Living with Borderline Personality Disorder – Rx Me Good, Part 1

December 2017,

As I entered our local behavioral health office, I couldn’t stop the anxious shivers that ran up my spine. I wasn’t chilled from the weather—southern Oregon being unusually warm for winter—I was shivering in anticipation; I’ve always been a trembler. My last appointment at this office left me feeling unsure of myself and how I could ever get better with my new diagnosis of borderline personality disorder (a mental disorder characterized by unstable moods, behavior, and relationships) on top of my PTSD, severe anxiety, panic, depression, and attachment/abandonment issues. Over the years, my shortcomings and tribulations made me believe I could never get better, my depression and anxiety gluttonous for my despair. I knew I wasn’t in control, HADN’T been in control of myself for years, and I had finally reached my breaking point. Time to be humble.

I checked in with the front desk and awaited my turn to be called back. This would be my first time meeting my new psychiatrist and my first time in a decade to be seen by one. Though it was to be my first time meeting him, it would be my third time in a month having to retell my life story down to the worst details. I had already experienced nightmares, PTSD flares, and even more unstable mood swings after the first retelling to my initial therapist, then my substance-abuse therapist, now my psychiatrist. I was tired, emotional, and desperate for relief. I wasn’t sure if the doctor could bring me what I craved the most – control of myself.

The doctor’s student-in-training escorted me through winding halls into a more private waiting room where I sat patiently for a few minutes before finally being shown into my psychiatrist’s office, where another two and a half hours of personal weakness was displayed, documented, and observed. Opening up to a therapist is hard enough but having to open up to three mental health professionals (and their students) within a month had left me raw, weakened, and hopelessly sad. When you spend your whole life in traumatizing situations, you learn to go with the flow; keep moving forward, push forward, don’t look back, don’t allow it to reach you or affect you in any way. You can try and try to stay ahead of the monstrosities of the past but sooner or later… you will trip. You will fall. You will be swallowed alive by the horrors you so desperately try to escape, no matter how fast you run, no matter how hard you try to hide yourself away.

I shook uncontrollably the entire appointment, cried when I thought I had no more tears left to shed, and was embarrassed to see such sadness and emotion in the student-in-training’s eyes. She had sat silently the entire time, listening to every word, moving only once to offer me a box of tissues. The psychiatrist asked hundreds if not thousands of questions, typing away fervently, trying to pinpoint which medications would work best for me. When at last, it seemed he had no more questions left, he began to work on my prescription. I was to start three separate medications: Zoloft, Buspirone, and Lamictal… on top of the muscle relaxers, Ibuprofen, and migraine medicine I am supposed to take daily. I was queasy and unnerved by the amount of medicine he was going to prescribe to me, but I knew that anything was worth trying at least once to feel more like my normal self again. I was given my required warnings and stipulations of each medicine, my Lamictal being the riskiest of them all – the medicine could cause serious rashes requiring hospitalization and discontinuation of treatment in eight per 1,000 patients. With my luck, I felt I would be one of the patients that would experience the rash, but I accepted, and prescriptions were finalized and sent to my pharmacy. I was escorted out of the office, back through the winding hallways, and released into the real world once again. I trembled like a leaf all the way to my car and couldn’t stop until I made it home. I could feel the monstrosities inside my mind writhing, wriggling in anguish and frustration knowing they would be silenced.

The next morning, I was slow getting out of bed. It took everything in me to swallow my pride, as well as those three little pills lingering in the palm of my shaky hand. As small as they were, they went down as rocks in my throat. I knew it was only a matter of time to feel the effects of the medicine… And feel I did. I felt things I hadn’t felt in years. Happiness – unperturbed by my suffocating anxieties. Positive thoughts, one by one, started to flow like a pristine river through my body. The anxiety, the depression, the most violent of all - my borderline personality disorder - was hushed. It felt as if a weight had been lifted from my very soul – I felt like ME again, which is all I could ever hope for.

Continued in part two, coming soon.