Hello everyone! I am sorry I have been quite quiet recently. I am still here, I have just been going through a very strange part of my life. I finally have the answers that I have been waiting for, about what has been going on with my mental health. I had my assessment in June and I have been diagnosed with Recurrent depressive disorder and traits of Borderline personality disorder (BPD) or it is also known as Emotionally unstable personality disorder (EUPD). At first it felt quite daunting. I now have these conditions which are not going to go away. I will go through good patches and bad patches, but they will always be there lurking in the background and ready to attack. So this is quite worrying, knowing that these problems will always be there and it is going to be a constant battle to stay on top of them. But it is good now I know what these problems are. Knowing what they are means that I can look into the right way to manage them in the best way I can. So it is daunting, but also very useful. It means I can start to move on now with the right treatment. It was recommended that I try some mild antidepressants and have cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).

I had a feeling that I was going to have to go onto medication and this really worried me at first. I had heard so many stories of the awful side effects and how you can be left with no feelings at all. I would have tried anything over medication. However, in my assessment the psychiatrist explained to me that therapy will help me, but it’s a chemical in my brain called serotonin that needs to be at a higher level and the only thing that can do this is medication. Serotonin is the chemical in the brain that controls the mood and motivation. The higher the level of serotonin, the better the mood and the more motivated you feel. I am not a medical expert so I could be slightly wrong with this, but this is how I understand it to be. After a bit of time to think and talk this over with my family, I decided to go ahead with the antidepressants. I am on a low dose of mild ones which have less horrible side effects than a lot of others do. It is amazing the difference they made just on the first day of taking them. I felt so much more in control and level headed and calm. I have had a few side effects to fight through, but nothing to major or horrible. I am not quite on my full dose yet because I am doing this very slowly and gradually, but even so, I feel so much better. So I guess what I’m saying is, there are so many scary stories out there about antidepressants, but it’s not all bad. And the aim of them is not to balance out your emotions so much that you don’t feel anything and you are also not going to be extatically happy all the time. You should still feel happy at the right time and sad at the right time, but at a more controlable level. The sad days should just be said, not absolutely devastating and like your whole world is ending. I paid a lot of attention to all of the scary stories I heard and now I realise that maybe I should have been on medication quite a while ago.

I am dreading having CBT and digging up the past again. But I know that in the long run, it will do me good and help me to deal with things better. I do know that there are some issues that really need looking into and working on. If I am able to do this then it should help me quite a lot. I am just taking a bit of time to adjust to my medication before I get the ball rolling with that, then hopefully it will be the start of a very interesting journery to try and discover the roots of my BPD.

xx ❤ xx