u/priestess_on_fire

Do you ever catch yourself lying because telling the truth would sound insane to those without bpd or who don’t understand it?

I find myself doing this if I can feel an episode or split coming on while I’m in public or have somewhere to be.

I have no idea how to explain it.

Hi!
I’m an oddities artist and vend at a lot of markets. I sell jewelry made out of animal bones and decorate skulls. I usually make a killing at any type of oddities event but the past few I’ve been to have been some of the worst shows I’ve had in a long time.

I clean my own bones, make all the jewelry and spend so much time on all of it, so I price it a bit high, $40-$120 range for jewelry and $150-$450 skull range. My jewelry are my best sellers, presumably because they’re cheaper, but recently my sales have gone down. I need cheaper options to keep me going right now but I’m not sure what.

Any ideas? 🥲

I’m on the hunt for a new therapist!

I’m getting exhausted trying to find a suitable one. I’ve been in and out of therapy since I was 12. Had an insane first 20 years of my life that’s left me with a plethora of mental health disorders 🎉

The best therapist I ever had was a complete bitch to me and I loved it. She was stern, called me out and forced me to do the things I needed to do while in session. Unfortunately, she lives in CA and doesn’t have her license here.

I’m looking for a female therapist who’s going to challenge me. Someone who specializes in DBT, EMDR and maybe IFS.

If I get one more therapist who agrees with my insane thoughts I’m going to scream. It’s not helping me get better.

Any recommendations?

TYIA ♥️

How is everyone who’s been diagnosed with a dissociative disorder handling holding down a job?

I have a severe DD, C-PTSD, BPD and ADHD 🎉 I’m 32f and have been working since I was 14 but I cannot hold down a job. The longest job I worked at was for 3 years. It was pt and they didn’t seem to mind me having to call off frequently. I was inevitably fired over my absences but 3 years was a good streak.

I keep finding myself in the same situation at every job I’ve worked, even the ones I loved. Things will be fine at first but then I’ll start waking up in the morning panicking to the point that I’m getting sick and I’m not able to feel my body. It gets so bad that I’ll actually start throwing up blood, that’s been caused by my stomach acid eating away a hole in my esophagus. My vision goes out and I don’t feel like I’m in my body anymore. I either push through it or I have to call off. When I do push through it I’m dissociating at work the entire time. I’m trying so hard to push down the symptoms so I don’t have an episode at work but sometimes that doesn’t work and I’ll have to go home early.

This happens frequently and has made it hell trying to hold down a job.

What’s your experience like?

TW: mention of SI

I’m currently in a LDR. We’re only about an hour and a half apart, so it’s not too bad. Overall things are going really well! We’ve had a few arguments because of my BPD but he’s been incredibly patient, kind, and supportive through all of it.

The only issue is he won’t come visit me at my house. He’ll see me if I’m dog-sitting at a friend’s place but he doesn’t want to come here because I live with my ex.

For context: my ex and I dated for 4.5 years. During that time I bought a house and we moved in together. We renovated it together and built a life here. Toward the end of 2022 I broke up with him. There wasn’t cheating or anything dramatic, I just wasn’t feeling it anymore.

At the same time though, I was at the absolute worst point in my life. My alcoholism was out of control and my BPD was completely unhinged. I was splitting constantly, raging almost daily, and a lot of it was directed at him. I was extremely suicidal, in and out of psych wards, and eventually got involuntarily sent to rehab.
That period of my life was a fucking nightmare.

Even after we broke up, he stayed.

And honestly, I still don’t fully understand why. I put that man through absolute hell. Most people would’ve left and a lot of people did. I lost friendships, some of them decades old. I pushed away almost everyone who cared about me.

But he didn’t leave.

Not because he wanted me back or was waiting around. Just because he knew I wasn’t myself and believed I’d eventually make it through.
I ended up in rehab for over a year getting sober (I’m 3 years sober now 🎉). During that time he kept living in my house and taking care of things. Later my sister moved in too. I wasn’t even planning on coming back but life is life and I did. Now it’s just me and him again. And since I’ve been back, there’s been absolutely nothing romantic. Nothing. We’ve been broken up for almost as long as we were together. We’ve both dated other people. No flirting, no hookups, no weird blurred lines. He’s basically just family to me at this point.

The reason he’s still in my life is simple: when everyone else left, he didn’t.
BPD can be so fucking lonely. Abandonment becomes this constant theme in your life. I’ve been abandoned by three different families. I’ve lost friends I thought would be around forever. People leave when things get hard.

But he stayed through the worst version of me. He saw me at my most unstable, most self-destructive, most unbearable and still chose to show up. Outside of my mom and sister nobody else has ever done that for me.

That kind of loyalty means something I can’t just toss aside.

There are practical reasons too. I’m not in a place financially where I can fully handle the house on my own and I don’t really want a random roommate. I trust him. We live well together. It works.

Back to my boyfriend:
We’ve been together almost 9 months and I am so in loOove with him. Like genuinely. I see a future with him. Long term I want us to live together, whether that means I move to him or he moves here and I rent my house out.

But right now, he won’t come here.
And I get it. Living with an ex sounds weird as fuck from the outside. If I heard this from someone else I’d probably be skeptical too.
At the same time, it feels really one sided. I know his life, his home, his friends, his routines but he refuses to really step into mine. He’s never been to my cookouts, never seen my day to day life, never met one of the biggest supporters in my recovery.

What makes it harder is my ex actually wants to meet him. There’s no jealousy or weird tension. If anything I think they’d probably get along.

My boyfriend doesn’t complain, and he’s never been accusatory. He’s only casually mentioned finding a different roommate a couple times. Otherwise we don’t really talk about it.

I guess I’m stuck because I understand his discomfort but I also need him to understand that my ex isn’t just some random ex I can cut off. He’s someone who stayed when almost everyone else left.
I’m not asking him to like it or be best friends with him. I just need him to accept that this is part of my life and refusing to ever step into my world doesn’t feel sustainable long term.

I love him but I don’t know how to bridge this gap or if it’s even possible.

What would you do?

TW: mention of SI

I’m currently in a LDR. We’re only about an hour and a half apart, so it’s not too bad. Overall things are going really well! We’ve had a few arguments because of my BPD but he’s been incredibly patient, kind, and supportive through all of it.

The only issue is he won’t come visit me at my house. He’ll see me if I’m dog-sitting at a friend’s place but he doesn’t want to come here because I live with my ex.

For context: my ex and I dated for 4.5 years. During that time I bought a house and we moved in together. We renovated it together and built a life here. Toward the end of 2022 I broke up with him. There wasn’t cheating or anything dramatic, I just wasn’t feeling it anymore.

At the same time though, I was at the absolute worst point in my life. My alcoholism was out of control and my BPD was completely unhinged. I was splitting constantly, raging almost daily, and a lot of it was directed at him. I was extremely suicidal, in and out of psych wards, and eventually got involuntarily sent to rehab.
That period of my life was a fucking nightmare.

Even after we broke up, he stayed.

And honestly, I still don’t fully understand why. I put that man through absolute hell. Most people would’ve left and a lot of people did. I lost friendships, some of them decades old. I pushed away almost everyone who cared about me.

But he didn’t leave.

Not because he wanted me back or was waiting around. Just because he knew I wasn’t myself and believed I’d eventually make it through.
I ended up in rehab for over a year getting sober (I’m 3 years sober now 🎉). During that time he kept living in my house and taking care of things. Later my sister moved in too. I wasn’t even planning on coming back but life is life and I did. Now it’s just me and him again. And since I’ve been back, there’s been absolutely nothing romantic. Nothing. We’ve been broken up for almost as long as we were together. We’ve both dated other people. No flirting, no hookups, no weird blurred lines. He’s basically just family to me at this point.

The reason he’s still in my life is simple: when everyone else left, he didn’t.
BPD can be so fucking lonely. Abandonment becomes this constant theme in your life. I’ve been abandoned by three different families. I’ve lost friends I thought would be around forever. People leave when things get hard.

But he stayed through the worst version of me. He saw me at my most unstable, most self-destructive, most unbearable and still chose to show up. Outside of my mom and sister nobody else has ever done that for me.

That kind of loyalty means something I can’t just toss aside.

There are practical reasons too. I’m not in a place financially where I can fully handle the house on my own and I don’t really want a random roommate. I trust him. We live well together. It works.

Back to my boyfriend:
We’ve been together almost 9 months and I am so in loOove with him. Like genuinely. I see a future with him. Long term I want us to live together, whether that means I move to him or he moves here and I rent my house out.

But right now, he won’t come here.
And I get it. Living with an ex sounds weird as fuck from the outside. If I heard this from someone else I’d probably be skeptical too.
At the same time, it feels really one sided. I know his life, his home, his friends, his routines but he refuses to really step into mine. He’s never been to my cookouts, never seen my day to day life, never met one of the biggest supporters in my recovery.

What makes it harder is my ex actually wants to meet him. There’s no jealousy or weird tension. If anything I think they’d probably get along.

My boyfriend doesn’t complain, and he’s never been accusatory. He’s only casually mentioned finding a different roommate a couple times. Otherwise we don’t really talk about it.

I guess I’m stuck because I understand his discomfort but I also need him to understand that my ex isn’t just some random ex I can cut off. He’s someone who stayed when almost everyone else left.
I’m not asking him to like it or be best friends with him. I just need him to accept that this is part of my life and refusing to ever step into my world doesn’t feel sustainable long term.

I love him but I don’t know how to bridge this gap or if it’s even possible.

What would you do?

I had my first dissociative episode when I was 5 and as I got older it only became worse.

My first severe one last three days of me being completely out of my body. It wasn’t until I was taken to the hospital and given Xanax that I finally calmed down. I took Xanax for a little while and then was taken off. Once I was taken off my severe dissociative episodes just started rolling in so I was prescribed clonazepam (klonopin) and now I take one twice a day.

It has been super beneficial for me and I’ve been free of my more severe episodes for years now! I was wondering if anyone else takes this or any sort of benzo to help with their symptoms?

I’ve been on adderall for a year now. 30mg in the morning and 30mg in the afternoon. When it’s working I feel like a normal functioning adult. It clears the cloudiness in my head, it helps with my anxiety, depression, social anxiety and mild agoraphobia. It’s like I finally feel normal and free.

Only problem is that it only works for a few days and then I have to take two days off for me to be able to feel the effects of it again. I have to do this every week. I have inattentive ADHD and when my meds aren’t working I literally feel dead weight and can’t move from the couch. Even going to the bathroom is like a huge task that takes up all the little energy I have.

Some days I’ll take double my dose and, although the brain fog goes away, I am still physically exhausted. I drink like a thousand cups of coffee and energy drinks and nothing works. I’m just glued to the couch. How is this even possible??

I talked with my psych about this, minus doubling my dosage, and she said that this is normal and some of her other patients do the same thing. I don’t understand how this is normal? I don’t have time to waste away two days so I can feel something again. It’s like a miracle drug but only in short periods of time. I’m just extremely frustrated and needed to vent.

I know how dumb this is going to sound which is why I need help with my line of thinking right now.

My boyfriend didn’t send his usual “good morning” text and it’s caused me to want to ignore him for the rest of the day as like a form of punishment ig?

He responded to a text I sent him last night but since he didn’t say his usual “good morning baby” in his text I’ve been angry. Not even necessarily with him, it’s just made me angry in general and now I just want to ignore him. And I have been. He sent me that text hours ago and I still haven’t responded because I guess I want to punish him?

I hate this line of thinking and feeling I have. I feel like a child throwing a tantrum. I feel unloved and like he’s going to abandon me all because he didn’t say “good morning baby”. It’s insane and I hate that my brain does this.

How do I get out of this line of thinking? I’ve allowed it to ruin my entire morning, meanwhile he’s at work probably thinking everything is fine.

I started dissociating when I was 5. I’m now 32. I’ve been diagnosed with a dissociative disorder since 12 but no one has been able to figure out what kind of dissociative disorder I have.

I’m NOT looking for a diagnosis. I’m wondering if anyone else has experienced this and what their diagnosis is out of curiosity.

I dissociate all the time. It’s like there’s layers or levels to it. I’m generally in like a dream state. My eyes are never fully focused, my brain is always cloudy and I catch myself staring for long periods of time everyday.

Then I have moments where I “come to” and I’m in a completely different room and hours have gone by. I have no idea what I’ve done but I’ll notice that my things have been moved around or misplaced.

But the scariest ones are when I completely leave my body and I’m watching myself. It’ll start off as a panic attack but then I’ll lose my vision, I can’t feel my body and all of a sudden I’m floating above my body. When this happens I’m always doing the same thing. I become extremely OCD. I’m pacing my house in the same pattern, I’m taking my clothes off then putting them back on, I’m opening and closing the curtains, flipping light switches and my body doing this in a continuous loop while I’m watching from above. I’m not in my body so I can’t feel it but I do feel an extreme amount of fear. The first time this happened I was stuck in this loop for three days. I’m not exaggerating. I didn’t sleep, eat and I kept getting sick.

Eventually someone took me to the psych ward and it wasn’t until I took a Xanax that I finally came back to my body. I now take klonopin twice a day because it started becoming a frequent thing.

Has anyone dealt with anything like this before? It’s absolutely terrifying and I have no idea what tf is happening in my body.

TYIA ♥️