The Mighty Logo

What It Means to ’Fight for Peace’ With Borderline Personality Disorder

The most helpful emails in health
Browse our free newsletters

I’ve lived my entire life with extreme emotions. And for all of those years, I didn’t “fight” against these emotions because I wasn’t aware they were blown out of proportion.

Since being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD) in 2014, other mental illnesses began to come to light in my everyday life. Anxiety was the last disorder I thought I would have, but it is very present in my day-to-day world. I have been battling these emotions, doing what I can to keep them under wraps, but this hasn’t just been a fair-fighting, clean battle. This battle is more challenging than World War III. It’s more than the slaying of bodies, or emotions, inside you. It’s more than winning. It’s about living, and conquering the battle; surviving your inner turmoil and beasts that never fail to torment you.

As of late, I have been working on finding my own peace. I have learned enough about myself, my BPD and anxiety malfunctions to understand they are extreme. They are difficult. They are big. To expect anything less than tsunami-sized waves is unrealistic. This has all brought me to this: even when I try to find and fight to feel peace, it hurts.

Trying to confidently go through the tasks of the day; trying to be OK with me; trying to feel peace and calm in the midst of the storm… at the end of the day, just trying to be OK still hurt.

I try to be careful with overthinking… because in these new types of situations I find myself, it scares me to think I will never truly be able to feel at peace with life, myself and with my existence in this universe. This, in turn, affects my husband and my child, and even my pets, but just like I have created my own light at the end of the tunnel, I will also continue to create ways and develop skills to fight this massive inconvenience. It takes daily strength, determination and a deep understanding of yourself and who you are to continue to fight this battle. It takes your honest effort to understand your unbelievably high emotions and when they develop in the same situations. Being conscious of the situations that cause my emotions to explode through the volcano has allowed me to almost “prepare” for them. I know I will feel these feelings by doing this, and sometimes it is something simple like taking the dog out.

My dog literally takes 15 minutes to do her business. At times, I just don’t have the energy to spend all that time outside, so my feelings develop into anger quite fast and it feels impossible to control. Believe it or not, having to maintain a calm demeanor for your pet is difficult too. After feeling this way over and over again, I have come to a point where I am exhausted because of these intense feelings. I had to realize it’s possible changing my perspective could tame that anger inside me, and with a few attempts, my situation has gone from an erupting volcano to a massive wave in Hawaii. Progress is progress!

If you recognize what your disorder does to you, it’s a new stepping stone to greater skills and extra peaceful moments sprinkled throughout your day. I feel exhausted and weak at the end of the day, whether I let everything out of hell’s gates or I attempted to find peace. The goal is to make it to the end of your day with the knowledge you are worth it and it’s possible to make it through your misfortunes, even if finding peace hurts.

Photo by Isaiah Rustad on Unsplash

Originally published: February 27, 2019
Want more of The Mighty?
You can find even more stories on our Home page. There, you’ll also find thoughts and questions by our community.
Take Me Home