Odhora Alo: Borderline Personality Disorder, absence and new beginnings ...

It has been a very long time since I posted on this blog and for that I am sorry. There were many reasons why i stopped, lack of time (due to wedding plans), not feeling well enough or having enough energy to post, struggling with medication (which i am subsequently cutting down on now) ect, but i seem to have found a stable place for my head recently which is why I am posting again. Albeit a rather messy attempt at posting, i seem to have forgotten how to structure basic English during my absence, not that i was very good at it in the first place, but anyway, i digress.

I have so many positives to focus on currently that my depression (or rather my BPD, I?ve got to get used to that now) just doesn?t stand a chance of invading and i guess that?s why i have been more stable lately. Before i divulge further into the positives currently in my life and how they happened to be, I had better sum up where I am with my recovery, what I have been doing and where i stand medically.?

Last summer i was referred onto the local Mental Health team (also known as Desborough House) ?where I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and put onto a higher dose of sertraline, which was then topped up by an anti-psychotic called Arripiprazole to stabilize my moods. I was then referred to my care provider, who i was supposedly meant to build a repore with, that failed horribly and I clashed with her on the first meeting. Mark tried to get Desborough house to assign me to someone else (who i didn?t clash with) but our pleas fell on deaf ears and we were basically told that I had to ?get on with it? if i wanted to get better? This did not go down well with me and I removed myself from the care of Desborough House very quickly. My experiences with them left me very anxious and withdrawn from the world, which is not what you want from a service that is put in place HELP people with mental difficulties.?It took me a long time to recover from that, i felt rejected and left to fend for myself after all my barriers had been ripped away by the combination of higher meds and talking therapy. I was an empty shell essentially.?

During this time myself and my partner Mark decided to make the final push in our relationship and get married. It needed to happen at some point, after seven years together and six years of engagement, it was obvious neither of us were going anywhere, plus we needed something positive in our lives after losing several of Mark?s family members and my recovery being severely hindered. So we thought to ourselves on our, what could be more positive than a wedding, right? So we set our date two years from our anniversary and got with the planning.

Earlier this year we moved from our horrible, ratty 2 bed flat to a beautiful 3 bed house with my brother. which is amazing, we now have a proper garden for our daughter Alexis, I love it here and having the added support from my brother living with us has really helped.

In April i had i crisis with my BPD mixed with other more personal issues and ended up in such a state that I resorted to self-harm for the first time in 6 months. I cut myself so badly that i went into shock and my brother and my partner Mark had to call an ambulance out to treat the wounds, at first i refused to see them and locked myself outside because i was so angry that i had lost control. It took mark pushing past the door and calming me down for the ambulance crew to be able to sort me out. I have never been so ashamed of myself as I was that night, I have always been able to manage my self-harming sensibly and carefully but i lost control this time and it scared us all.?

After that I had to change my doctors surgery as my GP had done all he could to help me without any real knowledge of mental illnesses. He meant well and did all he could to help me, even when he had no real idea of what i was talking about. I am now with a GP who has knowledge of mental illness and a background in psychology I believe, Which has helped to make me feel more secure about where I am and where I am going to be.?

In May I decided enough was enough, I wanted to come off of my medication. I felt like a zombie whilst on them, unable to really feel emotion or enjoy the highs when I have them and I missed having that control over how I felt. They didn?t stabilize me, they suppressed me into something grey and intangible. I just didn?t feel like I was there anymore. I wanted to just stop, cold turkey, but my sensible husband-to-be made me lower my dosage slowly and inform my new GP of my decision. I am so glad he took control of the situation like he did, otherwise I could of made a serious mess of myself. I?m now on a much lower dosage of sertraline and feel fantastic for it, i can feel more emotion now and I think i am in a much better position to control it.

At the end of May I joined Anytime Fitness, a new gym that had just opened in the center of town. At first I was nervous as all hell about going after previous experience with gyms and the totally unfriendly people i was surrounded by, nobody wanted to see the fat chick working her arse off or appreciate that she was trying to lose weight and better herself. :/ But Anytime Fitness is amazing and the staff are so friendly and helpful, i felt welcomed into a family of like minded individuals and not tossed aside because i was overweight. Since joining the gym I have seen drastic improvements in my moods and feel more stable as a whole. I feel better about myself and where I want to be, I have goals! Actual goals! That I can work towards steadily and I am eating more healthily now.

Nova pup.

Now we have a bouncy little puppy called Nova, She?s a blonde coloured staffy crossed with a husky so she has buckets of energy and keeps us plenty busy with cuddles and attention. Taking her out for walks has really helped build my confidence and kept my energy levels up when i am feeling at my worst.?

I have also started taking part in the local ParkRun with friends, (ParkRun is a timed 5k run that takes place every Saturday morning around various local parks).I started off just power walking the 5k and just about scraping through at 56 minutes, but after 2 successfully completed weeks I finally plucked up the courage to add running into the mix and beat my personal best by five and a half minutes! I had always hated the idea of running and constantly worried about what people might think about a fat chick trying to run down the street, let alone 5k. But with the added confidence I have gained from joining the gym and the outstandingly welcoming demeanor of fellow park runners, I have learnt to leave that fear far behind me. I have learnt to love running.

All in all I am making changes for the better and seeing positive results through eating more healthily and exercising whilst coming off of anti-depressants. I feel more myself than I have in years, I am more confident, more alert, my moods are more stable than they were this time last year and I can proudly say for the first time in a very long time, I am enjoying life!?