I am fucking crazy, but I am free

...at least in terms of being home vs. being institutionalized.

Picture // private

I was discharged from the psych ward I spent almost three months in in December. Diagnosis: "avoidant personality disorder", and "emotionally unstable personality disorder, borderline type". It makes a lot of sense to me. I wish it made sense to other people. It's hard to explain an illness that makes interactions and relations to other people so difficult and exhausting. It's hard to explain exactly how debilitating it is. It's hard to say "it's because I have this and this illness", because a lot of people will say that I have to take responsibility for my actions and stop blaming it on an illness (an illness that in their minds doesn't even exist).

If I was injured, like when I fell/was pushed down a flight of stairs and injured my leg almost three years ago, and said I couldn't walk, no one would tell me to suck it up and stop blaming my injured leg. No one would say I was just exaggerating or acting out or that I was just being lazy. Mental illness is just as bad as physical illness, but that's a whole different entry.

Emotionally unstable personality disorder (BPD) is something I've known that I probably had for a long time (and my previous psychologist said I had it, but I was too young to be officially diagnosed with it), but I hadn't even looked into avoidant personality disorder (AvPD). It caught me off-guard, but at least my mom can't say that I trick myself into believing I have a mental illness by reading about it now. I didn't even know what the symptoms and hallmarks of avoidant personality disorder were.

The diagnoses make me feel less alone. Enough people struggle with the same problems as me for it to be a diagnosis. Other people have the exact same problems as me. It's comforting because I always thought I was all alone about feeling like I do and being like I am.

Picture // private

I'm being referred to an outpatient treatment center where they treat personality disorders. I have to fill out the application myself (above), and I'm almost done, but it's really hard to name and put down my three biggest issues. I've been thinking a lot about it. One is to deal with relations, especially close relations. My fear of rejection and abandonment makes me get way too intense, or makes me reject people (before they get the chance to leave me). Another major issue is to trust others and believe what people tell me. The third is to regulate and control my emotions. I feel like the end is nigh and have catastrophe thoughts over very minor things. I get irrationally angry for nothing. I get upset and hurt and suicidally depressed for nothing. People don't get that, and I try to keep it inside me, but then it becomes too much and I'll just blurt everything out and become hysteric.

It'll probably take a few months before I know if I get treatment there or not, but at least it's something. It's better than DPS, the district psychiatric center. They can usually only treat people for half a year at the most, and I need something stable and longterm. The personality clinic's program is up to three years and is both group therapy and individual therapy. Everyone agrees that would be more beneficial for me. Fingers crossed.