I just had a thought about work.
I had read somewhere before when someone wrote, I don't recall if it was someone's blog or random feedback about our great NHS service. Anyway, the person wrote that she said to her doctor that she might be BPD and he almost laughed in her face, saying that she wouldn't be able to hold a full time job if she would have Borderline Personality Disorder.
Thinking of that I got really angry, truth is I have never been diagnosed with BPD, but there are those things which help to diagnose the condition they are as follows:
1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment - I don't have close relationships with people as I feel that they will leave me and that it will hurt me, I keep everyone in the distance. I left my boyfriends before they were able to do that, I will frighten my husband that I will divorce him.
2. Pattern of unstable and intense relationships, alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation - so here I am, loving my senior manager thinking how great he is and smart and all that , and the next day I hate him , he is the most annoying worthless person I know. He is in my eyes arrogant, hypocrite, useless as a manager, lack of people skills, not to mention that he is so selfish. The other day I said that he is brilliant, and so on. So alternating.
3. Identity disturbance markedly and persistently unstable self image or sense of self - now this is difficult, I don't really know my identity, my self esteem depends on the situation I'm in. I will act, for the whole my life I was different in school, different with friends, different with family. Now it is this same whatever my surroundings I will match myself with the situation or people I am with, like a Kameleon changing color.
4. Impulsivity in at least two areas which are self damaging- let say spending money which I don't have, binge eating, purging, stealing (yes, I have the urge to take things from shops, those are small items doesn't cost much but I would rather take them than pay for them, although I have the money to pay for it), tattoos, piercings.
5. Reoccurring suicidal behavior, gestures , threats of self injuring behaviors - scratching, object insertion, hitting myself, pulling hair, beating myself with objects.
6. Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood - my day as an example: woke up happy @ 6am, 8am felt anxious and couldn't stop the feeling of fear. 9.30am got upset for no reason, fell very low and harm myself, 10.30am started to tidy up, need to keep busy so I won't self harm. 13pm sit down to write on the blog feeling peaceful and calm. Still calm and very clear in my mind and its13:58.
7. Chronic feelings of emptiness - numb, worthless, don't care, no plans for future, hollow inside .
8. Transient , stress related paranoid ideation, delusions or severe dissociative symptoms - yes, wanted to leave my job millions of times because of people, I felt like everyone is watching me, talking about me, don't like me.
9. Inappropriate anger or difficulty to control anger - Huge difficult to control anger, I just sometimes cannot cope , then I scream and shout and throw things, I will hit, slap, smack, scratch and do all the things that make my muscle relax. When I'm angry I grind my teeth and my muscle are very tense, and I feel like I will blow out in a second. This makes me angry as well and it is like a hell circle, my anger makes me more angry and when I'm angry I feel like dying, I feel completely empty, lonely and so bloody sad and tense and cannot control that. But at work, when I got angry I argue because I know if I will hit someone this would be extreme, never got to this point.
So you can work and have those all symptoms showing that you are actually borderline, I work 32 hours a week. I feel good with that as I am more in control when I work , although I hate my job. So I don't understand how doctors or any other mental health professionals can say you can't work. I am living example of a person who finds work helpful. Even when I'm highly depressed and I don't feel like even getting out of bed I will make myself get out, get dressed , put my make up on, and be at work on time. I think it just depends on your abilities, there are definitely some people who can't work as its impossible for them but there are some like me who need work to keep going. Besides when I don't work I don't put my make up , I stay in bed longer, I don't bother to dress as wearing anything at home is good. So working makes me more able to live, not only exist.
