receiving involuntary ECT and she looked like crap and I started fantisizing about suffocating her, because I couldn’t think of a way to break her out of the ward and my anger had switched to the fact that she was being forced to have ECT.

The anger mood can be good though, I tend to do my more active social justicey things in an angry state. Like letter writing or getting involved in debates. I rarely have the emotional spoons to get into conversations with centre/right wing people about politics anymore, unless I’m in an angry state. But there’s a line, sometimes the anger state becomes too much and tips over into feeling helpless rage and then I just end up spiralling from anger to depression because there’s nothing I can do. So anger can be good but it’s a fine thing.

One other thing. A few of sites I’ve visited suggest that people with BPD can have problems controlling anger. This isn’t something I have a problem with because I’m one of those people who overanalyses everything, which has helped me keep perspective. I think of my brain as split into two parts, subjective, which rules the roost, and objective, which is aware of what, why and how my subjective brain twists things and how I *should* be acting. I essentially logic myself through anger episodes because on one level I realise that my anger isn’t justified/relative to the situation. One of my psychs put it as ‘using intelligence to mitigate borderline personality’. I mention this because it was an interesting idea to me, often in fiction smart characters suffer from mental illnesses of some kind but I have never seen that intelligence used to combat it as well.

Depression: Empty, Painful. (Again, these are just the terms I use to differentiate)

Depression is weird. When I received the diagnosis of BPD earlier this year, the doctors suggested that my depression was less severe than previously thought and was exacerbated by being borderline. I don’t know. Interesting thought about interactions, I guess? Anyway, being depressed works in one of two ways. Empty, which is like…being bored but worse? Aimless, no emotions, not sad, not seeing the point of anything. Not in a suicidal way, just that there seems no logical reason for anything. The thought of suicide is more because I need to *do* something, but nothing really has any point so might as well die. It’s more of a…a logical conclusion to a series of thoughts? Empty depressed is a bit like strapping on a backpack of rocks every time you try to do anything, physically things seem to take more effort. But there’s not really a corresponding emotional heaviness. I feel like I should be sad, and sometimes I *do* get sad (not depressed, just sad), but it really is nothingness. I tend to sleep a lot when I feel like this.

Painful depression is a whole different kettle of fish. That hurts a lot, emotionally. I often feel like there’s something in my chest that’s hurting, but also like a vacuum, and I tend to do things to try and protect that area. Cross my arms or put something heavy on my chest (I love weighted blankets for that). Mostly I’ll go to bed and curl in a ball with my arms/toys/pillow/a wadded blanket/something pressed into my chest. If I cry, I’ll silently scream into the exhalations until I haven’t got any breath left. It’s all trying to dig whatever the feeling is out of my chest. Self loathing really digs its claws in as well, some of which is due to eating disorder thinking. Painful depression and eating disorder thinking like to go hand in hand. Physically, energy isn’t really a thing. Mainly because the emotional hurt makes it feel too hard to do anything. Lots of blasting music when I’m like this. Sometimes I binge watch TV, but usually that’s too hard and I don’t feel like I want to. Painful depression is when suicidal thoughts become a real danger for me, because it’s an emotional drive to make the pain stop, rather than a more intellectual reasoning.

Episodic vs. Everyday thinking.

Something I feel like I need to add, especially after the anger part. None of what I think/feel when I’m in an extreme is different to what I would think/feel normally. They’re just about 1000 times more intense than usual. I always have some level of ‘There’s a monster in my cupboard’ fear or ‘I want to stab this person in the face’ anger because these are things that I, personally, think and feel normally. The difference between the ‘baseline’ emotion and a borderline episode (for want of a better word) is the intensity of the emotion. During an episode, the feeling is dialled right up so the corresponding thoughts become a lot more central and a lot less casual.

Example: Fear.

Scene: I’ve missed a call from my parents. I call back. No one answers.

Baseline thought: What if someone’s died? Haha yeah right. You know, I’ll feel really bad if someone has died and I just laughed. I didn’t mean it.

Borderline thought: What if someone’s died? What if Mum’s been in a car crash or Dad’s had a heart attack? Why isn’t anyone picking up? (I’m probably calling both of my parents and the home phone at this point) Oh my god, I don’t want my dad to die. Why isn’t anyone answering me, what’s happened? What if they were all driving to the city and had a car crash and everyone’s dead? I’ll miss them so much. They won’t get to see me graduate. I’ll never watch tv with dad again. Mum won’t ever make dinner or give me a backstretch again. I don’t have this relationship with anyone else, I can’t do this without them. (I don’t cry much but I’d be feeling very much like crying because by this point some part of me is convinced that my parents are dead. This is also partially me catastophising- imagining the worst possible outcome without evidence.)

Example: Anger

Scene: Someone is walking slowly in front of me.

Baseline thought: I will stab u holy shit, why are you walking so slow? No, be patient, it’s alright. Chillax, life is a journey. I still want to stab him. Yeah, but does walking slowly really deserve death? It’s all good. You aren’t in a rush.

Borderline thought: Fucking fucker I will fucking stab you oh my god, hurry the fuck up. Right in the back, slide the knife in between your vertebrae. (Lots of visualising said stabbing, probably clenching a fist/pretending to hold a knife by my side).

[Thank you for sharing your experiences. - Shrink]

#borderline #depression #eating disorders #personality disorders #submissions #personal experiences #cutting #suicide #suicidal ideation #bulimia #violence #deductionsandmishacollinsinrome #borderline personality disorder #submission

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