What Recovery From Borderline Personality Disorder Means to Me

Part of recovery, for me, has been learning to identify and avoid triggers.

When I feel pressured, I get borderline personality disorder (BPD) rage, and it’s like a “HULK! SMASH!” moment.

I don’t like BPD rage. It’s destructive. I don’t like who I am when I rage out. It’s my least favorite BPD emotion, next to guilt.

I’m really good at avoiding it so long as the people who are triggering an episode listen to me and back off. I don’t expect people to walk on eggshells; it’s just some type of conversations trigger me and I have to take part in them when in the right mindset.

One day, I’ll be able to face triggers and deal with them appropriately, but one step at a time… You can’t force recovery. It isn’t linear. It isn’t a straight line.

I’m not an angry person. It really takes a lot for me to rage out.

I don’t experience anger as frequently as a lot of people with BPD, but even slight agitation is a negative emotion for me and knowing what I do now — that I have BPD, and that BPD emotions are amplified, felt longer and more extreme than in people without BPD — I desperately try to avoid any negative emotions until I’m better equipped at dealing with them through my therapy.

I want to keep moving forward. To me, recovery is getting this diagnosis removed (which I’ve been told will happen if I can go five years without a flare-up), so that means only feeling the good stuff and learning to manage the bad stuff in healthier ways.

I believe in myself. I’m not the same person I was last year. I came so close to ending my life. I was drowning under negative emotions and stress. Truly, it was rock bottom. I intend to never go there again. I love the person I am turning into.

If you like my writing or would like to read more on my journey with BPD and toward recovery, check out my blog (and hit follow).