Hi, I'm Holly. And I have Borderline Personality Disorder.

Okay, so my name isn't Holly. But I do have Borderline Personality Disorder. I'm also battling depression, and I have anxiety attacks on a daily basis that stem from my BPD issues.

I've always loved writing, and since I was ten years old I kept a diary. Looking back at the first page of my first diary, I realize that, deep down, I always knew I had BPD. My ten year-old self wrote, "I have so much hatred, and I need to get it out. So I bought this diary...". I'm sad for my ten year-old self...at that age, a child should be innocent and ignorant to the pains of reality.

But... "Unhappiness does not come from the way things are, but from the difference between how things are and how we think they should be" -Creflo Dollar

Back to writing though...

So here I am, ten years after putting a pen to my first diary, writing this blog. A part of it is for the same therapeutic reasons I've always had; but also for a bigger reason. For a long time I didn't know what was going on inside of me. Emotions came and went, my life would have extreme highs and even lower lows. I kept running away from something, anything...and then one day, I figured out what I was running away from: myself. The awareness of the monster, of the darkness, of the borderline, inside of me is terrifying. There is nothing more painful than knowing that something is creeping inside of you, seeping through your good intentions and spoiling your hopes and dreams. And at times, at those darkest times, it feels as if nothing can stop the monster.

I honestly don't know if anything can stop that monster, but every day I fight that monster, I fight to be better. Objectively, I know that I'm a good person. But the borderline inside of me is like a separate part of me, a part of me that seeps into every thought and action without being invited. And the borderline tells me I'm worthless, a failure, disgusting, and hopeless. And the borderline has eyes--my mother eye's, filled with hatred and disgust for me, for ten year-old me.

I have moments where I can feel my "true self" rising above, surfacing above the violent, raging waters. But when I surface I hardly have time to gasp for air before I'm pulled down again, down into the darkness and despair of BPD.

It is in having these juxtaposing experiences, though, that I am able to work on separating myself from the monster. I do not hate myself, even though sometimes I feel like I do. In reality, I hate the borderline voice permeating into my life uninvited.

I feel like I have been awakened, and its like I opened my eyes under the dark waters of BPD and Depression, seeing things that people don't often see or cannot communicate to the rest of the world. There are people in my life who just don't understand Depression or a Personality Disorder like BPD...I somehow got lucky enough to have two of the disorders that are most stigmatized and that people are most ignorant to. And it hurts SO much to have this...it only perpetuates the issue. I cannot stand being judged, I NEED validation, and all I want is acceptance and unconditional love. Needless to say, people thinking I'm a screw up, crazy, emo, ect. does NOT help.

And I know there are more people like me out there. And we need each other, and we need the people in our lives to understand, or at least seek to understand. So I'm putting my heart and soul (just not my name) out there, in hopes that this blog will become a window for SOMEONE to see into a world that is misunderstood and stigmatized. Or maybe it'll be a window into a world that you're living in. I want to help people with BPD, people who are suffering Depression, and people who know other BPD/Depressed people.

Saying "Don't worry about what other people think" to someone with BPD is like telling someone with an Anxiety Disorder, "Don't worry!". But for some reason, when I try to tell people this, they just don't understand a personality disorder that is so seemingly functional. I know for me, people just always ended up thinking I was annoying for wanting to please everyone. And then they wouldn't like me, which would only perpetuate the issue. So, I hope that by raising awareness of BPD and perhaps shedding enough light on the topic for people to just ACCEPT US, maybe, just maybe, it'll be easier for people to get help.

Ironically, admitting that I have BPD has been something that really helped me start transcending my suffering into growth, compassion, and healing. It was in validating the fact that I am not BAD, but instead "just" have a condition that I need to learn how to effectively live with, that first made me realize that I didn't have to hate myself.