Am I crazy, or is it BPD?
Looking back at my life during childhood gives a whole new perspective.
I’ve always known that I’m a little bit different from everyone else. It’s harder for me to make friends, to socialize and it takes me a little bit longer to process things.
I was diagnosed with a learning disability in the second grade. It has always made me feel different from the rest of my peers; constantly being taken out so I could have special help for tests, group projects, discussions, etc. I’d feel like I wasn’t as smart as the others. Throughout my school years, I didn’t really have many friends, it was hard for me to make friends. I had a best friend, whom I met in elementary school, all the way up through high school. I’d do everything with her; she was really my only good friend. If she wasn’t at school one day, I’d be lost without her. I think around our senior year, our friendship started to chip away.
My very first boyfriend came in 9th grade. I remember being excited, but also nervous at the same time. I’d always try and act funny, be the entertainer, both with him as well as with my friendships. I thought in order to keep him, and other people interested in me, I’d have to act a certain way. I felt a need to impress people for them to want to be friends with me. Whenever someone told me they liked me and they cared about me, I took that shit in. I loved hearing that someone cared about me and was into me. I loved the feeling of being ‘wanted’ and I always wanted to feel validated by somebody. To this day, I still feel the need to be validated and loved, one of the things I’m working on overcoming.
What I remember most about my first boyfriend relationship is my mom constantly nagging in my ear, “don’t act this way, Erin, you want him to like you”, or “you act so immature. He’s going to drop you if you keep this up”. All the time, she would be criticizing me for my behavior, telling me what and what not to do, telling me what people would think if he broke up with me. So basically, I felt like I was walking on egg shells the entire time. My dad didn’t really say too much, besides telling my mom to back off every now and then. The relationship lasted an entire month, not a day longer. He ended up taking my former ‘best friend’ to our homecoming dance.
When someone passed away in our family, or someone with whom I was close to, I tried hard not to show any emotions. I felt uncomfortable crying in front of my parents. My mom would always say, “nothing bothers you ever, it seems”. When my grandma passed away, (my mom’s mom), I was devastated. I was close to her, but yet, I didn’t shed any tears on the frontlines. I kept them for my pillow at night. My parents got divorced right after I graduated high school in 2006. I was never close to my Dad in the first place, so strangely it never did bother me that much, and it still doesn’t. In my eyes, my Dad left us; he walked out on us. My brother and I both hold strong beliefs that when you get married, you stay married. Divorce is not an option. When things get tough, you work that shit out. When he left, my brother and I wanted nothing to do with him. He’d send us both letters asking why we wouldn’t talk to him (he still does to this day). Both my Dad and my Mom could be verbally abusive, especially my Dad towards my brother. My Mom would call me a bitch, tell me “no wonder you don’t have a boyfriend, no wonder nobody likes you, that’s why you only have one friend”. I’d promise to myself, if I have a daughter one day, I promise not to ever call her any names or downgrade her like that. She still does it to me every so often, but I’ve learned to tune her out. My Dad would tell my brother to ‘be a man’ at 12 years old when the only thing you knew how to do at that age was be a kid.
Prior to the divorce, my family had money, plenty of it. My Dad was, and still is, President of his own steel company. His father was President before him and handed it down to him, so money wasn’t ever an issue. After divorcing however, money obviously became more of an issue for us. My Dad’s family is all about money, so they were very frugal when it came down to the financial sides of things. My Mom was constantly worrying about money, telling us how much she hates him. Now, we have to watch our spending very carefully.
It wasn’t until a few months ago that I really began looking at my behaviors, realizing that I very well could possibly have Borderline Personality Disorder. The more I researched it, the more confident I was that I had it. Looking back on all these things that have happened in my childhood, it makes perfect sense to me. While not being officially diagnosed with BPD, I consider myself to have this disorder. Around two years ago, I went through one of the hardest breakups of my life. I mean, it took a serious toll on me. My boyfriend of almost five years and I ended things somewhat mutually, and when I wanted to try again with us, it was an adamant no from him. I honestly always thought throughout our relationship in my mind, ‘he’s always going to be here’, and ‘nothing will ever happen with us’. I took things for granted all the time. I depended on him for everything. When it was over, I was left with a ‘well, now what?’ I never thought I’d ever get over it, but here I am. That’s the time when I think everything started coming out onto the surface with me, like I started really noticing my problems. During the relationship, I never felt that I had any problems, or at least I never thought for a second that I had any. So I guess this was a wake-up call.
This is one huge thing that I found out about myself. Had the breakup not happened, I think I’d be in big trouble down the road. You could say it made me stronger. I’m much stronger than I was two years ago, but not as strong yet as I’d like to be. I feel I have a long way to go. I’ve lost some friends and damaged some relationships along the way that I wish I could mend, but hopefully with time.
