Cutting & BPD & Me

I was going to talk more about what BPD is today, but then I realized it is Self-Injury Awareness Day (which is why the text is orange 😉 ). So, I want to talk about some of my Self Harm/Injury behaviors involved with my BPD which have/do include Gambling, Promiscuity, Alcoholism, Binge Drinking, Binge Eating, Cutting (to name a few, lol).

I want to talk about Cutting, but before I do, I want to say that it has been going on 1 year and 9 months since I last cut!!!  (YAY ME!!!!!🙌🎈🎉🎇🎊🙌).   

Most people don't understand what actually happens when a person "cuts".  Many people see cutting as a way for someone to try to get attention, they may think that person is trying to kill themselves.

This is about as far from the truth as you can get.  I started cutting when I was a teenager.  I don't remember the first time, but I do remember that I used to do it to punish myself and box cutters from work were my weapon of choice (that changed to knives or any sharp object I could get my hands on later on in life).  I might cut for something I did wrong at home or school or work.  But, one thing you will find is, that it is NOT something we do to get attention!!  Most cutters will cut where it can be covered up.  I used to make up stories like I fell off my bike or had an accident when I had bandages on.  I was embarrassed and did NOT want anyone to know and part of that too was because I felt like there was something wrong with me and I didn't know what or why.  It's hard to describe why you did something to someone else when you don't even know why you did it yourself so it's just easier to try and cover it up.

As I have changed, my BPD also changed and I used cutting as a means of release.  What do I mean

by that?  Because my brain does not have a shut off switch, I get overwhelmed very easily because I have sooooo much going on in there ALL THE TIME!!! When the stress or the emotions get too much to handle and I feel like a volcano about to erupt, I cut.  When I do that it is an INSTANTANEOUS relief.  It's like by cutting and letting the blood out, it gives my emotions a way to escape too so that there are not so many of them fighting with each other.  It's an INSTANT calm.  For others, they cut to just feel something, ANYTHING because they are so numb on the inside.  Numbing and Distraction are key characteristics of coping with BPD which I use all of the time (Distraction seems to help me with my panic and anxiety attacks too).  

Now, I can tell you first hand that cutting and alcohol DO NOT mix!!  I'm sure you could have figured that out by yourself, lol, I have had many scary things happen to me with just alcohol, including being raped, physically abused, blackouts, blackouts while driving, blackouts with cutting involved, etc.  I think back and truly wonder how I survived all of it.  One time I awoke in the morning and found my passenger hubcap gone, my side mirror hanging down and my passenger door banged in.  I blacked out, was driving and have absolutely no recollection of what I hit.  I woke up one day to find my car parked over the sidewalk (with a ticket on it) and in the yard of the apartment building next to mine.  I've woke up and have had no idea where my car was.  I've woke up and had no idea where I was or who I was with.  I've lost my purse and all it's contents several times.  Two of the three scariest for me involved the cutting (The third one is a major event for me that I will get to at a later date).  I woke up one morning and as I was getting up I noticed the blood.  I ran to the bathroom and looked in the mirror and started freaking out.  There was blood everywhere, in my hair, caked on my face and hands, blood caked on my pillowcase, drops of blood all over the house and part of the skin on my nose hanging off.  I later found a knife on the floor in another room.  I had sliced my face and came very, very close to putting that knife through my eye!!!!! (and don't remember ANY of it!!)

Another time I woke in my apartment and it was trashed, and I mean TRASHED people!!!! All of my paperwork was everywhere, chairs were turned over, the living room and dining room were trashed, there was a hole in my wall and then the kicker is there was a knife on the floor and blood streaming down my leg.  I couldn't find my phone so I walked four blocks or so to the gas station, drunk and about 3am in the morning and got the attendant to let me use his phone to call a friend and then walked home....WTF was I thinking???  

I don't know what I was thinking at the time, but I do know why I was doing it...I was just trying to cope.  I was trying to cope with all of these emotions and feelings of rejection and abandonment and

not fitting in.  It was my escape, ...my way of so called fleeing from my own emotions.  Back then I didn't know what was wrong with me..  I knew I was depressed, but I didn't know of the BPD or of the PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) either.  I wondered what was wrong with me??  I wondered why I wasn't "normal"??  Even after I received my diagnoses, I started to research BPD and was so freaked out by how HORRIBLE it is viewed on the Internet that I quit looking and tried to "forget" that I had it for over a year.

It was only when I met my current boyfriend that I finally started researching and finding out SOOOOOO much more about the disorder.  I think it was because I was very up front with him about what I had.  I even sent him the video that I have linked to the very first Post on this blog, and he was okay with that.  We were both VERY naive about the disorder back then, but I think it was him accepting me for me, accepting me even

with having this disorder, knowing that the disorder was  a part of me, but not ALL of me.  It took him learning about me and loving me DESPITE of all of my flaws and problems that finally gave me the courage to speak out about it.

I used to be embarrassed about being on Disability for depression.  I never wanted to tell anyone any of that because it made me feel worthless, but my boyfriend has helped changed that in me and now I post on FB about BPD and me with my BPD.  Most people don't look or give a shit because it's mental illness and mental illness is SOOOO DAMN STIGMATIZED that nobody wants anything to do with it.

WELL I DO!!!   🙋🙋

That's why I post on FB, that's why I started this blog and that's also why I have a project in the works that deals with me and my BPD that I hope can help bring more awareness to this disorder and not just negative either!!!! 

I still wonder sometimes why I am still here, why I was spared all of those times when I should have been dead, and now I often wonder if my purpose was to go through all of this horrible stuff to get where I am today and try to help bring awareness and acceptance of BPD and mental illness in general.  I don't know if that's true or not, but I'd like to think that someday all of my "Rambling" might help even one person get through a rough time, that it might help someone not take their life that night, or that it might help even one person know that they are not alone on the BPD Rollercoaster. 🎢