#eupdlife

Trigger warning: symptoms of childhood neglect.

I’m really interested in knowing what other sufferers of BPD/ EUPD experience in terms of symptoms and if anyone else suffers from talking to themselves/dissociating. From what I’ve read the symptoms are vast.

I have a variety of symptoms but I’d say the one that literally keeps me from wanting to leave the house or meet new people is my dissociation and talking to myself. I first started to dissociate and talk to myself as a kid, I was lonely, bullied by my peers and ignored by my family. I spent so much time alone that I started to fantasise about other worlds where I was happy and loved and had friends and did things outside of the house. These other worlds were such a comfort to me and took me away from my sad reality.

As I got older I would go to these worlds all the time and when I was forced into reality by having to talk to people I would be eager to go home so I could sit in my room and drift into my own personal world of joy. Now as a woman in my 30s my dissociation scares me, I lose time, I don’t know how I got home, I can’t recall a conversation that just happened or if I paid for the food I just left the supermarket with. I dissociate whenever I’m feeling overwhelmed or distressed, it just so happens that I am overwhelmed and distressed at simply leaving the house and being in social settings. I talk to myself and “act out” whatever I am playing out in my mind. When I come out of it, the people around me are shocked and look unnerved as you would if someone you were with started talking to themselves with their eyes glazed over. I have no control over it.

I desperately want to be able to build healthy friendships and intimate relationships but this behaviour has people running for the hills. The friends I do have currently, will never discuss this issue with me, no matter how much I try to explain that I don’t have any awareness of what I’m actually doing. I’ve only caught myself making the weird faces or talking to myself on a few occasions, usually I’m present then I’m not then I’m present again and thinking what the f*** just happened.

I don’t know why my current friends aren’t able to tell me what I’m doing or snap me out of it, I can only assume that it is so disturbing to them that it is easier for them to just see it as a thing that I do sometimes and that it’s better to not raise it as an issue to save my feelings. However, this does scare me even more. I feel like I’d at least have awareness of exactly whats going on when I do dissociate so that I can feel more control or at least be able to better explain to new people when I do meet them.

It's 4:21 on a Friday morning, and I can't sleep. My next shift is at 10am. My last known episode was around last autumn. But I've been wanting to write this for a while due to now being in a DBT Life Skills group, and now taking stock of my life. I remember the very first time that I was put onto anti psychotics to stop the voices in my head making me manic. That was when I still lived in Germany. I was, for want of a better term, completely out of control of my emotions and mind. I felt that everyone around me was in danger, my partner, my family mainly. Because of me. With the help of this medication, my life is made bearable. Bar the weight gain, they have saved my life, no matter what any anti-psych campaigner may say.

I first became aware of how bad these episodes were whilst working long hours in the hotel industry (which is why I now partly work a 10-5 job), both whilst on furlough and post COVID. Which is why in October 2021, I made a call to the Access Team in my local area for a self referral to my mental health team. This again, saved me. My GP put in a referral as well, which sped up the process a great deal. In between that referral, I had left my job, but had another episode just before the Christmas. My EUPD diagnosis came in the New Year - a blessing to me - and a wonderful psychiatrist. I cannot thank my mental health team enough. Now I'm not saying that the German health system isn't helpful, but I nearly ended up in hospital (on my own wishes of course). With the support of a multi-disciplinary team, and my family, I have survived the worst.