Borderline: Jennifers Leben in Extremen I 37 Grad

At the age of 15, I didn't really believe there was a future, or yes, I couldn't look beyond a few years and I was actually pretty sure that my high school diploma would be the end of my life. . I'm Jennifer Wrona, I'm 26 years old, I was born in the south of Germany, I now live in Bremerhaven and I'm studying digital media production. I live in a very colorful neighborhood here in the city and people know each other and meet often on the street. Yes, it's relatively familiar around here. The disease is actually called emotionally unstable personality disorder,

borderline

type.

But I think the term emotionally unstable personality disorder describes it better, because that's exactly what it is. I've always had strong feelings. No matter what happens in my life, in my everyday life, that is a strong emotion for me. So for me nervousness is the same as a panic attack or sadness is for me the deepest depression or being happy is the maximum euphoria and feeling that in your daily life constantly 24 hours a day is for me my main symptom, is.. . The central problem for me with this disease. I'm sure at first it was just a matter of getting rid of these feelings because they were so overwhelming that I didn't want to deal with them.

For me, for example, it started with such a basic sadness and I was so tired of life and then when I was 13/14 I thought about my body for the first time and then I thought it was really stupid and then somehow I started to get along with it Eat and that then went in the wrong direction. I was anorexic and also bulimic for a time and I had problems eating for a long time. And it may sound strange, but at some point the eating habits were no longer enough and then I just looked for something new and that was self-harming, like cutting off my arms.

I usually describe it like this: Making a conscious cut in my own body is a conscious decision I make and the pain inside was so untraceable that I didn't know where it was and I couldn't eliminate it, so I tried to cut it. To decide for yourself where the pain is. So I put the pain in the place I chose. These are all things that were very embarrassing to me. On the one hand, I really wanted people to see this and recognize how big my pain is, how much I'm suffering, and how much pain I carry.

But on the other hand, I was very ashamed of it. It was very uncomfortable for me. It was so terrible for me that I even had to take such drastic measures to deal with myself. For many

borderline

patients it is very difficult to have and maintain relationships, but fortunately I have had a very stable circle of friends for almost ten years. My friends were definitely an important factor in helping me understand that relationships can be and remain stable and that you don't walk away immediately at the first argument or the first disagreement you have. Malu is one of my closest friends that I have.

We have also known each other for almost ten years. So we also know each other from my hometown, from Stuttgart, and Malu has already experienced and gone through many ups and downs with me and now he will visit me here in the north of Germany for a while and of course I am very happy about that. . I probably think about the fact that I am afraid of being abandoned, even by people who have been around me for years, much more often than healthy people or people who are not affected by the boundary. And of course, that's incredibly exhausting. "Jenni knows I'm there and Jenni knows that I'm definitely not someone who would just throw away a friendship.

A friendship has a very, very high value to me. What I especially appreciate about Jenni is that she has a great deal. The thing is, I have a lot of I respect the fact that she always tries to do the best in everything and sometimes she doesn't believe that about herself, but that is a very important quality for everyone and I would like to be happy too. I thank you for that. And you won't get rid of me. so fast". It is incredibly complex. All this is also very paradoxical. It is difficult to understand why those affected are so afraid of being abandoned that many people tend to end relationships early to escape the pain, so to speak.

This fear of abandonment is a danger that sometimes feels very real and that also means that I am afraid of being rejected or doing, saying and doing anything that might make people turn around and walk away. And in social situations, this leads me to try to prevent this irrational fear and my brain does it very quickly, without me realizing it, trying to analyze every facial expression and every gesture of everyone around me. That's why, for example, I understood and learned that I better recharge my batteries alone and I like to spend time alone. Due to the pandemic, I am of course at home a lot.

I also haven't been to university for a year. Now we do everything online, every conference. I sit at a desk a lot, I work from home a lot, but I'm actually doing pretty well. The main component of my PR work is certainly social media and Instagram, but also my book, which came out this year, and also the lectures I give from time to time. Because I wish there was someone I could relate to or someone who would talk openly and honestly about what it's like to have a mental illness and that it's possible to live with a mental illness as well.

Of course, there are also many affected people who experience recurring trauma in their childhood or in their lives, and they can be different things. So it could be sexual abuse, it could be emotional abuse, it could be the death of family members or close people. There are many things that can contribute to this. I didn't have intense suicidal thoughts every day from the beginning, but according to the diary entries I found, I probably had those thoughts when I was 13, but not permanently now. It all built up and got worse and worse and at some point it became quite acute.

Then the thoughts that were there from time to time were suddenly there every day and every day I had the feeling that I didn't really want to live anymore. Then my therapist told me clearly that there will never be anyone in the world who can stop me from taking my life. That no one will prevent it, that it is my absolutely 100% free decision. It took many more years until I got better, but I am very sure that it was a moment in my life that changed and triggered a lot and in the end it influenced me in the process of my healing and my therapies made me take responsibility because no one else will do it.

It doesn't matter how helpless you feel. No matter how terrible it feels. It doesn't matter how bad the feelings you feel are. Nobody can take that away from you. And then I

grad

uated high school and I thought, "Okay, crazy, now I'm alive and I don't want to die anymore. What does life have in store for me now?" My healing process involved a lot of trial and error and nothing makes everything better, it was just a combination. I definitely do a lot of therapy, among other things. That helped a lot. But on the other hand, I also create external structures that allow me to deal with the chaos that sometimes reigns in my head.

And I just learned, for example, that meeting my basic needs such as eating, sleeping and personal hygiene are things that cannot be discussed either. There is no room for maneuver. I can, so I don't have to negotiate with myself to what extent I have to take care of it and to what extent I don't, but it is simply a basic requirement to have eaten enough, slept enough and showered regularly. Go away, so I can have a good time. In my worst phases, one of my biggest problems or difficulties was definitely that I was very lethargic, that I literally couldn't get out of bed for days or weeks or even do anything and I managed to control that, even through definitely psychotropic medications. .

But on the other hand, there's the two-minute rule that I've been trying to incorporate into my life, and that two-minute rule says that anything you can do in less than two minutes, you do it right away and don't do it. you do. Don't put it off. But these two minutes were also too long and tiring for me at first, so I started with 30 seconds and then always tried to make sure that all I could do in 30 seconds was either take off my clothes somehow. on the floor or hang my jacket, so I'll do it right away.

And at some point I increased that and I still do to this day. I wouldn't say I'm cured of borderline, because that would somehow imply that it's a disorder that is detected and then can be cured that way, and personality disorders are, as the term suggests, linked to personality and that means, There are simply structures in my being and in my perception that have changed and that is why I prefer to describe myself as a dry borderline. So instead, I learned to deal with myself, with my feelings, with my life, with my intense emotions. But that doesn't mean that it will never be a problem in my life again, but it does mean that every crisis that I experience or that inevitably happens in life, I always handle it better.

So it's getting easier for me to deal with it than it was ten years ago. I would like to tell people who may have gone through or are going through the same thing that the most important thing is to talk about it with someone and not try to solve it with yourself or believe that you have to solve it with yourself and it is very important to seek help, because the Help is there and there are people who want to help too and you don't always have to feel so bad alone. Because there are simply ways out of this and there are many wonderful people who can help you.

You don't have to end your life to end the pain you feel.