"It's like having a sunburn on the part of her brain that feels emotion."

"They're like the people you peg as the 'Phoebe' from Friends type. Or Lorelai from Gilmore girls. Just a little offbeat, with very large emotional reactions."

"Ever seen 'Single White Female?"

Those are just a few of the words my therapist has used to help me and my parents fully understand the diagnosis placed upon me.

In 2014 I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. Just a few of the symptoms are frantic efforts to avoid real OR imagined abandonment, identity and self image confusion, rapid and intense mood swings, splitting between ideation and devaluation, and episodes of transient psychosis and dissociation.

For me, it means that I often feel like an empty shell, not knowing my purpose or who I am. But the worst part is the emotional sunburn.

PTSD plays a decent role in my personality disorder. I've been hurt and abandoned in the past, meaning that I interpret everything as abandonment right off the bat. It's a very scary feeling - if I even begin to tell myself I am being abandoned, I start to frantically run around trying to pick up broken pieces and put them back together, perhaps so frantically and rushed that I am only destroying the relationship even further.

I don't become sad or happy or fearful or nervous. I grieve. I am manic. I am completely terrified and nerve-stricken down to my core. There is only black or white - no gray area with which I can measure my emotions or actions.

I don't always know who I am or what I want. I don't like who I am - sometimes when the old abandonment issues come back to play, I become mean and vindictive. I become your worst nightmare. I switch between hating you and begging you not to leave.

I have destroyed relationships. I am a monster when it rears it's ugly head. I have lost and quit so many jobs I can't count and I'm only twenty years old. I have been addicted to cigarettes. I have been bulimic. I have used drugs. I have been hospitalized and through treatment and I have had medications and a service dog, and I have seen every side of my sickness.

However, I have also seen sunshine. I have seen recovery and I have seen treatment truly work. Most importantly, I have seen a relationship where my partner wants to stay, and I have seen my family begin to understand everything and try to help. I no longer fear abandonment quite like I did. I no longer destroy everything I touch.

I have bad days, but the bad days don't control me.

1 in 10 people with BPD will end up committing suicide. I refuse to be a statistic. I'm Borderline, and that's my story. I'm sticking to it.