This Is The Unedited Truth About Borderline Personality Disorder

I used to wonder why it is called borderline personality disorder— until my symptoms got worse and I had to find the answer through the worst possible way.

It literally feels like you’re standing on the borderline between emotional and mental instability. Some days, you struggle to make sure that you’re still sane; on other days, it feels like you’re not, like you barely have control anymore. Then you get better for a few days and think that maybe you were just over-analyzing it before, and soon enough you’re back to your nightly sanity checks.

Being a borderline is a nightmare, because how you feel about everything — friends, school, life, even yourself— is just so unstable.

You find it so hard to trust completely. You’re always needled by the thought that people would only ever befriend you for when they’ll be needing something. You often wonder if your closest friends keep up with you because they actually like you, or because they see you as an investment for when they’ll be needing help. You try to kill this untrusting side of you, but you just can’t help slipping back. And so you shut people out, even friends, until you realize over and over that you actually need them more.

It’s as if you’re wired to look at people in black and white. The worst part is that you get moments when you doubt even yourself.

You think that maybe this is why you feel lonely, even when you have a lot of friends. You feel like you didn’t have the kind of connection with anyone like the kind you see in other friendships. You used to think there was something about you that kept people away; turns out, you were right, except you were actually the one who kept them away. You hid behind a glass wall and you weren’t even aware of it. Now you realize that the wall was in fact a sealed cage and you’re suffocating, but you still can’t break the glass. Maybe you like it this way; maybe you like tormenting yourself with the loneliness.

But tormenting yourself is nothing new; you’ve done far worse. You have hideous scars on your forearm, a dozen rusting blades hidden somewhere in your room, crumpled papers that should have been your farewell note to the world.

But the funny thing about being a borderline is that you keep surprising yourself.

It’s like one day you despise yourself and you feel so inadequate; you think you’re ready to end it all tonight because there’s no point in continuing. Then something inside you changes, like a switch was turned off, and you look in the mirror and regret ever thinking of hurting yourself, because the best person you know is right in front of you and you’re wasting all your potential and future.

Being a borderline is turning the switch on and off at such an unpredictable pace. And no, it’s not intentional. No, it’s not something you can control or choose. No, it’s not just you making up a lame excuse for being mean and stubborn. No, this was not your choice. No, you cannot just tell yourself to stop the random switching and be normal. No, you don’t feel normal. No, you don’t want their pity; you want them to understand.

You just want them to be a little more patient.