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Alright, so I've been on 7 cups for a while now, but never used the forums before, but I'll probably start since I've read through so many posts and it's just finally a group of people that all know what I'm going through with this. It's so difficult to find people that know and truly understand BPD and recognize the symptoms, let alone have it and can hear about my experiences and not think that I'm completely crazy.
So a bit about me - My name's Haley, but I also go by Ham or Hamlet. I'm 15 years old and live in Arizona. And before you ask, no I have no clue how I'm alive considering I spend most the year in 110 + temperatures. I'm a cis female and identify as pansexual, but labels aren't important to me (My sexuality is very fluid and who I'm attracted to changes so often - I'm fine with being called bi, poly, pan, queer, and pretty much any sexuality.) I'm adopted, the last of 10 children, I plan to speak 4 languages by the time I'm 18 - English, French, German, and Norwegian, I want to be an international flight attendant and then later on a screenwriter. I make all my own clothes, enjoy sewing, crocheting, general crafts, web design/programming, drawing, and writing. I also watch a bit of TV - Supernatural, HTGAWM, Lucifer, iZombie, and Torchwood being the current favorites.
I suffer from mild depression and anxiety (These used to be worse, but I personally feel that for me these were a result of being in a toxic environment and also growing up and now they hardly present in daily life), severe PTSD and stress issues, and also have been diagnosed with BPD, Bipolar II, and show some symptoms of Paranoia and Schizotypal Disorder. I have a 6 almost 7 month old Pem Corgi that I'm training to be a PTSD service dog for helping with panic episodes and paranoia while in public.
A quick timeline of the Road So Far [Warning for brief mentions of abuse, past self-harm, past suicide attempts, and past bullying]
I was born the daughter of two teenagers (16 and 17 year olds), an obvious accident. My mom and dad did pretty well on their own and raising me - they had jobs, took good care of me, ect. Then when I was 1, my dad left and my mom went crazy - doing lots of drugs, partying, ect and never bothered to care for me. Around 4, the courts said that in order to get my mother to straighten up her act, she had to take on full custody of me. My now step-father was abusive to me, yelling at me, putting me down, punishing me for hours. I ate next to nothing there and had no possessions of my own, also having medical care neglected. When I was almost 6, I got adopted into my current family, got enrolled in a good school, went to church, loved my parents. Around 8, I started fighting with my mom a lot and having a lot of conflict. I didn't want to go to church, I didn't think she had good ideas, ect. Mom always said no to things and dad always said yes - probably the beginning of the big Mom against Dad dynamic we have in my family now. When I was 9 I changed schools and despite making friends there immediately, dealt with bullying badly - not emotional, just lots of punching and slapping and shoving around and kicking. I graduated out of that school and went to one of the most prestigious schools in the country where I was put into an accelerated program to get me done with college by the time I was 18. I was 12 at the time. I spend a majority of the first year dealing with teachers literally lying to get me in trouble, "losing" assignments, and "forgetting" they ever saw my presentations to the class. I also dealt with a bad amount of bullying as well - ending up in the ER a couple times and needing slings a few times. After this I was dealing with terrible depression and anxiety, also resorting to self-harm as a coping method. I started the next year and two months in, I was missing the whole thing basically from getting so sick from just pure anxiety that I couldn't attend. And one morning I told my mom I'd rather be dead than go back to school and then tried to kill myself. My mom immediately pulled me out of school and I was a high school drop-out at 13. A few months after that, my mom was out of town and my dad was an hour away at work. I was home alone when someone broke into the house. And I was never allowed a cell phone and the home phone I grabbed died in my hands. I was able to call my dad and tell him someone was breaking in, but he said I was imagining things and that he'd check on me later. He called back and I was unable to answer of course and he had his son come over and check on me. I've never recovered from this and have extremely severe PTSD to the point I can't be alone in the house. Even if my mom is on the premises, but outside, I can't be alone. Aside from that, everything began to improve and I started becoming happy. I was able to keep my sleep schedule, travel whenever I wanted, have time to actually do things I cared about - not rehearse for finals. About 3 months later, I met some friends online - who I've almost known for 2 years now some of them. About 6 months after that, I met some more friends who changed my life. About a year ago I started developing self-confidence again, feeling pretty and beautiful and caring about my appearance, loving who I am. Now I've started attending college classes for fashion design and patternwork and have a set goal on where I want to be in life and who I want to be and what I want to do. While I've still got a long way to go and a lot of undiagnosed issues, it's still better than where I once was. Though now I feel I'm about to make a downward trend again and thus am trying to get involved in a community that will understand me.
That was really long, but uh. Hi guys.
