It has only been a month since I discovered I had been diagnosed with borderline
personality disorder in November 2023, via a rummage through my medical records and more specifically, my discharge summaries. In September of that year, I was committed to a psychiatric hospital and spent a few months recuperating from what could be called lightly a nervous breakdown.

Merriam-Webster defines borderline personality disorder as: ‘Characterized by
psychological instability in several areas (such as interpersonal relations, behaviour, and identity) but only with brief or no psychotic episodes’.

Naturally, upon learning of this diagnosis, which was originally called emotionally unstable personality disorder, borderline type in September, to the final title of borderline personality disorder in November, I was grappling with a lot of emotions, all at once, all the time.  

I’ve always been one with low self-worth and distorted self-image, ever since I was a child I always saw myself as dumb or that there was something wrong with me. Perhaps the extra reading and writing classes I needed to keep up with my peers academically, or just generally being quite a solemn and introspective child, led me to this conclusion. I believe whether this notion was based on intuitive fact or not is beside the point. The idea of my divergence grew from its germination, and I saw it as inadequacy and a weed, not the fruit or flower it is that I now cultivate.  

At first, I found the diagnosis to be a relief. All my ruminations, all my failings, all my misunderstandings of self and battles now had validity. Although I was adamant that my diagnosis would not be a crutch, and if I was to lose myself to negative actions and emotions again in the future, to lean upon BPD as an excuse would only be a cop-out. From the moment of my diagnosis discovery, I did not want it to cage me, even if it had labelled me. How could I expect to be free of stigma and misconceptions if I tried to kill past trauma by saying it was just the disorder talking? This relieves accountability on all sides and leaves one void of autonomy.  

Not long after the initial sense of relief and the ‘oh that makes sense’ moment, it quickly turned to the questioning and slight denial that I even had BPD, as a misdiagnosis would relieve me and my loved ones of uncomfortable conversations and feelings. This was accelerated by the fact that those around me were referring to the psychiatrists as over the top or being told by family members that I was fine. I took these notions with serious discontent. Although the coward in me wished my diagnosis would not be a bother to others and be something I could deal with on my own, I was not looking for justifications for my diagnosis or to be told I was fine—whatever fine means. Though It’s probably only natural that the look of overdramatised shock and slight repulsion on a family member’s face when they’re told about your divergent mental health, subconsciously moves you to push it away, it did for me at least. Being ‘fine’ was the least of my concerns, I had come to disregard the word and notion of normal a long time ago, and now I see it as a non-thing, I see it as vapid, a parameter created by someone who must be out of their mind. Though still, I became fixated on receiving the answer I already had, was this true? Surely I wasn’t interesting enough for this? If only I could be diagnosed through a blood or I.Q test or something. 

Although I am only leaving my first few footprints in the sands of this journey, I have arrived at a place where I not only accept and understand my divergence and diagnosis but have embraced every molecule of it and of myself—I know I am not lesser, I know I can be better. Though I know I still have a long way to go, how do I approach mentioning this on a first date? Or is this a third or fourth date conversation? Is it a conversation at all? Do I have to break it to people? I suppose what someone else thinks of me is none of my business. 

In the end, one must remember, that it is in moments of self-doubt and low self-worth that we must ask ourselves; 

What is our worth really being sold against?   

What is really to be expected in the mirror’s reflection, or the answers to self-posed questions and criticism?  

If it is normal you are after, then create and strive to live and love happily in YOUR normal. Perhaps it is in the search for content, self-love, self-empathy, and self-acceptance, that one finds it. 

Written by Thomas Hannah 
Blogger @poemstellium 
instagram: @brokesellout 

References :
Definition of Borderline Personality Disorder-https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/borderline