Time To Change

If you live in the UK you might have noticed a few radio/television adverts regarding mental health awareness over the last year or so.  "Time To Change" is an initiative which aims to tackle the stigma and prejudice associated with having a mental illness.

This is an issue I feel strongly about, having struggled to maintain friendships once my mental health issues are mentioned.  I know I'm not alone in experiencing this.

I'm currently on state benefits due to my mental illness but find myself shying away from explaining to people exactly why I'm unwell.  It's a question I always fear and rarely answer truthfully.

Time To Change broadcast adverts such as this video, "Time to talk, time to change" (click here) which shows a man called Dave returning to work following mental illness.  When a colleague asks how Dave is you get to choose how the scenario ends by selecting the outcome.


As part of Time To Change you can MAKE A PLEDGE using this link to talk about mental illness, whether you share your own experiences with others or you just touch base with someone who you know suffers with mental illness.

Here is the pledge I made

The more mental illnesses are talked about in a positive light, the less stigma there will be.

From One Extreme To Another

One of the main symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder is swinging from one extreme to another.  This can be in any aspect of life, and for me, it tends to feature in nearly all aspects of my life.  I'm a very all or nothing sort of person, but unfortunately I don't always have control over whether it's all, or if it's nothing.

I find I drink no alcohol, or far too much alcohol.  You're my best friend one day, and I hate you the next.  I'm sexually promiscuous or I'm celibate.  I'm on top of the world, or the world is ending.  I also find impulsiveness is tied up with extreme behaviour.  There is rarely a happy medium.  It is often said that those with a balanced life are the happiest.  I think there's definite truth in that.  On the other hand, those with a balanced life probably experience far less excitement, and they certainly miss out on a lot of impulsive adventures.

Although my life has been at times, an absolute nightmare, it has undoubtedly been colourful so far.  I've experienced snippets of many lifestyles that the majority have missed out on.

I moved to Edinburgh more or less on a whim to do an MSc I knew hardly anything about.  It was a struggle but I completed the degree.  One time I was so upset and distraught I climbed up Arthur's Seat (Edinburgh) in the middle of the night with the intention of harming myself, but when I turned to look behind me I could see the city lit up, and it took my breath away.  I just sat in the calm and stillness and watched the sun rise.

The view of Edinburgh at night

I've know what it's like to almost die, but at the last minute fate has dealt me a royal flush and I've come through. I've been as high as it's possible to go, and I've been right down into the pits of hell.  I've met so many people, some good, some bad, but all different.

There a lot of things in my past (and present come to think of it) that I'm not necessarily proud of.  But then these experiences have made me the person I am today.  In my 24 years I've had numerous one night stands, some with married men, the majority with complete strangers.  I've drank so much alcohol I've suffered alcohol poisoning and almost shot my kidneys.  I've taken so many overdoses and ended up in a coma.  I've taken class A drugs.  I've slept with people for class A drugs.  I've slept so much I didn't see daylight for a month.  I've compromised my safety and as a result been sexually assaulted twice, and raped once.  I've lost my freedom for months at a time and had to live on a psychiatric ward.  I lost a Christmas and a birthday to that ward. I've driven my parents to the edge of their sanity.  I've made my Dad cry like a baby, something I've only seen him do on two other occasions, when he lost his Dad.  I've been handcuffed and detained by the police for running through 70mph traffic.  I've known what it's like to lose all your money to an alcohol addiction, and sit in an empty flat, with ice on the inside of the windows, eating dry bread which you payed for with a pound you found in the gutter.

I'm not proud of these things; but at the same time it has filled me with empathy for others.  I've seen snapshots of how other people live their lives.  And I've been able to walk away from most of it.  It has made me grateful for the life I have today.  I appreciate having food, and money, and warmth and the support of my family and mental health team because at times I didn't have any of that.

Two years ago I remember speaking to a friend about how I dreamed to live in the future.  My wish was simple.  I wanted to live in a nice little cosy house near the countryside with a couple of dogs.  And today I have that.  My life isn't perfect, but it's what I wanted.  I never anticipated taking the path I have done.  When I made that wish I expected to plod down a simple route and eventually things would simply fall in to place.  How naive I was.  Instead the road has been rocky, and at times impossible.  But it's true what they say; it's not all about where you've ended up, but how you've got there.  It's the journey I've been on that makes where I am today that little bit more special.  And I wouldn't change it for the world.

Filling the void

One of the symptoms of BPD is a chronic feeling of emptiness.  It doesn't happen all the time.  Sometimes I feel jam-packed full of life and excitement.  But when the emptiness strikes it's really difficult to deal with.

I find myself flitting through different coping strategies.  I self-harm to distract from the emptiness.  Sometimes I over-eat and buy myself loads of food to try and fill the emptiness.  Sometimes I do the opposite and go on a diet to give me something else to focus on, something which makes me feel like my life is worthwhile.  I often spend money on clothes, or other things to try and make myself feel better.  I used to go out and sleep with men to keep myself from feeling the void inside.  The biggest thing I've done is buy a puppy.  I'd been intended to buy a puppy sooner or later, but one afternoon when the emptiness struck I went out and brought one home.  She helped fill my emptiness for a month.

But sooner or later the feelings of emptiness return.  Sometimes it hurts so much I just sit on the floor and cry like a baby.  I'm lonely.  I don't keep many friends.  And sometimes the few friends or family I do have are all busy.  Sometimes I just can't bring myself to talk to them because I know they'll only end up worrying.  So I just sit and cry and cry.  I wish I knew a way of permanently filling the space inside.

But for now I guess I just keep cycling through various different coping strategies which all result in the same thing; I feel emptier and emptier each time the feeling returns.

Magical Thinking

After being referred to see an outpatient psychiatrist I had a few weeks to wait before my appointment.  I arrived slightly late, as was usual for me during those days, and waited to be seen.  A small woman came to fetch me, Dr Singhal she was called.  I sat in the chair of this old fashioned doctors room, which was cold and smelled slightly damp.  She asked me endless questions about my childhood, growing up and my current situation.  I remember being irritated by her referral to my self-harm as 'self-laceration'.  She diagnosed me with depression and anxiety, which came as no surprise.  I saw her a around once a week over the following months.  She had changed my medication to Citalopram and I was also taking Diazepam (Valium) for anxiety, and Temazepam (Restoril) to help with sleep.


I'd been seeing her for around six weeks when I took my very first overdose.  I won't go into detail of that at this point, but it was shortly after this she diagnosed me with obsessive-compulsive disorder.  I remember being confused.  I didn't see any of the behaviours I did as obsessive-compulsive.  My impression of OCD was that of checking.  I'd always been a little bit obsessive with hygiene, but I would never have gone as far as to say it was severe enough to warrant a diagnosis of OCD.


She explained to me that a less common symptom of OCD is "magical thinking" and an "inflated responsibility". An excellent run down of OCD symptoms can be found here but I'll just highlight the relevant bits to my diagnosis.

Inflated responsibility and magical thinking

If you have OCD you have an inflated sense of responsibility. This means that you believe you have the power to either cause or prevent bad events that are personally important to you. 'Magical' thinking - performing special actions to prevent something happening (an extreme form of superstitious thinking) - is closely related to this. It makes you feel more comfortable, as if you had more influence and control over what happens.

The over-importance of thoughts

This means the degree of importance that you attach to intrusive thoughts or images. It's crucial to understand here that everyone experiences intrusive thoughts and doubts - that are usually absurd and are the opposite of what they want to do or think. In the 1970s researchers carried out experiments where they asked some people with OCD and some people without OCD to list their intrusive thoughts. They could find no difference in the types of thought reported by those with and those without OCD. The difference is that people with OCD have more frequent and distressing thoughts than others because of the meaning they attach to the thoughts and the way they respond to them. OCD is maintained when you interpret intrusive thoughts as a sign that is there a serious risk of harm to yourself or others (over-importance of thoughts), and also believe that you can prevent the harm by what you do or don't do (overinflated responsibility).
The actual content of intrusive thoughts comes from your values - the things that are most important to you. The thoughts represent your deepest fears. So, for example, a mother might have intrusive thoughts about stabbing her baby, because he is the most precious thing in the world to her and she would be devastated if anything happened to him.


(Full information about symptoms of OCD can be found at www.overcoming.co.uk)

After several weeks of denial I completely understood where she was coming from.  I didn't suffer from the stereotypical forms of OCD such as checking etc, although many of the "traditional" traits were present, but the magical thinking side of things certainly rang true.  


For the last eight months I'd been performing certain behaviours, from something as small as moving an object to a different place, or something slightly more serious like overdosing, to prevent harm from happening to those around me.  At it's worst I felt I HAD to cut myself fifty times a day to protect my friends and family.  Although I'm slightly more in control of things now I do still carry out random protective acts.


I also suffer with very intrusive thoughts about those around me dying.  It feels like by having the thought in my head, the likelihood of the event happening is increased.  That leads to a great deal of anxiety, which in turns leads me back to magical thinking.


My symptoms have been exacerbated further as my mother spent several years in and out of hospital with various illnesses.  At certain points she nearly died.  All of this has fed into the process and sadly made things a lot worse.  Fortunately she's been healthy for a few years now and I think things are settling down.  


When my cleanliness and hygiene symptom gets bad I end up scrubbing at my skin with bleach, or bathing in it to keep clean.  Fortunately I've been able to downgrade from bleach to medicated Dettol of TCP liquid.  


I went on to attend ten sessions of OCD group therapy.  Although I found it slightly helpful, the majority of the group suffered from checking behaviours and my struggle with magical thinking was for the most part misunderstood by the others in the group.  It took me seven weeks to realise how the programme could possibly help me.  Still, I did learn a few valuable coping skills.

It reared it's ugly head for the second time

After having a two to three year period of having really good mental health, I was totally shocked when I found myself back in a similar situation to the one I'd been in 6 years earlier.  After a couple of agonising months enduring a messy break-up with my boyfriend of over three-years I lasted only four months before I found myself with a razor in my hand.

The very next day I bit the bullet and went immediately to see my GP.  The surgery I attended was a massive surgery with around 12 GPs working there.  It was a bit of a lottery who you'd end up seeing but to my absolute luck I ended up seeing a wonderful doctor, Dr Basra.  I didn't know at the time but he went on to be one of my closest allies at university, supporting me on a weekly basis, writing countless letters to my head of department and personal tutor explaining why my work was so behind.  I remember waiting very very nervously in the large waiting room for my name to be called.  When I went in to see him he asked me a series of questions to determine the range of symptoms I was experiencing.  I walked away from the surgery for the first time in my life feeling that someone had taken things seriously without over-dramatizing the situation.

Over the next week I read the literature I'd been giving regarding anti-depressants.  It was something I wasn't overly keen on, but feeling like I did I'd have probably shaved my head if I thought it would make a blind bit of difference.  I kept things well and truly hidden from all six of my housemates at that stage apart from one, Ali.  The following week, Valentine's day 2007, I returned to see Dr Basra and he prescribed Paroxetine.  That evening, as I had done the previous Valentine's day I cooked a big pasta feast for me and my other friends who were without plans.  Nobody had a clue that my arms were sliced up and I'd just been prescribed anti-depressants.

After a few weeks it became harder and harder to hide it.  I'd stopped sleeping and would often be red-eyed from crying.  One morning, after a particularly bad nights sleep, I talked to each of my housemates individually as they came down at their various times and ate breakfast.  They were all very supportive, and a little shocked, as I'd always been the life and soul of the party.  I felt utterly embarassed admitting how much I was struggling.  I remember hiding my face under a fleecy blanket I'd got wrapped around me to keep warm.  I didn't go into much detail, just that I'd had problems when I was younger and that I was feeling a bit down.  It was all they needed to know.  Over the following months I did end up talking more to another housemate, Joe, who was training to be a doctor.  I didn't mention a thing to my parents, although our relationship was very positive.

Sadly I didn't get on with Paroxetine (Paxil).  It made me feel sick and dizzy.  If I'd have known that most of the anti-depressants would have various side effects I'd have probably stuck with it a bit longer but after around ten days I was switched to Venlafaxine (Effexor).  This made my insomnia worse and so I was finally prescribed Temazepam (Restoril), after several weeks of hardly sleeping.  I got some relief from Venlafaxine, but on a routine visit to see Dr Basra I had to see an alternative doctor, who took my blood pressure and stopped my prescription there and then as my blood pressure was too high.

I then endured around five months of fluoxetine (Prozac).  That made me feel like I was being jolted with a few volts of electricity roughly every fifteen seconds.  It had absolutely no effect on my mood.

Alongside the medical treatment I'd been referred for university counseling.  I found this somewhat helpful, and after switching counsellors a few times I was able to build up a good relationship with a nice man called David.

After returning from the summer break in a worse state than I'd been in six months earlier and having not seen Dr Basra for around six weeks, he decided the time had come for me to be referred to a psychiatrist.  I was a little distressed by this.  It's not a nice feeling knowing you've reached a point where you need to see a psychiatrist.

Managing Hatred

As a BPD sufferer I find myself shifting through a plethora of different emotions throughout the day.  I find the easiest of all emotions to identify is the feeling of hate.  Hate can come in many different strains for me, and the period for which  my hate for someone remains is flexible.  What I am starting to realise though is that a lot of the hate I feel towards people is usually very irrational.

A few examples here.  I genuinely hate a number of British TV personalities.  I absolutely loath them.  There are a number of celebrity figures who irk me, and I can distinguish between annoyance and absolute detest.  I have no real reason to hate these people, although they often are a similar breed of celebrity.  To name a few;  Carol Vordeman, Lesley Garrett, Alex Jones.  There are plenty more but those three have stuck in my mind today.  If I were to dig a little deeper there are a few commonalities between the three, but I'll avoid going in to analysis of that now.

In my day-to-day life I often find myself going through periods of hating those that are truly close to me.  I find it difficult to accept that at times I feel hatred towards them, and quite often for only a very minor offense.  I suppose the best example of this irrationality is the relationship I have with my dogs.  I've just returned from a short-walk with them (I have a 4 and a half month old border terrier puppy, and an eighteen month old fox terrier-jack russell cross) and during the walk they both did a few things which irritated me to the point that I felt hatred towards them.  The older dog barks at anything that moves.  The younger dog has a habit of getting under my feet and tripping me up.  Sitting here now, I can see clearly that those things are just their little quirks.  They're not intentionally setting out to upset me.  They're two adorable dogs who are being just that.  At the time of the walk though I really hated them.  It felt like they were mocking me and purposely trying to annoy me.

The point I'm trying to make is that it's very easy to hate those around you when you're blinded by the strong emotions BPD can dredge up, but if you take a step back and look at the bigger picture it's not the person, or in the example above, the animal, you're hating.  It's the behaviour.  In an ideal world the feeling of hate would never emerge,  but even reaching a point where the two can be separated as an immediate reaction would make the world that bit brighter.

The simplest of things are sometimes the hardest to do

With BPD some days run smoothly.  I get a couple of days per week where things run as if I wasn't ill.  However, for the remaining days of the week I often find even the simplest of tasks near impossible.

Getting dressed, cleaning teeth, brushing hair, showering, eating.  All these things become very difficult to complete.  I find myself just sitting and "being".  Not doing anything, the TV's off, I'm not at my computer and the radio isn't on.  I'm just sat trapped in my own little bubble.  It's not a horrible bubble to be in, but it certainly isn't a nice one.

I find the easiest way to combat this situation is to draw up an activity schedule the night before.  Sometimes I'm caught off guard and don't think a schedule is necessary.  These days result in the above situation.  But if I've pre-planned the day, hour to hour, sometimes minute to minute, with normal daily activities of living I'm more likely to live a normal day.

I know it sounds silly.  For your average person looking after yourself is just natural.  People don't think about it.  But with BPD the smallest molehill becomes a mountain.  It's not laziness.  It's just finding yourself trapped in  the bubble, a bubble which can often be very difficult to pop.

The early bird doesn't end up with shit on it's floor

The current reality of getting up in the morning at a
 reasonable hour

I've never been a morning person.  As soon as I was old enough to take care of my own morning routine without the assistance of my mother I quickly learned that staying in bed longer and getting dressed really quickly was preferable to getting up with enough time to eat breakfast, swoon around in a dressing gown and shower.  At university, sometimes "getting ready" would literally involve putting a coat on.  I learned that by choosing certain pajamas you could get away with wearing them out and about, provided you put up with a bra during the night.


During my time in full-time employment, which spanned approximately 18 months, I did go through a phase of showering in the morning.  A new haircut meant if I washed it first thing I could have bouncy curls, and to wash it the night before and tie it up would often leave me looking like I'd been dragged to work feet first.  But aside from that very brief period my mornings have always been a rushed affair.

Since I've been signed off sick from work (approximately 14 months ago) things have deteriorated further.  I take a strong cocktail of medication on a night-time, some to alleviate various symptoms of the BPD, OCD and recurrent depression, and others to help me sleep.  The cocktail consists of Trazodone, Quetiapine, Temazepam and Diazepam.  I get up at around 5am to let my dogs out, and take some more Quetiapine, and then go back to bed (the Quetiapine is an anti-psychotic and part of my daily medication routine, the only optional medications are Temazepam and Diazepam but I've been taking these regularly for a number of years - it's something I'm trying to address).  With the best will in the world I try to get up around 9, but if I'm perfectly honest, 9am very soon becomes 10am, 11am, 12pm.  At my worst, although before I had dogs, I would frequently get up between 1pm and 2pm.

Initially, when I got my new puppy and following a recent hospital admission, I was able to get up at around 9 - 10am, which I loved.  The dogs were happier.  I was even taking them for a walk first thing which made us all feel brilliant.  However very gradually it's crept back to midday.  So far it's only been just over a week, but I'm fully aware that staying in bed that long is not good for my dogs or my mental health.  It's shaken their routine up, and although they do have a few breaks to go outside during the night, me being unconscious does nothing to entertain and stimulate their minds.

As a result, in the last few days I've come down to piles of poop in my living room.  I take full responsibility for this and to be perfectly honest I'm ashamed this last few days has resulted in them being forced into that. I saw my CPN today and she agreed; something has to change.

I've identified the problem.  That of not being able to get up at an appropriate time.  I also know that 9 times out of 10 it's because I'm not properly awake enough to rationally decide it's time to get out of bed.  I often feel very drugged up in a morning and without weighing up the pros and cons of getting up (the pros being happy stress-free dogs and owner, the cons being a soiled living room and 2 grumpy dogs, and one very groggy owner) I quickly re-set my alarm for a few hours later, or just turn it off altogether.

The solution?  I'm going to get one of those old-school alarms and set it to go off half an hour after my bedside alarm goes off.  That way, I get the option to get up gently to some soothing rain music (with the aid of 'Sleep Cycle' (for more information visit the iphone app site here), but if I do decide to go back to bed I will be rudely awoken by a very loud, very persistent bell.  The only way to turn the alarm off will be to drag myself out of bed, go downstairs and turn the thing off, by which point the smell of freshly made coffee prepared very kindly by the timer on my coffee machine will be circulating through my system and I should be awake enough to rationally decide that getting up now is far better than returning to bed and being lazy.

The expectation of getting up with
the new plan in place

Watch this space.

Self Harm - A Secret Obsession - YouTube Video

During a particularly difficult time I made a video about my experience of self-harm and posted it on YouTube.  On the 8th December it'll be 4 years since I posted it.  It's had over 230,000 views.

Please be warned that this video is potentially triggering, and the "related videos" that appear after the video and down the side bar are very graphic so please view with caution.

(Please click the link below to access video)

                            Self Harm - A Secret Obsession

During my late teens and early twenties I struggled with self-harm.  To this day I do still struggle.  My habits of self-harming have changed.  I used to superficially cut myself on an almost daily basis.  I find now that I remain self-harm free for about two months and then resort back to it.  These days the cuts are much deeper.  I have also turned to overdosing in recent years.  Although I did overdose from the age of 20, they were usually very small and had little impact upon my health.  I recently ended up in a coma over the summer following a large overdose.

If I could go back and talk to myself as a teenager I would tell myself to get help while things were still under control.  If I could see the way it has escalated from a small scratch to me ending up in a coma I'd take the small scratch a little bit more seriously.