Well, that's the biggest question of all, isn't it? All I can really tell you is what my lifetime has been like so far, and maybe we should save that bigger question for later... I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) 6 years ago, when I was 18, but I have been struggling with BPD and Depression since I was 10 years old. (For more information on Borderline Personality Disorder, click here.) I began developing early, and by the time I was 9 and a half years old I was wearing a bra and menstruating. This on its own was incredibly difficult at such a young age, but it got worse. It was around this time or shortly after that I began to get some "funny ideas". Each school assembly, I was absolutely convinced that my thoughts were being broadcast over the loud speakers for the whole school to hear. I was also sure that my teachers could read my mind, and so began to very carefully monitor every thought that went through my head. My inner space, my own head, to me, wasn't private anymore. As you can imagine, it takes tremendous effort and hyper vigilance to monitor every single thought, at all times, and soon I became depressed and anxious. I would skip class and sit at the back of the school playground, or lock myself in the girl's toilets until lunchtime, after which I would casually slip back into class as though nothing had happened. Amazingly no one noticed, or if they did, they didn't realize that things were so out of control. Nowadays, I tend to think I was reaching out in some way, truly hoping that someone would see me and ask what was wrong. My teachers certainly didn't, but a few classmates did ask me where I had been and I would make up stories that I had fainted or felt sick. On a deep level I was crying out, but it would be another 2 years before anything would happen.In the Christmas holidays before I began high school, I read a novel about a girl who had Multiple Personality Disorder (now called Dissociative Identity Disorder). I'm still not sure exactly what happened, but in many ways, I took on her story, her symptoms. I wrote in a diary in different pens for each 'personality', we had arguments, talked to each other, some drew pictures. I guess I really was just a kid and I had no idea what was happening to me. This story, this diagnosis seemed to be the closest thing to what I was feeling - fractured and empty, chaos and a mess inside my head. I knew, somehow, I had to reach out and tell someone that everything was NOT alright. It came in the form of a science teacher, whom I had quite a crush on at the time. I was 12 years old, in my first year of high school in a small country town and I'm sure Mr. Faure-Brac had no inkling of what was about to happen and the events that would follow on from that first conversation. I knocked on the staffroom door. "Hi, Jacqui. Everything ok? What can I do for you?" "Hi, I'm Tessa." "Um, no, you're Jacqui..." "No, my name's Tessa. I came to you because I'm worried about Jacqui - I think she's going to kill herself." As you can imagine he was quite stunned, and recommended I talk to the school counselor, Mrs. Hasler, from where my (very shocked) mum took me to see my G.P. And it was from there that I got a referral to see a psychiatrist, one hour's drive away in another town and the only one for hundreds of kilometers.
Having kept everything to myself, my parents were incredibly surprised; it had all seem to come out of the blue. I was amazingly good at putting on a happy face, despite what was going on underneath. But something had to give. I didn't know what was going to happen or if I would get help, but at least I no longer had to carry the secret. That very first psychiatrist talked to me for an hour and immediately put me on medication. I was desperately suicidal and spiraling out of control. A few weeks later, while home from school I took an overdose of my pills and ended up in the local emergency department. It was to be the first of many serious suicide attempts in my life.
It became clear after a few months that the medication wasn't working. I was increasingly out of control, still writing in my diary in different 'personalities', talking about knives and alien abductions, and still suicidal. I was hospitalized at a nearby psychiatric unit, with adult patients, but, cannot remember much of this. I tend to think it was so traumatic that I simply blocked most of it out. I had barely even been away from home for more than one night at a time, and here I was in an adult psych ward, totally alone. I was also heavily medicated at the time. I do remember a male patient coming into my room, sitting on my bed and asking me about sex, if I knew how to kiss and would I like to. Luckily, a nurse interrupted at this point, and I didn't have to answer the question or have anything more to do with him. However, when I told the staff about what he'd said, he found out and later threatened to slit my throat, saying that he had a razor in his room and "I'll do it!"
After another month my doctor recommended a hospital in Sydney especially for adolescents and children with psychiatric problems. It was called Rivendell. Rivendell is an imposing red-brick building on the Parramatta River surrounded by lawn and trees and overlooking the river with the Sydney skyline in the distance. An old heritage building, it looked like a castle out of the dark ages, complete with carved columns and long halls with high ceilings and stained-glass windows. One almost expected gargoyles to be keeping watch from the eaves. Needless to say, I was terrified. Not only was I away from home, but I'd only ever been to Sydney once - I was a LONG way from home and from anything vaguely familiar. Rivendell was set up as a kind of boarding school come psych ward. There were day students/patients as well as those of us who 'lived-in'. There were kids aged from 9 years old to 17. I made a few friends, which helped a little, but, again, nothing really seemed to work. I hated being at Rivendell with a passion. One night I remember a girl being dropped off at the front door. Her parents had told her to pack her bag, that they were taking her on a 'surprise holiday'. They dropped her at the door and sped off in their car, not even saying goodbye. I still get shivers thinking about that night - lying in my bed in the room with ten other girls, listening to that poor girl cry her heart out. She wasn't just crying, she was howling and screaming in pain. I couldn't, and still can't believe that anyone could be so heartless towards their daughter. I eventually became so suicidal that Rivendell couldn't handle me anymore, and decided to transfer me to a proper, locked adult facility in nearby Newcastle called James Fletcher Hospital. My mum drove me there during the middle of the night, but once I got there, I told them I wasn't suicidal anymore, that I was ok. I think what happened was that I just wanted out of Rivendell so badly and once I was out, I felt tremendous relief. But the doctors didn't believe me. They scheduled me to the locked ward where I stayed for three days. It was horrible; the ward consisted of one shared living area with glass walls behind which nursing staff observed constantly. I remember crying myself to sleep every night. I just wanted my mum. I just wanted to go home.
Not long afterwards, my parents made the decision to move to Newcastle. We knew the area from holidays, my mum actually grew up here, and we had plenty of relatives nearby. I was devastated by the move, but mum was adamant that we needed to be closer to doctors and facilities that could help me, and the small country town of Gunnedah that we lived in simply was too far away. I began year eight at a new school in this new 'big city' and was seeing a good doctor via the Mental Health Team. Eventually I stabilized and was able to stop taking the medication. For about 12 months I was relatively happy, if not a little homesick, but I soon settled in and got on with high school, making new friends and generally being a 'normal' 13 year old. Later that year however, my parents separated and later divorced. I wasn't surprised, not because they fought, they never fought, but because I refused to react, and so there was a total absence of feeling surrounding the event. I 'took it all in my stride', but obviously, deep down it affected me, because it was not long after this that the 'alien abductions' started, and I rapidly became unwell again.
I was convinced that every night, during my sleep I was being abducted. I read all the literature and books I could about aliens, looking for answers. If only I'd known doing that was digging me further into a hole. Every small bruise or scar on my body became, to me, evidence of the tests the aliens performed on me, and I blamed the aliens for making me the way I was. I realize now I was just looking for answers as to why I felt different from everyone else, why I was 'sick'. At the time when The X Files was the most popular show on television, aliens seemed to be the key. It was just a repeat of what I'd done with the book, a year ago, trying to find where I fit, wondering what was wrong with me, and searching for anything that would explain it. This went on for months before I finally told someone. I began to see a psychologist again, then a psychiatrist and before you could blink I was back on medication. They labeled me psychotic and delusional, with possible schizophrenia. I was living with a daily mound of pain, of inner suffering, and I soon began cutting myself. I found it was an effective way of releasing the pressure that built up inside, and it is, unfortunately, a coping mechanism I still use today. My arms are a matrix of scar tissue, and almost every waking moment I wish I never started using cutting as a way to manage my feelings in the first place.
I finished high school at year ten, school certificate level, but only barely. From age 14 my life consisted of psychiatrists and hospitals and medication. To date I have been hospitalized over 40 times. When I was 17 I got private health insurance and was finally able to find a hospital where I could get treatment, as opposed to just being 'locked away and observed and medicated'. I have been through eight different psychiatrists and countless psychologists and am still currently taking medication.
In 2003, when I turned 21, there was a turning point. Having been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, I was accepted into a 12 month Dialectic Behavioral Therapy program (DBT), and learnt a lot about myself and many skills that I still use to this day. DBT is a group therapy plus individual therapy program based on the groundbreaking work by Marsha Linehan on treating BPD. It focuses on building skills to deal with emotions, relationships and thoughts, as well as chain-analysis style therapy to learn more about how your mind works and why you act the way you do. It is targeted at those with Borderline Personality Disorder where these skills are usually all but missing, and the core skill is training in Mindfulness, a Buddhist principle of meditation. I learnt so many new skills, not to mention so much about myself through this program, and for the first time ever, I felt normal. Truly and honestly normal. I could see a future for myself and I suddenly felt like I could have a life. I started working, as well as attending part-time university (studying philosophy and linguistics), and life was good.
Unfortunately it didn't last long, and after 6 months, I crashed, ending up back in hospital again. It shattered me to be back there again, I felt as though I had failed myself and the world. I rapidly lost hope. Since then I have been hospitalized on an average of about once every 5-6 months, and, more recently, 2-3 months. Currently I am participating in a program of planned admissions with a wonderful doctor at the hospital, and I'm slowly learning acceptance of my condition as well as learning that hope is always present, no matter what. While things are still incredibly difficult on a daily basis, I am still here, and after all I've been through I think that's pretty incredible!
To read more about Borderline Personality Disorder, click here
To read more about Depression, click here
For resources and links on Mental Health and various other subjects, click here
