SANE Forums

[Renee5]

I am 30, lost my father when I was 12 years old and never quite accepted it. My Mum is quite emotionally neglectful with me leaving me to raise myself from the time we lost Dad. I studied psychology and graduated though am working in a different space. I have recently lost my child hood best friend, lost my man to drugs and lost my most recent adult friend who I had for the past 4 years (with her uninviting me from her wedding which is tomorrow). I feel like my world is crushing around me, I feel so alone & don’t know what to do. I wonder why there are so many break downs around me even when I am trying to be my best self to others. I have a massive fear of being abandoned by people and just want to be loved by someone. I find myself relying heavily on relationships/friendships and generally do not let anyone new in. At times I self sabotage relationships/friendships around me, testing people to see if they will stand by me, but usually loosing them in the process. I have a massive bundle of emotions atm I don’t know how to deal with. The feelings are so strong that I have had minor suicidal thoughts. 
I am starting to think I have borderline personality disorder but am in massive denial about it.. anyone have any thoughts ? 

[tyme]

Hi there @Renee5 ,

I'm sorry to hear about everything that has happened. It sure sounds so incredibly hard. 

Based on your post, I can see why you are questioning whether you have BPD or not. BPD can be coupled with CPTSD or not. 

Unfortunately, we can't say whether you have BPD as we are not trained to. Have you been able to share your concerns with a professional?

I was diagnosed with BPD nearly 20 years ago. I struggled with relationships and emotional regulation. My behaviours switched at the drop of a hat. Life was just so unpredictable for me.

However, through years of intense therapy, I'm in a much much better place. Things have been so good for me so that I feel better than my pre-BPD diagnosis.

I was first diagnosed at by a hospital treating team. 

Do you have any supports in place?

[Appleblossom]

@Renee5 Hello and Welcome to the forum

You have had a bit of grief to deal with.  Many people study psychology to work out personal stuff.  I lost my dad at about that age.  Like trauma, grief can be retriggered and accrete ... one thing leading to another.  I have a similar personality, and am very vulnerable, and barely believe anybody would want me in their lives.  I probably try too hard.

You said:

 I wonder why there are so many break downs around me even when I am trying to be my best self to others. I have a massive fear of being abandoned by people and just want to be loved by someone.

Sadly this society seems to becoming more and more fragmented.  Dont take all relationship breakdowns personally.  Only you can know ... the balance to strike... but you have had a lot to manage ... however it is with your mother ... celebrate your resilience and keep looking for answers ... not just diagnoses.

Gently Bently Apple

[Renee5]

Nothing has really got better since other than I was officially diagnosed with BPD and PTSD by a professional. I am not coping and finding I am having more episodes than what I was having before I didn’t officially know of my diagnosis.
I am finding it hard to get up and go to work which I have never really felt before. I don’t have any parent to support me and I have no friends around me that will support me as I have no one. This feeling is quite dehabilitating and I feel at this point I could be admitted into a psych ward. I have tried to reach out to my Mum for some support several times over the last month with all attempts gone ignored, including the latest one being last night, which went ignored. 
 My psych has recently told me that my bpd was most likely brought on due to my mothers parenting style towards me and I resent her a little more every day because of it though I don’t want to. My mother was capable of being an emotional safety net for my brother and he in turn has stable relationships and friendships, though I am the opposite. I feel all people around me have given up on me or left me and I don’t know what to do at this point or how to keep my emotions in check 

[tyme]

Hey @Renee5 ,

So pleased to see you here.

I'm sorry it's still so hard and it feel you have been having more episodes that before. 

I read there are some pretty big feelings hanging around at the moment for you. It must be so hard to reach out and not get the support you are looking for.

I wonder if it's because your mum doesn't know what to do?

If you don't mind, is it okay I share a bit of what I experienced?

If it's okay, feel free to click below, and read on.

Content/trigger warning

When I was diagnosed with BPD and CPTSD, I was told it was most likely my upbringing/parenting style along with being more susceptible because of my personality. It took me a long time to accept this. I couldn't believe that it was my parents who caused this. And yes, I had a lot of hurt and resentment within. Yet over time, I came to know that my parents had three young children. They did the best they could to give us the best life, and they really didn't know how else to do it. I also considered that maybe my own parents had issues with how they were raised. By thinking this way, I was able to have compassion on myself (and them) and know that everyone was probably in survival mode and doing the best they could. 

They never intentionally said, "I'm going to make their life miserable by giving them this upbringing."

As for family/friends support - I had NONE. Absolutely NONE. Because of my BPD, I moved interstate in an attempt to change. I left everyone and everything behind to start afresh. Lo and behold, it all failed within a short period of time because I learnt that I can't run away from myself. 

It was then that I realised I had to do this on my own. I needed to make the changes myself.

After about 10 years, I finally reached out for professional help. After years of therapy, I'm in a really good place now. I had 18 months of MBT (mentalisation based therapy) and this included both individual and group session every week. It was a HUGE commitment. It was very difficult. But it was worth it in the end. 

Please know BPD is VERY treatable.

I'm here if you have any questions.

[Renee5]

I am happy to hear your experiences 🙂  
yes, I do believe it has a lot to do with my Mum not knowing what to do as her upbringing was not the best, she never knew her mother and was not able to maintain a relationship with her sister, Russian background from war. In saying this I am not a mother but a carer for little kids in child protection, no matter how hard my day is or what I am personally going through I never fail to put those kids first or make them feel less loved then they deserve. Because of this I expected more from my mother than her Incomplete inability to be a Mother towards me and I am her biological daughter. 

funny you shared your experience about moving away from everyone and everything because I virtually spent 2 months in Thailand early this year and I had none of these issues I felt happy and like it was home to me. I said whilst there I think I need to move here and everyday I have a bigger drive to go back and possibly start a new life however as you pointed out it never worked out for you and I feel somewhat like this could be the possibility for me. I wasn’t running away from myself so much, when I was in Thailand I felt like I was myself (my old pre BPD self). I had friends, I went out on dates almost every day, I was open to living and motivated to live life to the fullest. I wonder if right now would be the right time to go back to Thailand so I can feel my sense of self or it is more just a bandaid for me ? Me running away from my life here ? 

my Psych would like to refer me to do EMDR aswell as ongoing sessions with the psych. I do feel overwhelmed by weekly psych session and I find that whatever we focus on in our session in that week I am becoming fixated on it over the proceeding week for example last week she was validating that my mums done a horrible job with being a mum towards me, my world this week only existed around this and the more I thought about it the more I hate my mum and want absolutely nothing to do with her. I feel like if my Mum cannot see me in this world who ever will ? If I don’t feel loved by my parent I won’t ever feel worthy of love elsewhere even in a friendship. Right now I am missing my favourite cousins birthday because I could not bare to think about playing happy families with my Mum and being in the same room as her. Any suggestions to how I can turn this around and the intense feelings that won’t seem to go away ? Today I have tried journaling, listening to relaxation movie, putting on my fav show, taken anti anxiety medication and my stomach still feels like a bottomless pit and I can’t seem to stop the water works 

[Jynx]

Hey @Renee5 I am hearing that you're feeling some Very Big Emotions at the moment! I think it does make sense that if your therapy brought a lot of stuff with your mum into sharper focus, it would feel a lot harder to ignore. The best way to address it is through the therapeutic process, as you're already doing! Buuuut obviously that doesn't help for -today-. 

Something I sometimes do is to separate out the conflicting thoughts in my mind and to sort of, put them 'on the back burner' so to speak, so that when I am ready to work through them, I can do so, but until then they're in the corner and I'm not dealing with them just yet. It's a mental defence mechanism called 'compartmentalising'. Could that help? Sometimes if the thoughts are too loud for me to compartmentalise, I will journal them instead - so that at least the thoughts aren't swirling around my brain anymore. Do you think something like that could help? 

[MJG017]

@Renee5So much of what i've read in this thread sounds so familiar with not growing up with much (if any) emotional support, leading to then being unable to find that emotional support anywhere else.  It's extremely difficult and very isolating.  In the past couple of months I've only discovered how this upbringing was a very large part of the reason I am the way I am after more than 50 years of wondering what was wrong with me and why I couldn't seem to get close to anyone.

I've lost count of the times I've said the same thing to myself.... "I don't know what to do at this point".  But learning I'm not alone in experiencing this helped and while I still don't really understand it or what I can do about it, reaching out and talking to people about it who understand has helped me a lot over the past few months.

So I just wanted to let you know you're no alone and we know how difficult it must be for you right now and are more than happy to listen and support you however we can. 

One thing I have learnt recently is to stop expecting support from people I know wont give it.  It only makes things worse and makes everything harder since I then start getting upset about not getting any support from that person all over again, in what feels like and endlessly repeating pattern throughout my life.  So I sort of made my peace with it and moved on and looked for support from elsewhere... on of the reasons I joined here a few moths ago.  So hang in there as best you can, remember you're not alone, and find that support you deserve.  I really wish you all the best getting through this and your episodes quickly get back to more manageable levels.