I haven't blogged since early october...A LOT has happened since then! I've had a suicide attempt which led to 3 1/2 hospital stay to get me stable and a 12 day psych hospital stay at MUSC. I just got discharged last wednesday after an 8 day stay at MUSC. I have to yet to unpack...I think subconsciously I think I'm going to admitted again when I go to my appointment next week

Let me just say if you've never had the pleasure of being in a psychiatric hospital you are missing a very interesting and vital experience lol. Really though I could write a book about it and not have to make up anything...just change a few names and voila.

I'm being seen at MUSC weekly as an outpatient now too and hopefully will get into a dbt (dialectal behaviour therapy) group which also meets once a week.

I actually have a diagnosis that makes since! Borderline personality disorder. The best description I have read of BPD is like...The difference is in the intensity of how they feel those emotions. Marsha Linehan, PhD, the founder of dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), compares those with BPD to third-degree burn victims: “Lacking emotional skin, they feel agony at the slightest touch or movement.” What might just be a small slight for you might mean off-the-charts upset for your partner.

Anyway BPD is one of the most severe mental illnesses and used to be thought to be almost untreatable. Nowadays with intensive individual and group therapy particularly DBT and medications is it manageable and even possible for it to go into remission. But it takes a lot of hard work, commitment from the patient and patient's family etc. So now I will be getting the correct kind of therapy  etc which hopefully will help. In some ways I feel way more hopeful having this diagnosis but in other ways I feel like I can't do this! It was easier when depression or bipolar were being considered because they are all chemical in most cases so medication is the main treatment...with BPD therapy is the main treatment which means I have to put in a whole lot more work! Medications help control symptoms of BPD but do not treat the underlying cause.

Unfortunatly I have started cutting again and have done it a lot....I know better...I know better coping skills etc but cutting gives QUICK relief with very little effort so of course when I am overwhelmed with all these intense and painful feelings I want to cut. Its easy to list coping skills, to try other coping skills and relaxation exercises...especially during a hospital stay or therapy session but a whole lot harder at home when everything around you and inside you is crumbling and falling apart.

For right now I am trying to take it just a day at a time...sometimes its more like an hour at a time! I am very thankful for MUSC and their doctors...I'm a lot better off now than I was this time last year...I'm so thrilled to have a concrete diagnosis and some hope that things can get better! MUSC has also done wonders with my medicine and getting me on the right doses and right drugs and I actually feel like my psychiatrist cares about me.