What Now?

Sometimes it saddens me to look back and realise I've been searching and receiving help for my Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) for 5 years. I am the age of 19 and I believe no one should have to battle with any mental illness for so long but at such a young age it's heart breaking.

When I was finally allowed to be diagnosed officially, coming up to my 18th birthday, it broke and still breaks my heart to this day that I will live with this label forever. I sit and fear all the life events anyone has growing up and will face during adulthood. I fear my first heartbreak and people passing away. I fear going in for my first day at work or even applying for my first ever real job that will lead to my career. I fear buying a home and falling in love. I fear starting a family. I fear many things and I am only 19 years old. No one should have to live with the fear their mental illness will define their lives but I know mine will because it hasn't stopped in all the years I have suffered.

Then it comes to this. When you have received all the help that is possibly available to you for BPD yet you still relapse and find it hard to cope, what do you do? Right now I'm at that stage. I have tried everything and the NHS have ran out of things to do and say. I have been on many different medications that I now fear due to bad experiences in hospital. I have been hospitalised 3 times for a total of 11 months altogether. I know CBT/DBT therapies like the back of my hand. The only thing left is trauma therapy. I am ready for it now yet there is a huge waiting list and by the sounds of it the NHS are thinking about not referring me because a waiting list exists. What am I meant to do? I refuse to accept this is my life. I refuse to accept things can't improve past the point they have reached. This isn't recovery yet because the NHS have tried everything to them it is.

How do they expect me not to give up on myself when the service formed to help me has done just that, given up on me? I don't understand and I fear I never will.