THE JOURNEY TO DIAGNOSIS

None of this really holds much relevance to the condition but I've included it for those who come across this blog that know me to help better understand what's gone on in my life leading up to my diagnosis. There are some aspects of my story which may resonate with others however as themes like abandonment by supposed "friends" and their deeply devastating and triggering effects on those with BPD is a common occurrence.

 

I recall from a young age, into my teenage years and adulthood, wanting to have the doorbell ring for me, to have friends “knock on” unexpectedly to see if I was playing out. It did happen albeit rarely. Like a handful of times.
 

I was a bit of a weird kid. Painfully unfunny and odd, desperate to fit in but completely unable to. I struggled to connect to people my own age preferring the company of older people and very young children. Perhaps because of autistic traits, perhaps because older people tended to be more accepting due to being more wise in the world and young children having no frame of reference and both being less judgemental as a result, perhaps because of “genius traits”. It left me with very few friends and even less that I felt connected to. I moved schools both during primary and the transition from primary to secondary and lost contact with friends both times.

In 2002, at the age of 15, my mum discovered me huddled between the bed and the wall, weeping. We went to the GP who diagnosed depression. I was prescribed anti-depressants and my GP told my mum privately that if I ever came off them, I’d die. Not literally, of course, but due to suicide. I was also diagnosed as post-viral for undiagnosed glandular fever which was suspected as a potential cause.

Fast forward to 2016, after different medications and a few failed attempts at therapy. I can’t remember exactly why but I came off my medication at the time. What followed was small bouts of anxious thoughts during perfectly safe scenarios. I’d had panic attacks before but this was more insidious and longer lasting. Eventually this became a months long anxiety attack. Each thought was negative, each thought spawned another three, and soon I was caught in a maelstrom of constant “what if” thoughts, re-evaluating previous ones, following the conclusion from the new outcomes, still conscious of the other ones, etc. I couldn’t cope with the constant, unwanted noise. I was still in touch with my ex who kept me talking on the phone while his dad called for help and I’ll forever be grateful to them both for that. I was diagnosed with anxiety and prescribed a new medication.

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And now to last year. 2023. I'm going to list each event here that had an impact as it all led up to my diagnosis. Think on each event and how it would make you feel, the emotions that you'd attach to each one.

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El Cocinero

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I'd been adrift for a while with no real friend group (a repeating pattern in my life), going out on my own just to be around people when I saw a post by someone promoting an old friend's business. I hadn't heard from this friend for a while and, following his last message, I was a bit concerned.

I reached out to the poster and managed to get in touch with EC.  What followed was a wonderful month and a half meeting new people, making new friends and hanging out with someone who made me feel comfortable and like "myself" for the first time in a long time. It wouldn't last though.

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Eventually, texts would no longer be replied to. EC went from being a good, close friend that I cared very deeply for to a stranger. I needed to talk, to stop my mind trying to fill in the gaps. I had poison dwarves whispering in my ear telling me I'd been used. I didn't feel used but I also had no explanation for why I was being ghosted. He would also gaslight me every so often claiming he wasn't ignoring me... after ignoring me, my requests to talk and my offers to put in the effort to come to him in order to do so. I was deeply hurt and anxious. Had I done something wrong? Had I upset or pissed him off?

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A mutual friend was there for me and tried to get EC to talk which he would claim he would but he never did. The mutual friend informed me EC had left the local area for work and I broke. How dare he get to run away and leave me suffering with anxiety and beating myself up over something he had done.

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I found out he had returned on a day I'd asked to talk to him after he'd left. He made no attempt to contact me or let me know he was around. He had replied giving the usual response of not having much time and no signal. I was angry and effectively told him to fuck off. I washed my hands of him and that was that...

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El Hermano Consanguíneo

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In September, my brother suddenly fell very ill. He was in intense pain, didn't recognise my dad, was incredibly confused, lost his vision and eventually went unresponsive. He was rushed to hospital before being rushed to a specialty brain unit. They discovered a tumour in his brain preventing cerebrospinal fluid from properly draining. The surgeon had to cut short his conversation with my parents to get into surgery to "literally save his life".

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They couldn't remove the tumour straightaway due to the fluid build-up so he had to remain in hospital stuck in bed with tubes coming out of his head draining it into bags. It was distressing to see and upsetting to hear his discomfort at being bedbound in the same position for almost two weeks.

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When they finally performed the surgery, things were tense while we waited to hear, but they managed to remove it completely with no possibility of it returning. He made a full recovery, no damage, no loss of motor functions, speech or memory but it was a long slow, recovery process.

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El Cocinero (Parte Dos)

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The first time I had any interaction with EC again was an aggressive one. I had met his ex on a night out and we hit it off and spent the next 24 hours in each others' company. EC was angry about it but he had no right to be. If he had made any effort, I wouldn't have had the conversation about how he'd treated me like shit with his ex that we bonded over and, out of respect, I'd have kept my distance.

Nothing much happened anyway. The ex, ETI mentioned below, was very drunk and I didn't feel comfortable with anything happening as a result. I invited him to take a nap in my lap outside his as he couldn't remember where his keys were and threw my coat over him while he slept in my arms straddling me. We went on a date after and a week later, he told me he didn't want to pursue anything further. I suspected alcohol was probably the main reason anything happened at all at first and he was trying to be polite. I didn't mind as we got on quite well.

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EC eventually turned up at the pub where ETI worked when I was there and what followed was an evening of chest beating, insults and death glares from across the pub. This was hard for me as I hadn't interacted with him in person for seven or so months when we were mates and hanging out. On top of all that, the same evening, I was left with a mutual friend of ETI's having a panic attack where she'd pass out and stop breathing and turned into a dead weight in my arms. I broke down in the car park away from everyone and put on a brave face when they came looking. It had affected me a lot more than I imagined it would.

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El Hermano de Sangre

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The next day, still reeling from the unnecessary drama of the night before, I noticed a post while browsing Facebook. Someone had posted an article from the MEN with the explanation that this was my good friend EHdS. I rang another friend and asked "what the fuck did he mean" and they confirmed it. He'd died alone in a doorway during one of the coldest nights of the year. Probably dying as I was five minutes drive away picking up ETI and a friend from a work event. My heart broke. 

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I'd known the guy for 22 years and considered him a brother. He was there through my teenage years, my young adulthood, and all those fond memories came flooding back. We grew up together and he was a huge part of who I am today. We'd stay up after everyone else had gone home, eat fried chicken, carry on drinking and chat about philosophy, politics or just put the world to rights. He was a gentle giant, the absolute best of us all; a fiercely intelligent, kind-hearted beast of a man who'd defend you to the end. And he was gone. He went out alone. No one with him. And I was five fucking minutes away in a warm car.

I went to the pub and got very drunk on my own while ugly crying my heart out.

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El Cocinero (Parte Tres)

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Two days after finding out about EHdS' death, still obviously struggling to process it, a concerned friend invited me out for a drink. With everything that had been going on, I didn't want to stay out late, made my excuses and left to go home. I decided to pop into a bar for one last one on the way home to find a group I considered friends but who weren't particularly welcoming and instead treated me rather coldly while accusing me of being deliberately provocative. Very kind and considerate behaviour, both all coming together and leaving me out and their treatment of me when I wandered in to the bar, especially considering that they knew one of my closest, oldest friends had passed away days before. It turned out EC was there and he was still unjustifiably angry with me.

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Whilst outside having a cigarette, EC came charging out of the bar threatening me and throwing around some pretty grotesque accusations. While others held him back, I eventually left his barrage of disgusting insults and threats of violence. I hunkered down into a gap between a GRP cabinet and a lamppost on the way home and tried to deal with the shock of what happened. No one followed me. Thankfully, given the nature of the abuse shouted, no one else followed me. But no one thought to see if I was okay after this. Instead they just gathered around EC bar one who rang me but I didn't hear what he had to say as I could only hear EC crying and begging him not to do something. The next day, no one called or messaged either. So, four days after losing someone very close to me, I found out the hard way that my supposed "friends" were anything but.

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El Trabajo

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While all this was occurring in my personal life, my workplace was busy doing its utmost best to fuck me over.

A few years ago, I was asked to step in and assist the Admin/Reception department. This role was effectively organising competitions and giveaways, paying off taxi firms, etc; all the stuff to keep the site ticking over as well as what the company called "engagement". The team had three of us at the time and the other two were pretty good at the general administration having done it for a while so I worked on communications.

 

Music had always been an issue and was something I'd pushed for since joining the company. They'd finally put into motion something I told them could be done but they insisted couldn't... What happened was the introduction of Heart Radio, quite possibly one of the worst stations as you'd hear the same songs at least five times a day interspersed with ads for Ed Sheeran. This then became cycling through radio stations but then you'd sometimes hear the same song repeated almost instantaneously. Eventually, a playlist was created but it was... dire. So I took ownership, invested personal time creating and developing a diverse playlist to inspire people to suggest their own and took requests off select people before trawling through lyrics to check for explicit lyrics (Spotify/Amazon... American sensibilities are a lot more delicate than British so please sort your "explicit" label). I pushed for request boards, got permission, selected locations and designed them.

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Off the back of the design, I was asked to create a new Welcome sign for the building as well as fill some of the empty wall space. I got permission from Forever Manchester, who owned the rights, and had an installation done of Tony Walsh's This Is the Place poem in the main stairwell with a massive piece opposite for "Rain" by Lemn Sissay who was kind enough to grant permission to use his work. My aim was to improve visuals, create a sense of community through a site identity and just improve the place for my colleagues. Several more pieces celebrating Mancunian music, historical figures and actors later and I was being asked to design large pieces for various departments along with designing and planting an area for visitors and staff alike outside the entrance.

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I built a staff library with a wider plan to improve a part of the canteen for relaxation and introducing a diverse range of cultural board games to encourage socialisation and integration as well as adapting one of the office rooms for a Mental Health First Aid room. Again, all for my colleagues to create a better workplace that wasn't quite the cold, industrial warehouse it was.

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I used my position in Admin to develop better community outreach, selecting charities for monthly cash donations and using the company's stock to donate items in need as well as organising volunteers, etc. I spent hours travelling around the area with donations, meeting people all over to see how we could help. People came to me, they relied on me, I was making a difference and, for the first time, feeling I was doing something of value. I oversaw the site's bees, the music, improvements, plants, community outreach, donations and, while I wasn't always paid appropriately, they'd step me up into the pay for the role when and where they could. I created new games for the site, varying levels of difficulty of riddles and treasure hunts for staff that saw great success and a now infamous card game that brought managers and staff closer.

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Eventually, I was screwed over. Despite knowing the department like the back of my hand, despite everyone knowing I was the guy to come to, I wasn't allowed to step up temporarily while my colleague left for maternity (the other had left the business and the team had been reduced). It had to go to someone in a certain bracket thanks to the company's ridiculous promotions system. I was also later accused of some absolute nonsense, subject to investigatory meetings and told I had to be micromanaged by someone entirely new to the department. Projects were taken off me by a new manager keen to prove herself (who still hasn't got round to any of the stuff I had planned) and ridiculous new rules were imposed. I was reduced to rank and file, not stepped up for the busiest period and no longer allowed on the department because they "didn't have the hours" (despite never officially having them).

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Now I'm working a mindless, manual job I utterly detest that screws with my mental health and causes me physical pain but I'm reliant on the private health insurance for therapies. Benefits are never benefits. They're a trap.

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El Tonto Ingenuo y El Violador Manipulador

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This one was the "final straw". I'd barely been treading water at this point and these last few events opened a floodgate that dragged me under the surface.

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Let me begin just over twelve years ago... While browsing a particular app that's popular with certain demographics of men, I noticed a similar aged user closer than anyone had been. I dropped him a message and had a lovely conversation with a polite young man.

 

He was quite distressed and upset as he explained how he was checking to see if his boyfriend was online or if anyone had seen him on there recently. He sent me a photo of an average looking, camp, chavvy sort of lad that looked like he'd applied some sort of eyeliner in the dark (though I suspect it was something more like dermatochalasis). Now I don't know how many times it had happened at this point but in their short, tumultuous relationship, my friend followed his boyfriend to a seedy hotel three times where he met with older (in the interests of fairness, the emphasis is on the "-er" and not the "old") men.

 

A few months later, an emotional, drunk and distraught friend messaged me while I was at a friend's 21st. We met up and the next day he was quite anxious I leave as he suspected his now ex would turn up. I left. He turned up. He tried to stop him leaving and that's all I knew.

 

I spoke with the ex on the aforementioned app a few times (mostly when drunk) and both ways and he ran a pub that I went to a few times with friends after our usual haunt closed. I later learned how he would turn up at my friend's family's places of work and stalked him for at least a year. Over the years, I'd learn of the emotional abuse and manipulation...

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Anyway, ETI. As I said above, we "dated" for a week but what followed was a great friendship. We spoke every day, saw each other a few times a week and had a laugh. We got each other, or so I thought anyway. While I was let down once and majorly misinterpreted something another time, he said the right things and apologised where appropriate. I enjoyed every moment from weird nights in my car to meeting his friends to spending time and having a laugh together. He would point out how the EC group weren't real friends, heavily implying that he and his friends were with me but he'd turn out to be a hypocrite on that anyway as well as what constitutes reasons for feeling "uncomfortable" and distancing himself from people...

 

In the last week of December, he went away on holiday and we didn't speak for a few days. He randomly dropped into a conversation that he was now seeing someone. I didn't react well. Not because he'd said he was happy being single as an excuse with me. I'd been warned he had a habit of dating, saying he was better off single and then getting into a relationship with someone else almost straight away by at least two different people and he was, of course, allowed to do whatever he wanted. What I found hard was how he'd done it in such a cowardly way. Clearly, he'd been speaking to someone for, I'd hope, a while and yet he waited until he was abroad to drop me a message. I was supposed to be a mate but I just got a casual text while he was out the country. On top of everything else, I couldn't cope with this bullshit and social media in general so I dropped out for a few days.

 

When I came back I messaged him to apologise and he explained that he'd heard some things that made him feel "uncomfortable" and we should keep our distance a bit. This was the last message I'd ever get off him. Me, someone struggling heavily with anxiety (something that he knew), just left out in the cold accused of something apparently bad enough to make an apparent friend stop talking to me by someone apparently close enough to know something bad enough. I dismissed him at first because I was drunk and, frankly, used to people abandoning me due to lies others had spread about me, and then tried to speak to him a handful of times across the next few weeks, my anxiety going utterly wild. I convinced myself I'd done some horrible thing which made things worse. I was hurt by his utter callousness and silence. Surely a "real" friend wouldn't just believe something without speaking to their friend about it or they'd at least tell them what was said and by who, right? I know I would, I know my other friends would, but not ETI.

 

A dear friend eventually cornered his best friend in the pub and sent me a text. Apparently, I'd stalked his new partner some years ago, some guy called "EVM". Furious at the accusation, knowing full well I'd never stalked anyone as I've both been stalked and severely lacked the confidence (and the energy and effort required) to, and wanting to know who the fuck this "EVM" was, I drove down to the pub and spoke to the best friend. She explained what was said and while she didn't know "EVM's" surname, she did have an old picture of him. She showed it me. Pretty much the exact same picture a young, polite man had sent me on that app some twelve years ago. I laughed. I'd never stalk him; he wasn't my type, was painfully dull with all the charisma of a dead and decaying rat, and the irony of calling me a stalker when he'd stalked my friend and his family was not lost on me. I told her all I knew of him, including his surname. ETI, who had been in several abusive relationships, had managed to score himself another. I told her it would be difficult as he'd changed his number and had no social media presence but I'd get in contact with his ex if I could later that night and get evidence that I knew who this piece of shit really was. It turned out I didn't know the half of it.

 

I won't go into the details as they're pretty horrific but I learnt of the scale of the emotional manipulation, emotional abuse, an aggravated and violent rape and gaslighting about it. I was horrified. One, that I'd spoken to this scumbag as a normal human being without knowing all this and, two, that ETI had confided in me a little of the abusive relationships he'd had in the past and here was all of the above distilled into one exceptionally malignant, narcissistic fuck.​ The ex allowed me to record our conversation and begged me to help ETI, to tell him to "get the fuck away and run for the hills". I had the evidence I knew who EVM was. The best friend cancelled the evening we were supposed to have that she asked for to hear about EVM when sober and more engaged. She never asked to see the evidence again. I put my friend through Hell, the emotional pain and distress as he recalled the violent, abusive relationship he'd had still raw after twelve long years. This weighed heavy on me and still does.

 

I tried to tell the best friend of all the details over text but she wouldn't listen. If I were ETI, I'd seriously re-evaluate some of my friendships. I spoke with my best friend and we were both in agreement: if either of us heard half of what we had about the other's partner, we'd kick down doors, kick the partner out and make sure the other knew of what had been heard. Instead, I was told it was "a lot" and while I wasn't disbelieved, it was "hard to believe". I was being accused of making it up effectively. This really upset me. I will go into more detail on the subject in relation to the diagnosis but truth and honesty are incredibly important to me and the diagnosis effectively "compels" me to be truthful and I expect the same of others as a baseline minimum. It was also not me saying this...
 

EVM had been involved in the local pub scene all those years ago. You ask anyone involved in it at the same time if they knew him, just casually mentioning his name, and immediately they'll react with disgust and give you their opinion; always negative, of a twisted, selfish, narcissistic, weird monster often with stories that stuck in their mind after all these years from animal abuse to theft to emotional abuse. I knew his ex, his ex met other ex's in the years after and they all said the same thing. The lack of concern, curiosity, anything related to a single iota of care towards their friend really played heavy on me. Did people who had shown me less friendship also feel so little towards me when we were "friends" too? So many anxious thoughts played on my mind.

Eventually ETI and EVM would walk into a pub and sit under 2m away from me. I have never felt such pure, unadulterated rage in my life. This absolute twisted, manipulative, evil scumcunt had the audacity to claim I stalked him and then sit so close to me! I had never seen someone so bold in their bullshit and so complete in their manipulations as to brazenly do the complete opposite of something someone with the claims he'd made against me would do. ETI didn't seem to recognise the incongruity of this behaviour and how it should demonstrate one of the many lies he'd been told and should raise red flags. I warned ETI to move as I didn't know how I'd react had the friend I was with not moved us and distracted me and I was told I owed an apology for that. Nah. I was not in the wrong. No one could see infuriatingly obvious proofs in front of their faces. I don't think I'm particularly intelligent or above average despite what my therapy team might say but occasions like this do make me wonder...

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I could go on but I shan't. EVM is going through the exact same motions that he did with my friend, his ex: lying about everything from the start, charming the mother (to use her against her son if history is anything to go by), charming the best friend, lovebombing ETI, intimidating others that he hadn't accounted for in his manipulations and lies that tried to tell ETI the truth, and, though I suspect it's through the selfishness of ETI too, isolating his partner from friends, etc. ETI will, sadly, discover the truth eventually as types like EVM don't change but that's not my concern. He is a naïve fool.

I can't say for sure as I haven't bumped into either of them since the brazen display at the pub but I also feel the accusation against me may well be a good excuse for EVM to avoid his old haunt, ETI's hometown, too. EVM is still barred from one of the pubs I frequent for being a "twisted cunt" as the landlord is still there that barred him and, with many of those who knew him back then still being about and holding no positive memories or opinions of him, he's not welcome in several of the other places I go to either. I still don't know what I'd do if I ever saw his disgusting face again. One, for what he did all those years ago, two, for using my name in his manipulations to stop someone hearing the truth but also, three, for the utterly humiliating and insulting notion that I'd stalk him of all people. As for ETI... he's a particularly selfish and shallow brat who will, sadly, attract abusive types and won't learn until too late due to several aspects of his personality and while I wouldn't piss on him if he was on fire for the obnoxious way he behaved knowing what I was going through, he doesn't deserve the evil that is EVM and the years of psychological pain that follows a relationship with him.

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El Hospital

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All of the above, the resurfacing of that piece of shit, the distress I caused his ex, the callous treatment of me by someone who claimed to be a "real" friend, false accusations and lies destroying friendships and isolating me from friend groups yet again, and the loss of one of my closest friends of so many years, etc, etc... I lost control of my emotions. I cycled between heavy depression, intense anxiety, anger, occasional hypomania, all in short time periods. I was in freefall. The pain, the distress, the all encompassing agony of everything led me to self-harm through blunt force. Eventually it all culminated in a truly dark depression one evening that I saw no escape from. Exhausted, lost, and desperate for an escape, I sat in a public area one Saturday evening and tried to write a suicide note. I couldn't. I couldn't go without saying goodbye or explaining myself so I reached out to my best friend who came running as fast as she could. We hugged and cried in that public space and she eventually took me home.

Less than a fortnight later, I'd used my private insurance to book myself in to the local Priory.

Initially given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, my psychiatrist couldn't ignore the frequency and intensity of emotional changes. Remember where I'd asked you to consider how each situation might make you feel and to attach an emotion to it. Dial those feelings and emotions up by a factor of 100k or so. Again, I will go into more detail elsewhere but those of us with my eventual diagnosis feel everything you do; we love, we hurt, we feel joy, sorrow, etc, but we feel it much, much more intensely than the vast majority of the population. That emotional awareness, though not knowing I felt them so differently to pretty much everyone I knew, and ETI's abandonment of me being significantly triggering (he had literally behaved in the worst possible way for someone with my condition), helped identify what was up. I was sent for a complex investigation with the site's expert in what would become my diagnosis and left finally knowing I had had borderline personality disorder all these years and had only had treatment for the symptoms and never the cause. I began the long, involved, in-depth, multi-disciplinary schema therapy less than a week later.

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