The Face of BPD (part 1 of 9)

Today I am starting this nine part series of what the diagnostic criteria (symptoms) of BPD look like in my own life. When I was first learning about BPD, simply reading the criteria didn't really give me a glimpse of what it was like living with the symptoms of BPD disorder on a daily basis, so I am hoping my description can help others describe their symptoms to their mental health provider.

Criterion 1: frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. (does not include suicidal or self-injuring behavior covered in Criterion 5) full list of criteria here

Although this is the first on the DSM-IV's list of criteria (what I think of as symptoms) of BPD, it was definitely not one that I recognized right away. But as I dig deeper, I am seeing this to be one of the more subtle aspects of my condition, one I've dealt with overcoming before.

As a child, I suffered with separation anxieties. Leaving my home, my family, and especially my mother were extremely difficult. Even as an older child, going to school was often traumatic. Sleepovers often ended with me walking home from the friend's house in the middle of the night or my parents being called to come and get me. I suffered through the first several days of the week-long summer camp I went to every year (to the point of being physically sick and visiting the camp nurse). Even vacations with my entire family resulted in intense periods of homesickness that would leave me sick to my stomach. Even today, in my 30s, moving to a new place or starting a new job can be extremely traumatic for me.

As an adult, I can see these episodes as the beginning of abandonment issues. I'm not quite sure where they've come from, though I've spent time in the past working of some of the aspects of the attachment issues I've had with my parents. I know I still have work to do there, and perhaps one day I will figure it all out.

I think, too, that part of my often chaotic relationships are tied up in abandonment issues. In the last chaotic friendship that really effected my life, I had to have the last word. I had to be the one that said the final straw that ended the friendship. I couldn't just let go, couldn't walk away, though I knew deep down that the relationship was doomed and I was even better off without it. I wasn't seeing this person on a daily basis, so I could have just let go and ended it there. Instead, I chose to push my friendship unto to this person - and then I dug and dug until I had enough dirt on the way they were hurting others that I could finally have it out with them, tell them off, and FORCE THEM to walk away from me. In this way, I think I felt that I wasn't abandoned. It was me frantically taking control of the situation to avoid abandonment.

full list of BPD criteria here