There's a woman in college that makes great grades all of the time. She's got nice hair and kind eyes. She doesn't speak in class. She doesn't do much of anything beyond what is asked of her. On the outside, she appears to be as average as they come.
Now I'm going to tell you something about that girl.
She has borderline personality disorder — and that's just the tip of the iceberg to her. That is just a label burned into her skin by a psychologist who thought he was helping her by telling her that she's broken.
There is something that no one seems to understand about mental disorder and that is the fact that people with these 'disorders' are still people.
That woman tries to walk to class without her headphones in one day and she feels as if everyone is staring at her, burning holes into her skin. She thinks for a moment that maybe she could breathe if everyone in the world disappeared. Someone looks at her and she wants to strike at them for it.
She's a pacifist.
Her mood swings occur as if she is standing on an umbrella handle, hoping it doesn't snap under the pressure and incapable of balancing. The slightest tremor in her environment- a tone too harsh or even a particular look can send her reeling. She knows it's irrational, but she can't help it.
Socializing is impossible. Either she is suffocating just from being in the same room as other people or she is completely detached from the experience. She is staring down at them and watching as they laugh and communicate, all the while wondering why she can't be like them.
Borderline Personality Disorder.
She tastes it on her tongue and wonders why it tastes so bitter.
When she first started seeking out help, it was through internet searches so that she could try to hide her fragile psyche from those around her that might either dismiss it or blow it out of proportion. She didn't want the attention and yet she wished that someone would see.
Her experiences became 'symptoms' on a list that basically told her her own personality was cancerous.
Looking for an answer when you have a mental disorder can sometimes be more like being submerged in a pool that just keeps getting deeper and darker as you sink. Bipolar Disorder- Manic or Depressive? Early signs of Schizophrenia- anything but that.
There is an estimation that 1.6% of Americans has BPD, but the number could actually be as high as 5.9%. So many are misdiagnosed since the symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder can be attributed to other conditions- anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, dissociative identity disorder. The list goes on and on. Around 75% of those who are diagnosed with BPD are women. It is theorized, however, that many men are misdiagnosed with PTSD rather than borderline.
She learns all of this shortly after the man behind a desk tells her what he thinks is wrong with her. Everything starts to fall into place, but she doesn't feel any better. There's no cure for what's wrong with her- only medications and more sessions with people who can't change her.
They can only offer her ways to dampen the problem.
The worst part is that everything wrong with her is all of the things she thought made her her. Her entire personality is laid out under a microscope.
Sometimes she locks herself in the closet because the world is so big and that is the only way to make it smaller. She wonders if you can actually drown in air.
When someone asks her what it feels like, she wants to tell them even though they won't understand.
She wants to say that it's a whole lot of all or nothings, actually.
She wishes she could tell them that it's like wanting to be noticed by your peers but also craving invisibility. Spinning through emotions but feeling each of them intensely.
She actually tells them that it feels like nothing and smiles when she does it. They accept her answer and it's like a knife twisting in her gut, but she smiles nonetheless.
The man on the other side of the desk tells her she has borderline personality disorder and, as she leaves his office, she becomes another statistic.
