Mental health

This post is really difficult for me write as it is still something that I myself and my family are coming to terms with. On December 19th 2017, I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder after having more than 5 attributes of the illness. To begin with, I was terrified, being mentally ill has been my biggest fear since I was 8 years old when my Dad was diagnosed with Schizophrenia. So now, not only do I have a physical disability that has symptoms of MS which my Dad also had but I also ended up being mentally ill like my Dad too. I've always been scared when it comes to how similar my Dad's and my life resemble each other so having another similarity took me over the edge and I broke down in tears and couldn't stop shaking from fear.

Borderline personality disorder is common mostly in adults who have had a traumatic life with abuse and neglect etc. So having a mental health illness that stemmed from the life I was trying so hard to not acknowledge made it harder to not acknowledge it because in order for me to get better, I have to speak about my past.

When I first had it explained to me, I was told that I basically have no emotional skin. My brain hadn't developed that far in terms of emotions and that if we were to put borderline in physical terms, it is the equivalent of a person with 3rd degree burns on 90% of their body. Every emotion I feel, I feel it at its fullest and most intense, which explained a lot to me because I wondered how I was never just sad, I was completely shattered into a million pieces and I was never just angry, I was always in Hulk mode. Then I got asked how I felt about my diagnosis and what it means and I sat there and thought and I realised I was conflicted.

A part of me wanted to fall apart, another was so angry at everyone who I knew played a part in making me sick but then there was a part of me that couldn't be angry at anyone because I love them all, they are my family and they were my friends. I couldn't say to them "This is what you have done to me. All the things you said to me or about me that has gotten back to me or done to me. THIS is what it caused. You ruined me and my life" because then I would feel guilty after letting them know that they played a part in why I am fighting to stay alive every day, that they are a part of the reason why I can't eat and why not only am I fighting mentally to stay alive but now also physically. Not all of them even know how sick I am mentally and physically. Not all of them know that I haven't been able to eat without being violently sick since September 2016 and it has gotten to the point where if I lose anymore weight, I will be hospitalized to be fed through a tube and if that doesn't work, then I will have to start saying goodbye to everyone I love, to the life that I am fighting so hard for to get.

It's scary, the nightmares, not knowing who I can trust and not knowing if I will even get to see graduation. But I will keep fighting, I've been fighting since I was 8 years old when I first held the chopping knife in my hand and pushed it against my skin. When I was 14 and attempted suicide, after it, I fought to stay alive and every day since then I have fought and I really hoped that now, being 23, it will all be over but the real battle is just beginning. I now have a psychologist who I will meet for the first time on Tuesday ( I didn't even know I had an appointment with a psychologist until this morning when I got an NHS appointment alert. So thank you so much NHS text alerts!), I also have a mental health dietitian so that we can work on getting me to be able to eat again and to turn my now horrible relationship with food into a good one and I have a psychiatrist who is also a physical doctor so he keeps an eye on my stomach as well. So now, I'm not fighting on my own. I have professional help to get me through it which I am thankful for because being ill for this long, it's exhausting and I had gotten to the point where I didn't even know if it was worth fighting anymore.

After being diagnosed, my FND started to get worse to the point where I had a lot of muscle spasms to the point it looked like I was having a fit, I couldn't breathe, my muscles in my legs would tighten so much that I could barely walk but I still did, I kept walking until the tightness had eased. The pain increased and so did the weakness. But I'm not going to let it get me down or pause me in my process of getting better.

I believe that in every negative situation there is a positive if you really look for it, if you can look past all the darkness and demons, there is a light there that is waiting to be embraced so it can banish the darkness away. For me, it made me remember the promise that I made when I was 14 after I took the overdose and was fighting to stay alive. I promised that if I lived, I would try everything I could to help those who are like me and were silenced and made to feel that their emotions weren't as important as everyone else's, who have been abused in different ways and neglected in different ways, I would do my best to let our voices be heard. But I can't stand there and say to someone "You need to talk about it and be open about it" If I myself don't do that. I would be a hypocrite. So since December I have been working on a book. Writing for me is my escape, I don't recognise my emotions that well and I'm not very good and saying how I feel unless it is something like "I'm stressed because one of my friends is struggling and I don't know how to help" I can express how I feel that way but when it comes to my personal feelings, it just won't happen. However, I can write my emotions down because I give my characters my emotions so I am dissociating myself from the events and the emotions which makes it easier for me.

So far I've written over 20,000 words and even though it is all jumbled up with like 7 different topics being attached to each other, it is purely because I write what I am thinking at that time, so once I've gotten through as much of my bad thoughts as I possibly can (Which I think they know what is going on because a lot of them have suddenly become really quiet, I'm not complaining, I'm enjoying not hearing them but I feel like I need them to get across the full extent if that makes sense and doesn't make me sound like masochist because I'm not I just want give as much awareness to those types thoughts as I possibly can because they are a big part of mental health that people never hear about) I will start focusing the body of the story and then edit as much as possible until I am happy ( It will be published when I die and my niece decides to send it to publishers hahaha) and then I will hope and pray that I send it to the right people who also want to help bring more awareness to mental health.

You see that???? Huh???? Do you see it?? There is a positive behind a big and scary negative. Through my pain, I can help others and if I can't be saved then hopefully someone else or more than 1 person can be saved and that is a price I am willing to take. Through my pain, I want to save and prevent others from going down the same path I've been walking on most of my life.

So my message to everyone who reads this, is although there are many negative things in our lives and we struggle a lot, always seek for the positive even if it feels like there isn't one. I can promise you there is and once you find that positive, embrace it and let it grow. Let yourself grow with it.