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Excerpt from "Helping Someone You Love (Finally and Completely) Recover From Borderline Personality Disorder"!

Losing My Life

Though my life always included suffering the symptoms of BPD to various degrees, this time it was different. Events in my life had converged to the point where I found myself in excruciating distress. I found myself in a downward spiral that took me to the point where I was discovered near-death several times with no certainty I would ever recover from the drugs I’d taken to end my own life.

I have a cloudy and vague memory of, this time, being rescued from my car—fuzzy images of police officers pulling me from the vehicle I’d hidden myself in. My body, littered with pills and spilled wine, lifted out and carried away by yet another ambulance.

I was told my boyfriend stayed next to me, rubbing my cold legs, my body hooked up to tubes and wires as I lay in the ICU room. Exhausted from the fight himself, I’m certain he experienced ambivalent emotions about whether he should hope for my healing or wish for a merciful end to my suffering. And there was a profound sense of helplessness. No amount of money, love or sacrifice had made it any better.

As the thick fog of unconsciousness slowly began to rise, I was aware of the in-and-out of nurses, doctors and social workers. Hospital financial aid representatives and County assistance workers emerged by day three or four. Orders were signed by the local judge to commit me to a state mental institution.

I began to recall the words on my suicide note that trailed off as I slid into oblivion. Did I want to die? Yes, it was the only relief I could fathom. Did I love my boyfriend and my children? With every ounce of my being I loved them. Was the burden of their mother’s suicide something I wished to saddle them with? Never. But I believed it to be the most loving gesture I could offer as I could not stop the enormous pain and damage I knew I was causing them.

The charcoal and pumps slowly cleared the poison from my body. There had been an intervention to save a life—mine. Faced with a state institution that I feared would offer no help, I lied and said I was no longer feeling suicidal. I knew I needed more help—I needed an answer. But none had ever come. It wasn’t that I hadn’t tried. Years had been spent in therapy, support groups, healing retreats, and the purchase of a library of self-help books.

Weak and gray, I was released back home, back to bed, where I would stay for days on end. There was no job left to go to, and even if I mustered up the courage or energy to interview well, I knew I would not be able to face the people and challenges along the way.  My boyfriend attributed it to being lazy and irresponsible. My children’s father thought I was being mean and that the children needed to be taken away. I’d lost my house to foreclosure…all the credit cards were gone.

My boyfriend provided a home for me and loved me the best he could, but the things he did and said more often hurt than helped. He sought advice from therapists and friends...

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