by Ana Montana

I once read that having Borderline Personality Disorder can be both, a gift and a curse. My first thought was… ¨Well, if it’s a GIFT… where the fuck can I return it? I don´t want it!¨. But then, I kept on reading and realized it is, indeed, both things.

You see? Living with BPD is hard. SO. FUCKING. HARD. This weird conception about my personality disorder is pretty accurate: A GIFT, A CURSE. Polarities. That’s exactly how we live. We often see things black or white, good or bad, all or nothing, love or hate… there’s -almost- no ‘meet me halfway’ thinking for us. It’s one extreme or another. So… yes. Living with BPD is both, a gift and a curse.

My life is an everyday battle against those pendulums that lead me to either feel every-fucking-thing so intensely in a veeeeery good way or in a veeeeery bad way. It’s intense, but it’s also exhausting. I FEEL with an intensity that few others share. When I’m OK, my world is PERFECT and I feel over the moon, but when I’m NOT OK, I feel like I’m six feet under and there’s nothing I (or anyone for that matter) can do to unbury me.

When I love, I love hard. When I’m happy, my joy is pure and beautiful. The empathy! When I’m around someone who feels right, I feel right! I can’t help it! But I often think about why can’t other people be more empathic with me? ¨Border people are a handful¨, ehm… yes, maybe, but… doesn’t EVERYONE come with baggage? Why is it that I can easily understand others’ pain or happiness and they can’t seem to connect with mine?

Trying to control or embrace my spiraling ups and downs is consuming. Why does everyone around me doesn’t care about me? Well, at least this is what my BPD tells me when I’m not feeling good. One moment I’m filled with joy, but 5 minutes later, I can be filled with an extreme sadness. The truth is, the intensity of my emotions is overwhelming and scary, not only for me, but to those who don’t feel with the depth I do. So that’s why I try to remind myself that I have a GIFT, but… nothing good ever comes without some sacrifice, right? That’s when I accept and embrace that I’m also CURSED.

* Do you have a friend or family member with BPD? Do you want to share your story with us? Remember you can write us here. We’re here, contact us! 🙂