For My Borderlines Who Just Found Out...

... a few things I wish I was aware of

So here we are, day five post breakdown…. day five? Yeah, I’m pretty sure. So I’ve gotten a lot off my chest in the last few days and seem to have found an outlet in which to release it. Now to see if it has done any good…. Or made things a hell of a lot worse…. That is yet to be seen.

Now that I think about it, shit storms come in threes…. My poor guardian angel.

If all of this has done nothing except to let that tiny giggle out of my mouth, I’m still calling it a success.

I feel a need to lighten the conversation a little, well “lighten”, we are talking about a pretty crappy condition. So all you newly diagnosed Borderlines, this one's for you. I got dropped into this world with absolutely no knowledge on this disorder. So for my first piece of advice……

……… PUT THE FUCKING GOOGLE DOWN!!!

Calm down, I’m not telling you not to do your research, you’re going to need to, right now is just not the time. I’m telling you to put it down for a second.

Now tell me, how well is your brain processing when your world is spiraling and none of your thoughts can be deciphered. Yeah, that's what I thought! Now is the time to calm your mind and take some extremely deep breaths. (I know, I was completely skeptical myself when it came to breathing and mindfulness, a subject for a different day)

That phone or tablet or whatever else you were Googling on, I need you to put it down for one second. Now using your nose, fill your lungs until you can’t anymore, hold it for a second, now try to take in a little more breath, and hold it again. Now let it out slowly though your mouth. Now do this again 3 more times…. Stop rolling your eyes and attempting to scroll on, I’m getting to something. Do this, and if you still don’t like it then, well, what did you really lose?

Now that your brain has released a few endorphins and slowed your pulse, your rational mind comes back into play. Now think, just because the knowledge of your BPD is new, the disorder itself, is not. You’ve had it all along. No, it hasn’t been pleasant to live with, but up until now, you thought it was normal, that you were just anxious or depressed, and you kept fighting. Here comes the good part.

Now you know!!! And with that knowledge, you can learn to live with it, find solutions ……make life happy, FOR REAL.

Yes, now you can have Google back.

I’m not saying life is always going to be easy, as I may have mentioned at the beginning of this article. What I’m saying is, it CAN be a lot easier than it was.

Now my second piece of advice -- you’re still going to have really bad days, days that make you want to completely give up. That was me yesterday. And before I go on, please read to the end... Yesterday I was done. I had a plan. I felt no matter how hard I work, I will always end up here, alone and in pain. I forgot that most of my life is good days, that I’ve learned to experience happiness I never thought existed. But when you’re spiraling, you’re robbed of those memories.

Please, please, I’m begging you, don’t make a rash, permanent decision in the middle of a spiral, those thoughts you're hearing, they aren't yours.

I know your first instinct is to push everyone close to you away, STOP! Those people you are pushing away are literally your life preservers, hold on to them through the chaos. Because that spiral, it eventually ends, and beyond it lies the happiness you long for. The spirals will keep coming, it's that we get through them that defines us!