A
Sad and Sorry
State of Disorder
A Journey into Borderline Personality Disorder (and out the other side)
TRACY BARKER
Jessica Kingsley Publishers
London and Philadelphia
One step – that’s all you need
to make it to the next one.
One step, and soon you’ll see
how far you’ve nearly come.
One Step at a Time
Prologue
When it was first suggested that I may have a personality disorder, I was deeply insulted. I knew nothing about them at the time, but still I felt as though the fragile essence of who I am was being labelled as entirely wrong.
My indignation was somewhat ironic when I consider that my core belief was exactly this: ‘who I am is wrong’. Perhaps the idea that professionals agreed with this was the cause of my indignation and grievance.
In America, borderline personality disorder used to be known as emotional dysregulation disorder, a label (if one must be labelled) that is wholly more palatable and less disparaging; I also think it is more self-explanatory.
As I began to learn about personality disorders, I discovered that ‘borderliners’ are commonly referred to as ‘heart-sink patients’ by many doctors and other professionals; we are a lost cause, with no hope or prospect of recovery or self-improvement. We were, at least, all on the same page. But it did not bode well for me. I already had no hope for myself – the fact that professional bodies generally held the same view was, to say the least, devastating.
To cut a long and tedious story short, it was (after years of toing and froing between one expert and another) recommended that I refer myself to a ‘Complex Needs’ service in Oxford (who comes up with these names?), the idea being that I was choosing to seek help, rather than being sent against my will.
By now I had been told that Complex Needs was where the no-hopers were sent, because no one else would even try to help us. I had almost given up. I wanted, almost more than anything, to die; the only thing I wanted more was to be okay. Complex Needs was my last chance, and I had to take it. If it didn’t work out, I could end my life knowing I had done everything in my power to get better.
The Complex Needs Service in Oxford ran a Therapeutic Community (TC): group therapy on four and a half days a week, for 18 months. It was here that I really began to understand what borderline personality disorder is. I had initially felt condemned by the label, but as I progressed in my therapy, I began to feel empowered by the understanding I was gaining. I was no longer in the dark as to why my emotions, impulses and behaviours were so fierce, extreme and erratic. There was a speck of light at the end of an incredibly long tunnel, and I started to head toward the light with comrades and professionals, who did, actually, believe that there was hope for me.
My diagnosis slowly transformed from a life sentence, into a map by which I could learn to navigate my self, my life and the world around me.
*****
This is not a misery memoir, or a voyeuristic account of how bad it can be to be live with borderline personality disorder. Nor is it a textbook, or a self-help book.
It is me offering hope, if that is what is needed, whether you suffer from borderline personality disorder or care for someone who does.
It is me making an effort to raise awareness of this very misunderstood mental illness.
I am not a professional expert, but I do have experience from the dark side and I have begun to emerge into the light, and I believe that makes me an expert in my own right.
I have been fortunate enough to have had access to a community of peers and facilitators, who supported me, challenged me, believed in me and encouraged me to believe in myself.
I have also been fortunate enough to have a community of friends and family that have believed in me and cared enough to do the same: challenge and support me.
Seeking help was the first of many hurdles I had to overcome, but now, almost seven years after embarking on this journey, I can honestly say that every single difficult, painful and courageous step has been entirely worthwhile.
Throughout the book, I will talk about management rather than recovery, as I believe that management is the first step (after understanding) to recovery. There is no right or wrong way to learn how to manage borderline personality disorder. Nor is there a single magic cure, and no one experience is the same as another. So my journey is just that: my journey.
The poems were written in the depths of borderline episodes; they are raw accounts of the overwhelming despair, distress and turmoil, and they were my attempts, at the time, to make sense of what was happening to me.
This book is an account of my journey of learning to live with borderline, using the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) list of symptoms1 as a guide through the various components that often present in individuals with borderline.
Most importantly, this is an account of how I learned to manage it, and began to recover.
HAUNTED HOUSE
There are phantoms here
roaming free,
making a spectacle of me;
I, who feel them,
sense them,
fear them.
Me. And I alone can see.
Things go missing,
things go wrong,
things go bump;
I, headlong.
Spirits of the undead
live among the dying.
Me, and I alone,
can hear them softly crying.
BORDERLINE
I should know better –
indeed, I do
– but this I cannot control.
I watch events unfold,
a mere spectator,
and yet this is me.
This is me, whole.
I hear from afar the voice within
and would flee,
myself permitting.
I see from above
the mess I’m in
and sink,
and cannot make me swim.
I know not how it ends,
only that there is no
happily ever after…
So I step back
and let it unfold
because this is me.
This is me, whole.
1See www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/borderline-personality-disorder/index.shtml#part_145387, accessed on 10 February 2017.
Chapter 1
Distorted and unstable self-image or sense of self
For