She had to travel through madness to find herself

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By Allison Watson

That’s how it feels for me. I had been abused so badly as a child but I thought I had it sorted. I left school, went to work and forged a career. Found something I was good at and worked like a Trojan. My life became work for the next 20-odd years. I had a good career, my own home and car and was financially independent. Then I started getting physically ill. I needed brain surgery for a neurological condition which had just come out of nowhere.

Despite the surgery my cognitive ability was nowhere near where it used to be. I could no longer work the long days or juggle many projects the way I easily could before. Eventually my employer talked to me about medical dismissal as I wasn’t well enough to work. It tore the bottom out of my world as I realised work was it for me. Nothing else existed. After 27 years’ service I went long-term sick and was then medically dismissed. Then suddenly I began to have problems with my mental health. I was quickly diagnosed with Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder due to my childhood abuse. Up until now I had been using work as a coping mechanism.

I could no longer manage

At the same time the person I regarded as my Mum was dying of cancer. It was very quick and it was so tough, to see her dying and the people who have treated me as family so so devastated.

Those two things combined led me to a place where I could no longer manage my mental health. Throughout my adult life and as a child I had self-harmed and let other people harm me to cope, even while my career was going well, I also binged to control my emotions. These all got completely out of hand. I put on 5 stone over 6 months, started self-harming almost daily and letting other people hurt me frequently.

Standing up to the stigma

That was my introduction to the local mental health team, care co-ordinators. Psychiatrists, psychotherapists, crisis teams and hospital psychiatric teams. Then eventually I was referred to a specialist Personality Disorder service where I became an in-patient of a therapeutic community for 10 months. I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder as a result of the C-PTSD. There is a huge stigma attached to being given a diagnosis of BPD. (Or the correct European diagnosis of EUPD. Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder.) And I didn’t want this.

I’m learning that this is me. I didn’t do anything wrong, this is because of stuff that was done to me, not because I’m a bad person. It’s how I learnt to cope in terrible situations. So I refuse to hide and I will stand up to this stigma and try to get people to understand what sits behind this diagnosis.

Reproduced with permission, originally posted here: thisismeeupd.com