How I reframed my perspective after my diagnosis
March 22, 2020
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Because receiving a diagnosis for a mental illness doesn't have to be a death sentence.
After a desperate plea to the doctor late last year, I was referred to a consultant psychiatrist and received a formal diagnosis. Sitting on the edge of my chair in the clinical assessment room, I told her how anxiety was plaguing nearly every moment of my day and how I felt too low to function most of the time. How I felt like I was dragging my body and mind around all day, doing everything I had to do, but feeling no connection or emotion to it. How I felt angry, hopeless, self-destructive and even suicidal. Things had gotten really bad this time and I had no idea how I would get out of it.
A look of concern flashed across the consultant's face. She stopped me and said, 'We need to rule something out,' then handed me a a list of questions and a pen.
Less than an hour later, I found myself leaving the hospital grounds in a state of shock. The consultant seemed to think I had something called Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), also sometimes called Emotionally Unstable Disorder. I had vaguely heard of it before. Crazy, out of control, mentally-unwell, unstable, dangerous... were all words that raced through my mind, negative connotations I felt deeply afraid of. Up until now, I thought I'd been struggling with anxiety and depression, so it came as a shock to be given a new diagnosis I'd never even considered before. I was still in a state of disbelief when I returned home to my partner and broke the news. He didn't want to believe it either.
Hello and welcome
March 8, 2020
Hello and welcome to my blog, Flawed On Purpose. I created this blog to share and discuss my personal experiences from my own mental health journey. I'm hoping by doing so, my writing will speak to others struggling with similar issues, spread awareness, break stigma. I want to move away from labels as I feel they can sometimes come to define us, put us in a box and do not celebrate our own uniqueness and innate flaws that are part of being human. Instead, I'll dive deep into the messy emotional world of the human experience of life. Oh god, that all sounds so cliche doesn't it...
From the outside, my life looks like it's going pretty well. I'm "living my passion" working as a professional classical pianist, I'm in a loving long-term relationship, as well as having a handful of close friendships, an active social life, opportunities to travel and a lovely place I call home.
But like a lot of mental illness my struggle is invisible to most people.
A lot of my friends never really see me struggle because they don't know the flip side when I'm not catching up with them. I've had various mental health problems throughout my life starting with depression and anxiety in my teens and again from the age of 24. At the end of 2019, I was given an official diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). I'm going to write a separate blog post about receiving an official diagnosis and my feelings around it, as well as writing more about BPD in general, as it is still something that's massively stigmatised and misunderstood. If you haven't watched it, check out Crazy Ex-Girlfriend on Netflix where the main character has BPD; it's extremely well-crafted and a brilliant insight into the main character's inner world.
I know a lot of people struggle day after day without saying a word and that's what inspires me to write every post. By writing in a raw, vulnerable, messy, non-simplistic way, I want to give people hope about the future. I hope you enjoy reading my poems too, even if they are a bit dark and gloomy, I've found it a very healing and creative way of out-letting my emotions.
From the outside, my life looks like it's going pretty well. I'm "living my passion" working as a professional classical pianist, I'm in a loving long-term relationship, as well as having a handful of close friendships, an active social life, opportunities to travel and a lovely place I call home.
But like a lot of mental illness my struggle is invisible to most people.
A lot of my friends never really see me struggle because they don't know the flip side when I'm not catching up with them. I've had various mental health problems throughout my life starting with depression and anxiety in my teens and again from the age of 24. At the end of 2019, I was given an official diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). I'm going to write a separate blog post about receiving an official diagnosis and my feelings around it, as well as writing more about BPD in general, as it is still something that's massively stigmatised and misunderstood. If you haven't watched it, check out Crazy Ex-Girlfriend on Netflix where the main character has BPD; it's extremely well-crafted and a brilliant insight into the main character's inner world.
I know a lot of people struggle day after day without saying a word and that's what inspires me to write every post. By writing in a raw, vulnerable, messy, non-simplistic way, I want to give people hope about the future. I hope you enjoy reading my poems too, even if they are a bit dark and gloomy, I've found it a very healing and creative way of out-letting my emotions.
All my love and strength,
Alicia x
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