You know you’re Borderline when…

One of the best ways I know to deal with things when they get hard, is to find the funny side of things. Inspired mainly by Jaen Wirefly  (go check out her blog entitled ‘You know you’re borderline when….’ (she’s awesome); the following are quotes I have associated most with; and I have added a few of my own too.

‘You know you’re borderline when you crave attention but you don’t know what to do when you get it’. (Jaen Wirefly)

This is soooo true. Admittedly, my attention seeking behaviours are much more self moderated now, in fact I can identify when they are occuring as opposed to being complete oblivious, but they still happen, and when I get the attention I crave I feel like I am in the spotlight, and feel embarrassed and ashamed. It would be so much simpler to not crave the attention in the first place, but alas, BPD says that is not to be.

‘You know you’re borderline when your rage can smoke out a whole country’. (Jaen Wirefly)

Dear god, so true. Out of no-where, this incoherent bloody rage can appear, and just as quick as it arrived, it disappears, leaving nothing else but devastation and exhaustion in its wake. There does not have to be a trigger, although there usually is, and there is no pattern to this extreme emotion, it is inconsistant and extremely volatile. Cross us at your own risk!

‘You know you’re borderline when your boyfriend doesn’t call you when he says he’s going to, so you go to his house and break all his windows.’ (Psych Central/Jaen Wirefly)

Oh man did I laugh at this one. I’ve been there so many times (although admittedly managed to stop myself from going window smashing, I did once spend an hour cutting up love letters and post them to an ex, to later have a visit from the police for harassment).

‘You know you’re borderline when you hated this person yesterday because they said something horrible to you, today they smile at you and you love them. (Sharon Howard)

Again, so true. Most of the time I am so desperate for people to like me, I will forgive their actions immediately. That is, until they REALLY piss me off and then I hate them forever and imagine cruel and relentless ways for them to meet their demise… !

‘You know you’re borderline when you can’t watch sad films because you become too emotionally involved with the story and are left devastated at the end. (Sharon Howard)

I have actually lost count of the times I have had the fun poked at me for sitting in the cinema sobbing my poor little heart out. Films like Titanic, War Horse, Bambi (!), Black Beauty – yes okay, people understand and cry along with me. But others – I mean, Thunderpants?! I just get so involved with the characters, it’s almost as though I feel their pain as my own. Maybe I take escapism a little too far, sometimes I feel it is good to feel emotion – I go through phases of not being able to cry for myself, so at least during these times I can cry for someone else (despite them not being real!). I have also been known to cry for a long time after the movie has finished, or wake up upset before remembering the reason I was upset because of something that happened in the movie!

‘You know you’re borderline when people can’t recognise you by your hairstyle/dress sense because it changes so often you look like a different person every day.’ (Sharon Howard)

I’ve covered this briefly in a previous post, but OH SO TRUE. I don’t have a set style, or look. This includes hair – short, long, curly, straight, fringe, no fringe! Most of the time I don’t even have a look that ‘works’! But you would never, ever be able to identify me by it, as it changes so quickly and so often. Ahhh the life of a borderline!

‘You know you’re borderline when something upsets you or you do something wrong and you immediately feel you need to hurt yourself as punishment.’ (Sharon Howard)

I don’t think I need to even explain this one, but all through my childhood I remember hurting myself on purpose (hitting myself, shutting my fingers in doors) and thinking to myself, I am doing this because I deserve it, because I am a bad person and I should feel pain. At the time, I was so young, I knew nothing of BPD and didn’t know what I was doing was wrong.This extended to when things happened that weren’t deliberate. When I failed an exam, it wasn’t because I hadn’t revised, or wasn’t clever enough, it was because I deserved it. When I lost pets, I ‘deserved’ to feel that pain.

‘You know you’re borderline when you feel suicidal over a small incident because you just feel emotional pain so much more than non-BPD’s and the only thing that could make it stop is killing yourself.’ (Sharon Howard)

Yep, all the time. Gone are the days of the normal reaction of ‘oops’ or ‘I cocked up there’ (did they even exist?). Now, it’s the end of the world if I make a mistake, or if something goes wrong. I recently ran an event, the whole day was a complete success, and I was thanked by many people for all the work I had put in to make it run so smoothly. There was, however, one small error that I made, and I tortured myself for days over it.I forgot all about the positive feedback that I had received – this one small error led to a long period of suicidal ideation because I clearly wasn’t good enough to be allowed to live any longer.

‘You know you’re borderline when your personal first aid kit is bigger and more well stocked than the one in the family bathroom.’

Yep – it’s me that people come to for bandages, plasters and micropor tape! I also am a dab hand at first aid and really enjoy fixing people up. Maybe it makes me feel like I’m needed, maybe it makes me feel like I am looking after someone. Either way, I really enjoy it and will pounce on anyone bleeding/limping/itching (lol)!

‘You know you’re borderline when you fluctuate between fearing abandonment to encouraging it’ (Jaen Wirefly)

This is very accurate. My biggest fear is being abandoned, so it makes no sense that I push people away. Perhaps I am testing them to see if they really do love me, but either way, it regularly backfires and I get hurt.