I guess the point of me starting this blog was to let other people know that it’s okay to have a mental illness. There are so, so many people that struggle with their mental health but don’t talk about it.
I believe that being open and talking about our mental health is the first weapon to blowing the shit out of stigma and make people truly own who they are. If you’re living with a mental illness the last thing you need is people making you feel as though you ought to be ashamed of it, that you’re attention seeking or exaggerating.
The YouTubers that I’m sharing today are just beautiful through and through. They talk openly about their mental health and have some really great content.
For Borderline Personality Disorder:
Sammy Marie Grimm – Sammy’s channel is about make-up, the vegan lifestyle and mental health. Most of her videos are about mental health, namely BPD. Sammy has BPD with schizophrenic tendencies (also sometimes called borderline schizophrenia). Click here to visit her channel.
Bryan is a lesser known YouTuber, by the look of things, but I love having a male perspective on this! He suffers with BPD and the thing I love most about him is that he is just a normal person putting himself out there and talking about his mental health. Click here to visit his channel.
Schizophrenia
The Amateur Aries channel is run by a wonderful lady called Amanda. Amanda suffers from schizophrenia and talks regularly about this. Click here to visit her channel.
My absolute favourite mental health YouTuber is Lauren at Living Well with Schizophrenia (Click here). Lauren actually has the lesser known Schizoaffective disorder, which is almost a combination diagnosis of Schizophrenia and a mood disorder, such as BPD or bipolar. She is such a lovable person to watch and is so very honest about her struggles. Her passion for helping others is beautifully apparent.
Dissociative Identity Disorder
Chloe has dissociative identity disorder, previously known as multiple personality disorder. Chloe’s channel is called Dissociadid and is very well put together. She gives viewers a real sense of what it’s like to live with this trauma-induced disorder. Click here to watch a video of hers.
All-rounders:
MedCircle are amazing!! They feature real people with so many different mental illness and cover a bunch of issues that come with them. They are definitely worth a watch. Click here to visit their channel.
I’m sure that as more time passes this list will grow (watch out for a part-two!)
If you have a keen interest in mental health, or live with one of the disorders/conditions mentioned above then I definitely recommend watching some of these channels. Be mindful of your own mental state and of your triggers. Most, if not all, of these guys provide trigger warnings.
Sammie-Marie and Lauren have helped me the most. To find an understanding of myself that I wouldn’t have been able to reach had it not been for exploring the experiences of others living with similar symptoms to my own.
2. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.
For me this issue ties into my last post about abandonment. You can find this here.
If I idealised or devalued anybody it would be in relation to how they felt about me and if I thought that they would stay, or if they would leave me. As I mentioned in the last post, I would fear abandonment over very minor things. If someone that I was close to did anything to trigger that fear in me then my brain automatically labelled them an ‘abandoner’; they were mean, they didn’t care about me. If the very same person was to get back in touch and say something nice then they were amazing, they would never leave me, they could never do anything wrong. It was exhausting really and back then I never had any real insight into how I was thinking or why I was thinking in that way.
Those that are familiar with BPD terminology will have heard about the ‘favourite person’ phenomena. A favourite person (or FP) is someone that you believe can do no wrong, they are your everything and you place all of your worth on their opinions. A FP can quickly change and become demonised by something minor, but more often than not with me I just became obsessed with keeping them, keeping their good opinion and pleasing them. I would message my favourite person all the time (there have been many), buy them gifts that I couldn’t afford and want to see them all the time.
I still struggle with traits of this now. Sometimes I find that I’m still skipping the grey areas with people or situations. I just see the good and the bad, the true of the false. It’s something that I’m working on though and I wouldn’t say it’s detrimental to my health any more. I do have healthier relationships now, but there have been so many that were just toxic.
I’ve had bad relationships with my family, particularly my parents. I have had various toxic relationships or emotional/sexual encounters. I can see now that I turned people into my FP or demonised people so much that it distorted my perception on what was really happening. Every relationship I was in ended in a train wreck. I hurt myself and countless other people whilst I was living this way.
This black and white thinking in BPD is known as splitting (I.E all good or bad, splitting everything into two categories). I still do split on people if my emotions are high and I’m so wound up that I can’t think straight. An example of this would be if my husband and I had a small argument, I would forget about every nice thing that he had ever done and just all of the bad. He goes from being my awesome normal husband, to the worst husband of all time. This isn’t too much of an issue for me now though, I can now see that I’m splitting when I’m doing it and most of the time I manage to reassure myself that it will pass, once I’ve calmed down and removed myself from the situation.
I do split on situations still though now, EG. we’re very poor/we’re very rich, I’m doing well/I’m doing terribly. Especially if I’ve had a disagreement with someone. It takes some work and some self-care to get a hold of myself.
I’m fortunate to be in a stable place in my life right now. I have my struggles but I can largely gain perspective on my issues in a calm and safe space and can work on them accordingly. For a person with BPD who has had no help and who struggles to find perspective in their behaviour and emotions, the world and everything in it is a very confusing and scary place.
The DSM-5, the newest version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association, is accepted and used world-wide for it’s classification of mental illness.
What I find interesting about the criteria for borderline personality disorder is that there are 9 criteria in total, but only 5 need to be met to warrant the diagnosis. I find this interesting because the stigma attached to BPD can be so awful and yet there are numerous combinations in which the criteria can be met. Two people could have the same diagnosis but only have one symptom in common; and with each criteria affecting everyone differently, it doesn’t take a mastermind to see that it doesn’t make sense to tar everyone with the same brush.
In this mini-series I’ll be discussing how each of the diagnostic criteria affects me personally. It would be great if any fellow BPD’ers would like to jump on and explain how they relate to the criteria and the condition in general.
Criteria #1 – Frantic efforts to avoid abandonment.
I’m not entirely sure that right now I make such big efforts when I’m triggered by my abandonment issues. I know that I definitely used to be. Growing up I had a very important person miss the most important part of childhood and so I mostly attribute it to that. When I was diagnosed this is one of those symptoms that clicked and helped me to understand myself better.
I don’t like abandonment, but I accept that people coming going are just a part of life and I know that naturally people move away, forget to message or get new friends. It doesn’t mean that they don’t care, it just means that they’re living their life, as we should all do. Some time ago I could have considered every little thing as abandonment; even sometime as small as a friend rearranging plans or my partner falling asleep.
I know that when my first boyfriend left me when I was 14 I was devastated and I clung to him and begged him not to go. I hung on to toxic relationships for too long because I just needed to know that they still cared and wouldn’t leave. Years ago I would feel intense hurt if a friend didn’t message back or seemed to be spending more time with other friends than with me. I’d become clingy and needy without even realising it; I was convinced that what I was feeling was perfectly normal and had zero perspective on my behaviours.
The worst that I’ve ever been abandonment-wise was when I was first with my now-husband. He was so nice and normal and I was convinced my crazy would make him leave. What did my BPD brain do to try and keep him? I pushed him away. I was so certain that he would leave that I gave him more than every reason to. When we met, I got pregnant fast, I lost my job in the same week that we found out, I had a son from a previous relationship and due to a familial relationship breakdown my younger brother came to live with us.
In my 2-bedroom, half-decorated council house there was pregnant me, my son, my brother and my partner. I had fallen out with my family and was extremely depressed. Through it all he just loved me.
I remember the first time we had an argument I had stormed off downstairs and left him to fall asleep upstairs, when I came up to bed I climbed in with my back towards him and he rolled towards me and started stroking my back. My first thought was “I don’t deserve this” and I was quietly cross with him for being nice to me when I didn’t deserve it. I’d never felt kindness like that before in a relationship. Weren’t people supposed to be spiteful and mean to each other after arguments? Weren’t they supposed to last days? He taught me how to be kind, how to forgive and how to let go of grudges. I’m definitely a better person for knowing him. I remember him once saying to me “Emma, not every argument has to end up with us breaking up” and I was like “what. why?” It sounds so funny when I read that back to myself, but I think it shows how unstable I really was!
How he had the strength to stay with me and love me despite everything, I’ll never know; but I’m so unbelievably grateful that he did. He was the first healthy relationship that I’d ever had, the first time that I’d ever really had a life that was stable. I had to work to change my behaviours, helped by his endless kindness. It’s only in the last 3 or 4 years that I’ve really come to feel secure in our relationship and learnt to fully put my trust into ‘us’. We’re in an amazing place now and even though he’s an annoying little turd I know that we’ll be married for the rest of our lives.
The reason that I’ve rambled on about the husband is because he showed me that regardless of ANYTHING, I’m worth loving. I’ve worked on my abandonment issues in therapy but the real change has been the secure bonds that I’ve developed with my husband and our children. I have a future to look forward to and I couldn’t have said that for the most of my life.
What is the first thing you think of when you try to imagine a person with schizophrenia? Would it be a dishevelled, wild-eyed, delusional person that may or may not lose their mind and hurt you? Would it be a sweet early-dementia-like patient who appears fine most of the time but is prone to hallucinations, delusions and sometimes anger in their confusion? Science, and the real world would say that the latter is a closer portrayal of Schizophrenia.
What is schizophrenia?
Schizophrenia is defined as a psychiatric illness that is characterised by losing touch with reality in a state of what is known as psychosis. It can appear suddenly or can be gradual and progressive. There is no known cure for schizophrenia and so treatment involves the use of drugs to control symptoms, although 25% of those that experience an episode of schizophrenia will recover completely.
The diagnostic
criteria from the DSM-V is as follows:
The presence of 2 (or more) of the following,
each present for a significant portion of time during a 1-month period (or less
if successfully treated), with at least 1 of them being (1), (2), or (3): (1)
delusions, (2) hallucinations, (3) disorganized speech, (4) grossly
disorganized or catatonic behaviour, and (5) negative symptoms.
For a significant portion of the time since the
onset of the disturbance, level of functioning in 1 or more major areas (eg.
Work, interpersonal relations, or self-care) is markedly below the level
achieved before onset; when the onset is in childhood or adolescence, the
expected level of interpersonal, academic or occupational functioning is not
achieved.
Symptoms in schizophrenia are termed ‘positive’ or ‘negative’. Positive symptoms are those that are brought by schizophrenia; meaning you wouldn’t have them if you didn’t have schizophrenia. These are symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions.
Negative symptoms relate to things that you would have if it weren’t for a diagnosis of schizophrenia. These are symptoms such as being unable to move (catatonia), or feeling less emotional or motivated.
What causes schizophrenia?
The cause of
schizophrenia is not understood, but studies have highlighted risk factors for
developing the condition, such as genetics, a chemical imbalance, a persons’
environment.
There’s currently a movement, more so in America than the UK but it applies worldwide all the same, that is lobbying to push the World Health Organisation to reclassify schizophrenia as a neurological condition, much like Parkinson’s or dementia.
When a move like this occurs, it’s clear to see just how strongly stigma still clings to mental illness. We live in a world, sadly, where people with a certain ‘type’ of illness are accepted and cared for by both people and officials more than that of another type. It is more socially acceptable and pitiable to be diagnosed with a neurological disorder than it is a psychiatric one; to see a medical doctor and not a psychiatrist.
Raymond Cho, M.D of SARDAA (Schizophrenia And Related Disorders Alliance of America) has been campaigning for the change and is quoted as saying “There is scientific consensus that the illness is a brain-based, highly heritable illness. There is overwhelming evidence that schizophrenia is a neurodevelopmental disorder with disease processes commencing early in neurodevelopment and manifesting as subtle neurologic and behavioural abnormalities long before DSM-defined illness onset.”
It has been found that physical abnormalities are more prevalent in people with schizophrenia than people without, adding weight to the theory that schizophrenia is a condition that develops during foetal development and is therefore neurological in nature.
John Snook, executive director of the Treatment Advocacy Center is bolder still and says that “If schizophrenia was a disease that we just discovered today there would be no question that’s how we would classify it” – Powerful huh?
Symptoms that a schizophrenia patient might experience include:
A
chronic lack of interest
Problems
with concentration
Problems
with memory
Psychotic
symptoms – hallucinations and delusions
Becoming
overwhelmed in social situations
Avoiding
people or situations
Becoming
withdrawn
Anxiety
Neglecting
self-care
Incoherent
speech
Mood
changes
Sad, isn’t it? It’s also sad that every one of the above symptoms can be found in dementia too.
As mentioned before, schizophrenia’s most known characteristic is psychosis. You know the symptom that puts fear into everyone that has read the Daily Mail? Here are some other causes of psychosis:
Brain tumour
Brain cyst
Dementia
Parkinson’s disease
Huntington’s disease
HIV
Epilepsy
Stroke
Postpartum psychosis
Bipolar
Almost all of
the conditions on the above list would warrant sympathy and compassion from the
world populace – would schizophrenia? Psychosis in schizophrenia and bipolar are associated with violent
behaviour – what about dementia patients that exhibit psychosis and are violent?
Why aren’t we afraid of them?
Because of stigma.
The
media portrayal of schizophrenia would have us believe that all schizophrenics
are dangerous and unpredictable.
They
have a split personality or multiple personalities (completely different
disorder and again, nothing to be afraid of.)
Here and here are two heart-breaking stories of dementia patients that have committed murder. Do you think that society is going to begin to fear dementia patients? Society acknowledges that these patients were sick and vulnerable and that absolutely applies to the schizophrenic members of our society; they absolutely deserve the same amount of love, care and compassion as anybody with any illness – I might even argue they would deserve more compassion due to the current climate of stigma. They are far more likely to be discriminated against.
The reality is though, most schizophrenia or dementia patients aren’t always in psychosis and they are not always violent.
Regardless of whether or not the illness is reclassified, why should it matter? It shouldn’t. These patients have an illness that they did not ask for and an illness which (like many others) has a huge impact on all aspects of their lives. Any person with any illness, mental or physical, deserves compassion and understanding. Poorly people have enough to deal with, so let us learn to accept them without labels and judgement, and let’s keep on spreading awareness and changing the world.
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