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But that doesn’t say much, does it, now? There’s hell of a ride and then there’s hell of a ride. The one I’m talking about is the kind that feels like a Russian Roulette. By which I mean Continue reading
For a long time, it was as if I lived two lives.
Parallel, and at times, intersecting, but to all those save a close few – totally distinct. One hidden from the other; one nonexistent except for the shadow it cast on my life.
When I could get out from under it, it was much easier for even me to pretend that shadow life didn’t exist. I wasn’t suffering. I wasn’t having trouble coping. I didn’t need help. Certainly, no one needed to know about it. Continue reading
Anyone who has ever looked up a “serious mental illness” like bipolar disorder has been smacked in the face with dire warnings and frightening statistics about misdiagnosis. If you google my lifelong companion ADD, you’ll see lots and lots of dire warnings and hand-wringing about overdiagnosis. But you won’t run into are dire warnings, frightening statistics, and hand-wringing about repeated, compounded misdiagnoses.
In my mind, I am normal. This is because I live with me twenty-four seven (OK, not always twenty-four seven because some of those hours I am asleep).
I have BPD. In the past, I never realised that I feel emotions more easily, more deeply, and for longer than others do. I thought the intensity of my emotions was normal. Turns out, it’s not. I read somewhere that in non-BPD people an emotion typically fires for 12 seconds. In BPD’ers it can last up to 20 percent longer. BPD’ers emotions also repeatedly re-fire, or re-live, or recur, however you want to say it, so emotional reactions occur for even longer. I do. I go over and over and over the emotions, pinging from one to another like a steel ball in a pinball machine. Continue reading
When I received the job offer a few weeks ago I thought it over for a few days before excitedly accepting. My new manager arranged that she would send me some paperwork to fill out, and the next week we would meet so I could have a look around one of the branch practices I would be working in.
When I’d quit my previous job a few weeks ago I never expected to land on my feet. My parents were terrified that I had no long term prospects and I was just going to be a temp nurse. Continue reading
At what point do you say to yourself, “I need help”? And how many times do you say it before you actually reach out? Do you wait to hang by a single thread? Or do you wait for that last thread to start tearing before someone else tells you to grab on for dear life because you’ll end up at the bottom, dead?
Well, we’ll all end up as putrid corpses. One day the braided threads of our lives, as we know them now, will unravel. But you get my drift. Continue reading
There are some things you may already vaguely know about me. My real name is Carrie and I have an alternate personality whom I call Charlotte (not to mention the poor guy, Jack, in the back ground who hardly gets a say in anything). I live in the UK near London, by the sea. I am almost 30 years old. I suffer from depression, I have recently been diagnosed with Emotional Dysregulation Disorder (the new name for BPD) and have lived with a host of psychiatric conditions since I was a child.
I am also a Veterinary Nurse. Continue reading
We’ve had a lot of activity within the past 24 hours, but I thought it might be nice to get July’s topic up. . . well, in July. So.
James was on the spot, and he thought something that deserved our attention was the idea of accepting a diagnosis/diagnoses. I think he is on to something with the importance of discussing this. He points out that accepting diagnoses is a process, and it doesn’t just happen overnight. In his own words, it “takes time and adjustment.” And as he wisely brings up, the newly diagnosed, and also families of the newly diagnosed, could really benefit from our experiences with this. Continue reading
A Canvas Of The Minds 