I've just had someone, let's call him Andy, tell me my BPD made him feel uncomfortable and that he essentially couldn't "deal" with it and it hurts like hell. I cried a lot (specifically on the shoulder of the lovely woman at O'Grady's bar who I will take flowers to at some point) I was angry and, in all honesty, would have done anything to change his mind. But you know, you can't change people.
BPD makes you angry, really REALLY angry, and having someone tell you that essentially they can't deal with something you have no control over is painful. As well as being told I make people feel uncomfortable I have, on more than one occasion, had people tell me they're scared of me. These words hurt, it's one thing experiencing the different components of BPD, but being told someone is scared of you or that you make them uncomfortable can be soul destroying. But trust me, TRUST ME, I'm really not going to hurt you.
Sitting in bed thinking about it today, it's occurring to me that, as with so many things, the words scared or uncomfortable are really synonyms for ignorance or a lack of understanding. BPD is a serious but relatively unknown condition, and even I can't blame people for being apprehensive about something they don't know anything about, especially when you see my gnarly ass scars. One ex of mine, who I affectionately refer to as the weasel due to the many times I allowed him to weasel his way back into my life, referred to my self harming as "teenage emo shit" instead of the only way I could find to deal with how I was feeling.
How I let that one go on for as long as I did I'll never know.
Normally in these situations, people would be encouraged to educate themselves about what they don't understand, but with BPD it's different. A lot of the research and content online doesn't paint people who live with BPD in a positive light. When I first started researching my condition, the majority of the content I found was about "recovering" from being in a relationship with someone who has BPD. If you feel such articles are for you, then have at it, but they're not going to help anyone with BPD in the long run.
Not only is the information kind of vague, but there also isn't a great deal of it, relatively speaking. To compare Google search for other mental health conditions, depression brings up 796 million search results, anxiety 367 million and eating disorders 217 million. BPD only brings up 56 million. Still a lot, but nowhere near enough.
What it all boils down to is this; if you don't know, ask. There is no cure for what I have, only treatment, and the only way people are going to stop feeling scared or uncomfortable around someone with BPD is if they learn.
This is my reality and I live with it every single day.
xXx
No comments:
Post a Comment