I never knew that this would be possible for me. Being diagnosed with both borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder is nothing but hell for me. People say that both BPD and bipolar are somewhat the same. Well, guess what? They are most certainly not. From what I learned from my psychiatrist is that borderline personality disorder is a mood disorder that causes erratic changes in my moods, whereas bipolar disorder is when I suffer cyclic periods of mania and depression at certain times. It wasn’t until less than a year ago that it was possible to be diagnosed with both BPD and bipolar. Ever since then, my world has turned upside down.
When I was 22, I was first diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. From my past experiences, I suffer from drastic mood changes. I was full of joy and then sadness seconds later. What I suffer from the most is anger. Everything around me makes me angry, and that is when I get triggered most of the time. When I see couples holding hands in public, I get the urge that I want to break them apart just because I’ve been single for most of my life. When I see dogs, I instantly get a distaste for dog people just because I never liked dogs growing up since I’ve been a cat person all my life. Of course, there are people I already abhor despite the fact that I never knew them; it’s mostly because of the way they socialize and laugh with one another and just hearing all that makes me want to do things that I’d rather not explain into detail. Yes, nearly everything people-related triggers me. I just never liked people just because of how they treated me since day one when I started school. I was never into socializing, and I just wanted to be alone most of the time. I always see myself as a loner. Thank God I always have my books and my headphones with me, so I can disassociate myself from them. That’s how much I hated the socialized society.
As for my bipolar, I found out about this diagnosis when I was 29. Looking back to my previous symptoms, I have experiences of having manic and depressive episodes, and the next thing I knew, I don’t remember what I did previously. I can’t even tell what kind of fish I had for dinner or remember how many cans of energy drinks I had without succumbing to a caffeine overdose. I don’t even know how I liked my eggs or what kind of death metal band I’m listening to right now. All this mania and depression I’ve been having lately ever since I found out about it really affected my life. I see something in my head and the next thing I knew, I ended up doing something drastic, like bleaching my whole hair white blonde. I also couldn’t sleep at night because my thoughts were racing, and I just couldn’t stop thinking. All these rapid thoughts in my head kept interfering with my everyday life, and I ended up talking to myself excessively. I don’t even fucking know what to do to control myself if I want to avert other people into thinking that I’m straitjacket insane.
One thing that both my borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder have in common is my hostility. I honestly don’t remember much about my previous ire because everything was disassociated whenever I’m in fury. I do remember people telling me that I’m being a bitch to them and that triggered me so much. That’s when the infuriation persists. I’d do something out of anger and then suddenly, I do not remember what I did. I’ve also suffered a lot of stress during school; people always come to me for answers to a certain subject just because they assumed that I’m the smartest person in class. I always assumed it was because I’m Asian and they stereotypically think that all Asians are smart. Anyway, when nearly everyone kept interfering with my schoolwork, the surge of anger intervenes, and I’d scream and throw my pens at them to leave me the fuck alone and to do their own work and let me do mines. All of that was nothing but hell for me. I even ended up at the school counselor’s office just for that and then got told that I needed professional help. Looking back to this, it made me want to go back to the past and change it, though I already knew that I cannot do that since I don’t believe in science fiction. Science fiction is all bullshit. This is why I don’t have any friends and that’s when my abhorrence for people came into the picture. I never wanted to go back to my schools, and I get the feeling that homeschooling should’ve been the best alternative for me, but it never happened. My parents still made me go to public schools for socializing reasons.
I remember in middle school, that was the age where my “friends” and I were old enough to walk home from school. Every day after school, my two so-called childhood best friends would walk with their own friends, leaving me alone all the way back. They would mindlessly chat with one another with the other girls; all I did was walk behind them, feeling betrayed, rejected, and neglected. Whenever we walk home together, I feel as if I am invisible to everyone around me; they never even talk to me at all. They treated me like shit, and they would say things about me behind my back. I tried to say something to them, and they wouldn’t even listen to me. These two ex-best friends would even yell at me for no reason and then leave me behind at everything we do together. They even treated me like I don’t know anything, even though I’m smart enough to know my own doing. Every time I think about this past, I get the wanting urge to scream and cry at them to stop treating me like a baby and to stop ignoring me. Of course, I couldn’t do that because that would cause them to think I’m an attention whore. Suppressing my sadness and anger from them was the only thing I could do that time and it was the worst feeling I’ve ever gotten. I just wanted to let all my ire and morose out to them. Today, I stopped contacting them because I couldn’t let go of what they did to me that time. I moved on from them and tried to make new friends as the years progressed, but nothing worked out for me. Ever since then, I stopped making friends and started becoming a loner. I never wanted to see another friendship ever again because I knew for sure that they would do the same to me again, like what they did to me back then. So, throughout these years, I’ve been living as a recluse from society. I went through what I like to call “The J.D. Salinger Syndrome.” I never made any contact with other people from my past ever again. I made myself disappear from them. All of this may be the reason why I suffer from both borderline personality disorder and bipolar.
Whenever I think about my past, my moods would shift drastically and then I’d suffer from manic episodes. I didn’t want to bring any of this up to my own family because I worried about what they would think of me. I worried that my own family would judge me, and I hate being judged. I especially had to hide my BPD and bipolar from everyone I knew in college. I worried about not only being judged without knowing me first, but I also worried that they will call the authorities on me and then send me to the mental institution if I ever do get manic and do something risky in school. I didn’t want to risk that. I had to learn to control myself throughout those years in college. It was more complicated than that because all those racing thoughts and hostility in my head just wouldn’t go away. In one year during college, I was hysterically screaming and crying about a breakup. I ended up hitting myself on the head with my fist hard. I screamed out as I pushed these two spectators in the corridors out of my way as I ran off maniacally. I even screamed out that I wanted to end myself, but thank God, I didn’t do any of that. I also cut my wrists with nail scissors, and everyone would see my scars and fresh cuts during class. People in my college don’t even understand what the fuck was wrong with me. They even tried to help me, but due to my hatred for people, I ended up literally pushing them away. I don’t even know why I did that. I know they were trying to help me by talking about it. I just don’t have the audacity to open everything up. I just don’t want to be judged at all and then get sent away to an institution.
Looking back to these memories, I wonder to myself, “Am I really that much of a bad person?” I don’t even know the answer to that rhetorical question. It’s still unanswered to this day. I try my best to move forward from my wrongdoing in the past, and I can’t seem to move on from them. These memories remain an amber fossil in my head; they cannot be evanescent. I’m nothing but a manic creature inside a stone. These memories even traumatized me; whenever I get traumatized, my mood swings and mania worsen. There is literally nothing I could do to erase those eternal memories that I never even asked to be reminded of.
Living with both borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder is most definitely not beautiful. They are both ugly and horrific. I couldn’t control myself. I couldn’t sleep at night. I couldn’t even tell what emotion I’m currently feeling. It’s as if I’m emotionally numb for a long period of time. I couldn’t erase most of my memories, though some memories I do not want to be reminded of have somewhat faded away. I couldn’t even fucking be myself when I was in school; I was forced to be somebody I was not to prevent being judged by classmates and professors. I also couldn’t stop thinking about certain groups of friends having a blast with one another while I was nothing but the lone emo wolf sitting in the corner of the room, averting myself from them. No one would even want to date me just because they think I’m mentally unstable and that I belonged in the asylum. Being pessimistic all the time is all I am, and I am still cynical about everything, including today’s society. Everything triggered me and all I did was complain in my head about how much I hated this society and how much I wanted to leave and make myself disappear from everyone. I bet they won’t even miss me when I vanished into thin air; I moved on from them, so they would move on as well. This has been the true reason why I have trust issues and why I cannot trust people ever again in the world. I also stopped forgiving people for what they have done to me. If I cannot forget, then I cannot forgive. So, forgiving people is nothing but a waste of time and I knew for sure that they would keep doing the same thing sometime in the future. For me, there is no such thing as “trust” and “forgive.” What is the point of all that anyway if all people give me is hate?
So, there you have it: being both borderline and bipolar has a lot of negative effects in life. I still take my medications for these two mental illnesses daily. It’s just that everything that happened to me just wouldn’t be erased. I still suffer times of being manic and losing my temper easily. Although, I’m still learning to control them. I won’t talk to people outside of my family unless it’s necessary. I won’t even retaliate if someone says things to me; I’ll just ignore them with my headphones on. I will still learn to control my temper and get my moods straightened out if I think about something that makes me happy. It’s not going to be easy since I don’t have many happy memories growing up. I’ll just think about cats and kittens, books, and my favorite bands. I’m just going to have to learn someday to accept life the way it is and there is nothing I could do to prevent unwanted things from happening to me.
I am aware that there are no cures for both borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder. The only treatments I could have are my daily antidepressants, antipsychotics, and self-care. I’ll keep doing those things every day.
Hopefully, in time, I’ll have a life that I never experienced before due to these two mental illnesses. If I persevere, then maybe this won’t be the early end of my short life.
-Nicole Cheng, 2024
Become a Fighter, Not a Victim <3 