hey. this is really personal so please take care.

#askfedi #BPD #mentalhealth

i have BPD and due to it being untreated and being rooted in trauma i have reactions that are unhealthy and damage relationships with people i want to be good to. i want to change, but i am trying and yet i keep backsliding. but i want to change

if there are any resources, please let me know which ones i can check out. any techniques, etc, whatever. thank you

i feel like i constantly misinterpret what others say or assume bad faith or feel afraid that they don't care about me. it's hard for me to read emotions or sometimes i am splitting and it fucks me and them over. are there any ways to cope with that that allow me to have a clear mind? any tips? anything about the process of recovery i should know about so i don't freak out?

im also gonna need to start seeing a therapist again but uh. yeah. im poor. maybe i should make a mutual aid

@mynameistillian I don’t have any resources on hand just yet, but I was just talking with my support worker yesterday about friends with BPD and the ways it makes life tough for them.
I’ll see what I can find. I’m sure it will all be in English unfortunately, as I only really have contacts in the anglosphere, but juuuuust in case, do you also read Russian and/or Kazakh?

@katievm what do you mean by this

i mean...i know russian and (somewhat) kazakh so yeah? i do read things in these languages

@mynameistillian is it ok if i boost this?

@ericjames yuh

@mynameistillian Apologies, I just don’t know what resources I’ll find, and am casting a wide net.

@mynameistillian Like, admittedly the second-most likely language I’d find useful information in would be, like, Finnish. Because I have friends in Finland who might know. But they all speak English, and you don’t probably speak Finnish, so only the results in English would probably be useful to you.

@mynameistillian I’m overthinking this. I think I fucked up. I was guessing some possible languages to ask for resources folks might have, perhaps useful autobio accounts or reputable psych science or therapeutic materials with helpful tips for managing Cluster B disorders, based on your country’s listed official languages and the obvious fact that we were writing in English. I am… not good at this, I think?
I’ve had a lot of friends with BPD and related disorders and some of the symptoms are familiar territory for me too. One friend has no particular resources but might write about her own experiences, for example. She’s had a rough life but has been working through a lot lately, managing her BPD symptoms better, and may have found some techniques and framings that help some other folks.
That sort of thing.
I just… wanna help ‘cause… I guess partially because I prolly ain’t diagnosable, but do get into panic states of black-and-white thinking, have behaviors that can be self-destructive in ways that remind me of some of the ways my friends with BPD shut people out sometimes, and I like you and think you’re cool and deserve, like so many of us, a less shit time of it and stuff.
My efforts can at times be a bit misguided, though.

@katievm ur good don't worry. just send me anything that you think might help. <3

@mynameistillian I've found writings most helpful that don't default to treating personality or cognitive differences are 'disorders' and don't treat trauma as assumed-to-be-'past' or reactions to it as assumed-irrational, for example Towards A Radical Understanding Of Trauma Work (pdf attached) or https://cjds.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/cjds/article/view/366/599 , I'm sorry that's fairly vague but anything more specific I think might depend on what you're doing that you don't want to be and might not translate over from one situation to another, there's also https://www.inclusivetherapists.com/categories

@sal i have a problem where i immediately jump to conclusions or misinterpret what others say unknowingly to myself because i have had traumatic shit told to me and ingrained to me as a kid and whatever responses set off my triggers are causing me to mistrust someone or misunderstand what they mean. even if it's actually harmless

@mynameistillian ngl I suggest waiting until you get to Czechia for that. The former-USSR mental health sphere is, as you know, dogshit.

@maxthefox that's at least till june, i can't keep breaking down like this max

@mynameistillian i don’t know if i have bpd, but i have like. i swear i have something. if you find some good resources, would you mind tagging me in replies?

@shroomie on it boss

@shroomie @mynameistillian tbh I would not worry about whether I "have it" since these are all just subjective descriptors cobbled together by a counsel of bureaucrats ("DSM" Committee) who may have very different values and goals than we do in terms of how they want human thought and behavior to work

@sal @mynameistillian eh maybe, but it’s useful to have the label