On The Borderline

[thingsareok-blog1]

The Job Center

So I spent 2016 working four different jobs, they were all ant different times and I stayed on Universal Credit benefit which helped allot since I was only working part time in allot of them, two of which ended really badly in grievances that I lad to launch with company members but that is  a whole other pate for a whole other cake.

Today I’m still working part time in a bar which is excellent as I working with my best friend who’;s seen the absolute worst of me and my absolute best, she’s allot more experienced in bar work too so I can take direction from her and I know she’s not just ordering me around.

I’m supposed to be starting a new job in two weeks time but I don’t want to leave where I am now but this pace is full time and totally different to what I’ve been used to, the money will definitely help but I don’t know if I’m willing to sacrifice my happiness and comfort for double the income and a life off benefits for the first time in 5 years.

All my friends and family are so exited for me to be starting at this new place but I’ve heard some real horror stories from a few people about what the work life is like and if I’m honest I would rather stay at the bar with people I know than move onto a new job and sacrifice my fun, that being said i might adore this new job and leave the bar, or ask to go part time at the other place and stay part time at the bar, its all so difficult and confusing and I’m starting to feel like there’s  allot of pressure on me to jump into this unknown which is not something I ever cope well with.

Since I’ve been receiving universal credit I’ve grown accustom to a 3 day working week and I don’t know if a full time job would suit me ever, I know I’ve got to consider my future and how I’ll support myself one day and I’ve got to save money for a rainy day but I don’t know if the responsibility of a 9-5 and another job is something I’m capable of

I’ve got to call round all these different people now to try and get a free bus pass sorted out since my training is full time for a month and not work at the bar where i get paid weekly, I would have to give up the bar work for that month since I can’t be going to bed at 5am to get up at 7am to go to work, I get paid weekly from the bar so I wont have anything for a month while I’m training.

I’m really just concentrating on the negative here because that’s what being pulled out of my comfort zone does to me, I have to prepare for all the bad shit first so anything else is a bonus.

I don’t want to let my parents down either, the first time I heard my dad say he was proud of me was when i got this job so i’ll be a total disappointment if i fail at this, plus it’s something I’ve done myself so I’ve set myself up for this and i’ll only have myself to blame if it doesn’t go well.

I suppose I won’t know until I go there, I’m almost tempted to tell everyone I didn’t pass the screening process because of the grievances I put in about previous work colleagues and employers, hat’ll put the onus onto someone else and it’ll be out of my control. 

I feel better knowing I could do that and be able to brush it off like I’m being all grown up and nonchalant about it when really I’m relieved that I don’t have to go through all those motions again, and I feel better typing it out on this blog too, I hope this can serve as an insight to a somewhat unstable mind so other people can relate and one day people who can’t relate might understand.

[thingsareok-blog1]

Why the fuck are you doing this?

I’ve started this blog now to talk about allot of the problems I’ve found with Borderline Personality Disorder. The reason for this is because I’ve found very little information on who has been diagnosed with this and exactly what it is and how it manifests itself in behavior and what now so here is a personal perspective of dealing with BPD.

Essentially things are very much black and white with BPD, all compliments are Oscar awards, all insults are full body beatings, relationships are all movie quality romance and break ups are genuine reasons to kill yourself, and I have tried to kill myself, three times, after particularly painful breakups.

Its difficult to pinpoint when I realized things weren't right with myself because BPD is often easily categorized as the “not fitting in disorder” so I never actually wanted to be like anyone else, I always WANTED to stick out and be noticed and not be like other people, even my friends, this inevitably made me a target and with my particularly thin skin I found that I was only making things more difficult for myself, that, however, is another classic BPD side effect, complaining how thirsty you are while drowning.

I found allot of relief in self harm and cutting, this resulted in some serious permanent scarring which I am not proud of but also not ashamed of, I’ve just accepted it now, and I’ve found that body modification like tattoos, piercings, stretching etc is a much healthier way of experiencing physical pain and the responsibility of aftercare while minimizing the dangerous side effects of infection and unwanted permanent scarring.

Self harm manifests in many different ways in terms of drug and alcohol addiction, excessive shopping, promiscuity in terms of dangerous and unprotected sex, eating disorders both under and over eating and many other things where you’re constantly abusing your physical and mental health.

Personally, I found it difficult to gain and maintain responsibility in terms of work or education so I made myself difficult to employ in terms of my image with excessive facial piercings, visible tattoos, dreadlocks, unnatural colored hair etc etc, I was carving out this strong physical identity because I had no sense of who I was internally whilst also making sure I wouldn't need to show up somewhere at 9am Monday to Friday.

Making myself noticeable physically was very integral to my internal thought process and need to stay alive, as shallow as it sounds I found it harder to hate myself the more tattooed and pierced I got because I was decorating myself and owning my own body, this didn’t go unnoticed by strangers and I began finding that more people were interested in my appearance than disgusted by it, this gave me a reason to talk to people and i began to see myself as someone interesting rather than someone who was just a shell with no personality.

Unfortunately this was not something my middle class, conservative, British family were fond of so I was often berated and put down for my choice of self expression, which I found very confusing because I felt that being happy was more important than being liked, I just so happened to have found something that people liked and made me happy, those people just so happened to not be related to me.

For years I battled with my parents and older brother on the basis that I didn’t WANT to become someone else just to live comfortably, I just wanted to be myself and be happ, they could only see me being constantly rejected by employers and peers for not looking or acting like a conventional person but I knew I could never be like another person, I couldn’t even try because I had not internal guideline to draw from to act like anyone else, I dressed differently, acted differently, learned things in an almost backwards way, asked obscure questions, was uninterested in current trends, just an all round odd ball but I liked it, I liked being seen as someone who was strange because that was unique.

I remember moving to a big a semi-rural part of the north east coast where I lived and there was a farm close by that had a corn field. From what little I had seen on T.V I ‘knew’ aliens always landed in corn fields so I thought one day my REAL family would land and take me back home, I asked my dad if I really was an alien when I was 7 and he said “No, definitely not, I was there when you were born” I didn’t believe him.

I’ve had hundreds of hours of therapy under Psychologists, Psychotherapists and Counselors and am currently seeing a Psychologist once a week, I’m very much at home with the idea of seeking therapy for the majority of my life whilst going un-medicated, my previous history of suicide attempts has been with pills so I don’t take anything unless I really need to.

I’ll update this blog as much as I can, I hope this can help some people out there, just to understand that things are ok, it’ll be ok. Stay safe