Yesterday, myself and some friends had a discussion about impulsive behaviour, and it made me see just how difficult it can be for people to understand those with borderline traits or PD. When I was more impulsive in a way that was damaging to me (taking overdoses, self-harming, spending too much money, wreckless behaviour etc.), I just didn’t seem to care about the consequenses of my actions. There were times when one minute I felt brilliant, and the next minute I felt dreadful and believed I wanted to die. My emotions would literally rocket from nowhere and I’d feel sudden, extreme and overwhelming emotions. Looking back on it, I realise it was because I bottled everything up. Then I’d get to a point where I was literally full inside from head to toe of emotions and feelings I didn’t like and they’d spill out. It felt so hard to control; in fact when this happened, I’d self-harm to release the emotions a little (this was where I was impulsive). I realise now though, that I did always have some element of control, because I could always hold it until I was alone. I never self-harmed in front of anyone else, and it was very rare for me to do it if somebody was in the house with me.
If you think about impulsivity being something you just ‘do’ without thinking about; we’ve all done it at times, and in positive ways too. It’s something that happens so fast, with me it happened so fast at times (or most of the time) that I didn’t realise what I was doing until I’d actually done it.
My emotions would go through the roof, lead to some kind of impulsive behaviour (usually self-damaging) and then as quick as they came on, once I’d acted impulsively, I felt OK again. I say OK, but what I really mean is I felt more in control of my emotions. I didn’t feel like I was going to ‘lose it’ when I was around other people. On the outside I could be with somebody and look like I was feeling fine, then 2 minutes after leaving them, I’ve hurt myself; that would mess with people’s minds. “Why didn’t you tell me you felt like that?” people would ask me. I never knew the answer, and would always reply with “I don’t know”. There have been times where I’ve took overdoses thinking that I wanted to die; when in fact, I just wanted somebody to help me, so desperately. I could never see that until now. I never wanted to die, but acting impulsively, I never thought of the consequences. I never actually thought beforehand that I could have accidentally killed myself. It would be half way through overdosing I’d think; “Shit what am I doing?”, panic and would ask someone for help or take myself to hospital. People question your motives and so many times I’ve heard “if you really wanted to die, you wouldn’t have come for help”. Well you know what, that’s actually very true, but to say that to somebody when they’re feeling so shit gives them the impression that you don’t give a damn. It’s invalidating. It’s not acknowledging the pain that person is in at that time, or was in at the time of harming themselves.
Impulsive behaviours have commonly already happened by the time I’ve known about them. I never ‘wanted’ to hurt myself, but I didn’t feel in control of it. I was stuck in a vicious circle of feeling bad, self-harming, feeling bad, self-harming. BPD has so many negative associations. I’ve often heard the words ‘manipulative’ and ‘attention-seeking’. Once again comes the spectrum; we can all be manipulative, and all are to some degree. The same goes for seeking ‘attention’; we all have done or do this, to varying degrees, using different behaviours. Perhaps using the word ‘attention’ isn’t very accurate, or is a little bit of a broad term. If you look closer, there is a need in that person that is not being met, and they don’t know how to ask for somebody to meet that need. It could be approval-seeking, seeking reassurance from others, seeking emotional support, seeking comfort, seeking company – there are a million and one things it could be. One thing is for sure, whenever I did things that others saw as attention-seeking (self-harmed) I saw as my way of releasing my inner pain. For me, and for most who self-harm, it was very private and the only people who ever saw my fresh wounds were medical staff (GP, walk-in centre nurses, A&E staff). The only times those people might have seen a wound, was if I’d gone too far and needed stitches, or if I had an infected wound. Probably 90% of the times I’ve harmed myself, I’ve dealt with it alone and not need to tell anyone about it. So really, if I was attention-seeking, I was doing it so wrong!
People who regularly behave in a way that’s harmful to themselves are actually struggling emotionally. But, because of the way(s) they handle their emotions, they can be viewed in a very negative light; manipulative and attention-seeker. Those are harsh words to use for anyone, let alone somebody who is in turmoil and doesn’t know how to ask for help.
I really don’t know if I’m making any sense so I’m sorry if I’v rambled on a little!
"Mental illness won't affect me" 