"Attention-Seeker" - a BPD story

Written by Soraya T
Peer Mentor, The Wellness Initiative
​I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) in 2000 when I was 24. It was both a blessing and a curse. It was a name to describe my torrent of erratic emotions, feelings and behaviours but it also brought with it a barrage of stigma and discrimination. Descriptions such as “attention-seeker” and “manipulator” become the norm.

Yes, we are attention-seekers, but who doesn’t? It is just that people with BPD often don’t know how to ask for the appropriate help in the appropriate way.  Yes we can also be manipulators, but you have to understand that people with BPD often come from toxic relationships, often as far back as their early childhood.  They never learnt respectful ways to maintain relationships while still getting what they want or need.

It took me 7 years of really good therapy (and many years of not-good therapy) to understand myself most importantly, but also to understand my relationships with other people. To learn what was important to me, and the proper ways to go about achieving those goals. I also learnt the important people in my life, the not-important people all disappeared while I was behaving like an atomic bomb.

I underwent 2 courses of Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT). The second course was a light going off. I learnt how to name and respond to emotions such as anxiety and anger, acting in ways to use those emotions effectively instead of destroying everything around me.

In 2016 my diagnosis of BPD was rescinded (not even traits) and I was congratulated by a psychiatrist for being the first person he had met who had recovered from BDP.
Truly I don’t believe we ever “recover” from BPD.  Some days I still wake up with a torment of thoughts that are jumbling my emotions.  However using my DBT skills and other life skills I can sort through those thoughts and feelings and organise myself in a way that leads to a happy and healthy life.
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I’ve been happy to be working with the Wellness Initiative for 3 years, and during that time I have met a few participants who also experience BPD. It heartens me to be able to share some of my experiences and strategies for living healthily with BPD. I feel so warm when participants realise that their torment will not go on forever and that there is hope for them to have a full and happy life.  I truly believe all my BPD experience has brought me here to a point where I can help others, and I believe that has given me the purpose that I have been looking for, for so long.

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