This chapter is skippable (well, technically they all are, but this one is extra skippable), but I wanted to include it for anyone who hasn’t been following me for a while. I think it’s important to show that this book comes from someone who’s been there.
It’s easy to read advice online from people who’ve never lived through the things they’re talking about. The “just do this” or “it’s not that bad” kind of advice that can feel dismissive and disconnected. That’s not what this book is.
This chapter shares a bit of my own story. It's not because I think my experience is special, but because I want you to know that what I write comes from a place of understanding, not judgment. My goal isn’t to lecture; it’s to help, and to remind you that you’re not alone while you figure things out for yourself.
Chapter 10 My Story
Content Note: This chapter mentions suicidal thoughts, hospitalization, and loss of friendships. Please take care of yourself as you read. Skip this if you need to. Your healing matters more than finishing every page.
When people read my writing now, I know it can look like I’ve always had the words to describe what I’m feeling or that I somehow made peace with everything inside me easily. That’s not the truth. The truth is that there was a time when I didn’t believe there was any point in staying alive. And I want to share that with you because I hated it when people said things like, “It can get better,” because I wondered how they knew that.
I am writing this to you after having been on that side of things, and I think that’s important to know. I’m not just throwing these words out there to attempt to make you feel better. I’m saying them because I truly believe there is hope.
I was once at a point where I believed there was no hope for me. There was nothing. It would never get better and there was no point in trying. My life was never going to get better, and people were never going to stay. I was never going to find joy, laughter or love.
I spent time in the psych ward. I tried to end everything more than once. I remember lying in that hospital bed thinking: well, this proves it. I really am broken beyond repair. I remember being angry that I’d been saved. And I was determined to try again the second I got out of there. I didn’t see a way forward. I didn’t see how someone like me, with feelings that came crashing in like waves, could ever have a life that wasn’t just drowning and resurfacing over and over again.
Back then, I thought my life was destined to be a cycle of losing people, self-destructing, and clawing my way through days that felt unbearable. And for a long time, it was.
I lost so many friends. I kept thinking they were just abandoning me, that it was proof that I was unlovable. What I didn’t understand, and what took years to learn, was that it often wasn’t them choosing to leave. A lot of it was me pushing. My behaviour was driving them away. Their unwillingness to tolerate it didn’t mean their love was fake. It meant they had limits, and I didn’t understand how to respect those limits yet. That was a brutal lesson, but it also shaped how I write about relationships now.
Sometimes I would spiral if they didn’t respond, and instead of trying to self-soothe or ask for reassurance in a healthy way, I’d throw hurtful accusations at them. I might have shouted, “You don’t care about me at all!” a few times, or more than a few. It got exhausting for them to keep trying and they felt like nothing they did was enough.
I want to be clear here: this was my personal experience. Not everyone with BPD drives people away, and not everyone’s struggles look like mine. This was my particular pattern and the way I had to learn about responsibility and connection. Your story may be different and that’s valid. I am not saying this is reality for everyone with BPD. I am writing about it because it’s my experience.
It wasn’t pretty. There were screaming fights. Doors slammed. Texts I regretted the second they left my phone. Silent treatments that lasted weeks. Desperate apologies that weren’t apologies at all, just pleas for people not to leave me. The kind of chaos that wears people out, until even the most patient friends throw up their hands and walk away.
I tried to ‘punish’ people. If they didn’t reply, I would leave them on read out of spite. (Of course, I always caved because I was desperate for their attention and it didn’t have the same effects on them as it did on me.)
That’s the part of BPD I don’t like talking about. The grief of losing people I loved and the shame of realizing it wasn’t just them. It was also me. And yet, and this is important, the story doesn’t end there.
Because while I lost people, I also learned. Slowly. Painfully. I learned that boundaries are not proof of rejection. I learned that love doesn’t disappear just because someone says, “I can’t do this right now.” I learned that accountability doesn’t erase my worth. It deepens it.
People often have said, “You’re still here, that’s amazing, that’s proof you didn’t give up.” And while I understood the sentiment, it never sat right with me. Because the truth is I did try to give up. More than once. Hearing, “You didn’t give up,” always made me feel like a fraud. Like my survival didn’t count because I had tried to end it.
It’s taken me a long time to realize that my story still matters. To understand that even though I tried to give up, I am still here and that survival still deserves credit. The fact that I didn’t succeed doesn’t erase the pain I was in, or the effort it took to keep going afterwards. I can still be proud of myself. I can still look at the person I am today and see strength, even if my survival wasn’t neat or heroic.
The hospital stays, the losses, the fights, the nights I sobbed my heart out on my bathroom floor. (In the middle of some breakdowns, I had the thought that I’d make a great cliché movie scene or maybe even look perfect in an emotional music video. My brain apparently wanted creative direction while I was falling apart.) Those moments are part of me. But they’re not the whole story. They’re the ground I’ve built from. The fact that I’m here, writing this book, proves that despair wasn’t the final word.
Sometimes I wonder what that younger version of me, the one in the hospital bed convinced life was over, would think if she could see me now. She’d probably laugh in disbelief, maybe even roll her eyes. I think she would find it impossible to imagine this as a possibility. But she’d also see that she made it here, that all her pain wasn’t the end of the story. If she could keep going long enough to get me here, maybe you can keep going too.
I’m not telling you this to scare you, or to prove my pain is worse than yours. I’m telling you because I want you to know that if you’re in the middle of that storm, you’re not alone. I want you to know that I understand the kind of hopelessness that feels like it will never lift. And I want you to know it can lift. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not cleanly. But little by little, cracks of light can get in.
The version of me that wrote these chapters is not ‘all better’. I still struggle. I still mess up. I still get caught in shame spirals and panic over texts. But I also laugh. I also love. I also have mornings where I wake up grateful to still be alive.
That’s why I believe you can too. Not because I read it in a textbook, but because I’ve lived the nights that nearly ended me and I’ve lived the mornings that surprised me with joy. Both are true. Both belong in the story.
And if you take nothing else from my story, take this: the fact that you’re still here, even in your hardest moments, already means something. Survival is not easy. But it is possible. And the life that feels impossible now may hold things you can’t imagine yet. It can hold softness, safety, connection and hope.
I didn’t believe that once. I do now. And I believe it for you, too.
Optional Reflection Questions (In the book, there's a disclaimer about not doing these if they may be harmful to you, but this is just a section of the book, so I'm putting that reminder here too. Please don't go through the questions if they might be harmful to you.)
While I know this chapter is about my story, I know that sometimes it can raise feelings for people that relate to it. If this chapter brought up feelings about your own story, here are some gentle questions to sit with, only if they feel supportive right now:
What parts of my story echoed your own experiences?
When you look back at your hardest moments, what does your survival say about you now?
What would you want your younger self to know if they could see you today?
You are not finished. There are still pages waiting to be lived.
