 Hi guys, I think I'm in focus. I'm gonna hope I am. Today I'm doing a story time BPD diagnosis story video. Actually in May is that I haven't like done this story before. I really don't know how I haven't done this before. I filmed a video the day I got like my BPD. I'll link that in the description down below. But I will also play a quick clip for you now. So what that video basically showed was me getting a diagnosis that I didn't really know much about because before I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder slash emotionally unstable personality disorder I didn't know anything about it at all. I didn't know what it was or anything to do with it. I knew absolutely nothing about it. I've now been diagnosed with BPD for three years, am I? Four years? We got some cold as you saw me make in the intro clip. My story slash journey of being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder slash to where I am now. This video was very highly requested. It won the thing on the poll I did on my community tab. If you don't know what I'm talking about hit the little notification bell. You'll be notified whenever I post on my community tab or you can just check it every day because I post polls all the time. I share little sneak previews of videos and vlogs. Like choose next video. I do Q&A announcements and all that jazz. I also post a lot on my Twitter. And following on Twitter I'd very highly recommend it as you see me getting very political and you hear a lot about my life. I talk a lot on Twitter. Believe me it's like my child. I was diagnosed with BPD after my third suicide I don't. Back then I lived in my hometown and life was hmm it wasn't good. Okay I'm not going to go too much into my story if you are interested. There's loads of videos on my channel and I'll link the playlist in the description and that'll explain all of that. Long story short my life until I moved out at 18 wasn't amazing. When I was 18 I moved with Dr Preston and now I live in London and I do this. I'm a film student which is why I've got textbooks there. A lot of what I've shared in the past has been about yeah I got diagnosed after my third suicide attempt. So what actually happened in that time frame? So that last overdose I made before the diagnosis. I was only diagnosed with a few things. I was diagnosed with bipolar. I was diagnosed of anxiety and I was diagnosed with ADHD. They were the only diagnosis I had. I was also under each and disorder services but at that point I was seen as in recovery. Whatever that's supposed to mean. So I was initially diagnosed with bipolar. A diagnosis which has since been aged and removed is no longer. No longer diagnosed with bipolar. So that's a thing. I mean I'm not gonna. When I went into A&E that morning because of the overdose did you want to die and would you do it again? I said I don't want to die. I just want everything to stop. I want the stress to stop. I want all that to stop and will I do it again? Yes. I was given an emergency referral to the community mental health team because I had just returned A team. So this was after I had one of the camps for around a year. I was under no adult services. The only adult input I'd had was from me and disorder services and obviously they don't cover personality disorders. Nor do they try and diagnose it. So I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder during this first assessment which I had with a consultant and a nurse. The appointment was about 45 minutes long. I'd had assessments before they divide my history. If you've heard of a condition called borderline personality disorder and I said no because I had it and I didn't know anything about it. I was never raised into like a family that was very open but mental health. I didn't know much about it and then I discovered YouTube and I've always loved YouTubers who talk about mental health and I still do. Mental health YouTubers are the main YouTubers I want. Went home and I googled it. What else would I do? What else would I do? No one's really told. It told me briefly what it was. Then I read it. I read the diagnostic criteria after being diagnosed. This was after I had it on paper like in front of me. I've never been once self-diagnosed because that shit's fucked up. You know self-diagnose irritate me. Like you don't have a condition unless you've been diagnosed with it. I think that's just that. I'm not going to get into huge debate over that. If you want me to make a video talking about self-diagnosing, let me know in the comments down below and I'll happily do it. So when I got diagnosed, the first thing I did was I went home and googled it because I wanted to know more. I needed to know what this condition was and the first few things I read, there's a lot of stigma surrounding B3D. Back when I was diagnosed, there wasn't many videos online about it. So I picked up my camera and I filmed this diagnosis story and I vlogged and talked about my life since that point pretty openly. How much life has changed for me? And I think the diagnosis was the key part in recovery. Though it was never explained to me properly by a professional until my first admission in Preston, which was in 2017. That admission, in itself, I was a voluntary patient in a psychiatric unit and they sat down and explained the diagnosis to me in full. I think the biggest shock was like, oh yeah, there's no medication you can take that I already cure it. However, there are all these medications you can try and go for it. Like currently I'm on medication. I have to be. Otherwise, I don't sleep. I just don't see it. And I do struggle. My mood changes very rapidly. And there's one big key difference between BPD and bipolar. Because on paper, BPD and bipolar look exactly the same as in mood fluctuations, but they're completely different. Like with bipolar, it's usually a longer period of time. BPD, it's instantly. I could switch from one emotion to another, to another, to another, to another, in the same hour. Emotions to me are rapid cycling and changing constantly. But another big thing for me is impulsivity and low mood. Suicide, I thought. Self-harm. I had self-harm at that point. Pretty much every day since... I'd be the point in diagnosing I had self-harm every day since the start of secondary school. And before that, but I've done it every day since the start of secondary school to around a year and a half ago, which is a lot to say. That's a long time. Since then, I've done a lot of research on BPD. I know a lot about it. And like I said, one of the first diagnosed, the stigma of it scared me. I was so afraid of it. I was like, does this mean that I've got something? Does this mean I've got something wrong with me? Does it mean I've got a defect with my personality? Does it mean I'm like fucked in the head or something? It doesn't. Like, I think anyone who thinks that, they get to take a chill. Like, weird people's experiences. Don't listen to all these mental health lab because they're like, BPD can be cured or BPD is the enemy. You don't help because you have BPD. Because, well, yes, there's a lot of issues getting help when you have BPD. It's not impossible. BPD often comes alongside other diagnosis. It stems from... BPD usually stems from childhood abuse slash trauma. And usually that is the key trigger into it. Myself, alongside BPD, I'm also diagnosed with complex PTSD, which is often a diagnosis that gets confused with BPD. And it's different to standardised... standardised PTSD. And I've got a whole video explaining that. But the two disorders that are very similar and they often co-cur. Not everybody, you can have BPD without BPD. And often people with BPD don't actually have BPD. Because you're able to let go of the traumatic event, but you hold onto the memories of it. And what that means is you're unable to move faster. You hold onto it. You're holding a grudge against it. So it's not like you have flashbacks. It's you're holding a grudge against it. Which is completely different to PTSD. PTSD is flashbacks. It is memories. It's intuitive dreams. It's hallucinations. It's all of that. With BPD itself, I don't really know what symptoms I have with that because I'm diagnosed with other mental health conditions. I'm currently diagnosed with de-personalisation, de-realisation, depression, anxiety. Body dysmorphic disorder, borderline personality disorder. There's a few others as well. Obviously ADHD still, that's still a thing. Obviously it doesn't impact me any more. I do struggle a lot. I'm currently diagnosed with EDNOS, which is eating disorder. Not otherwise specified. I was previously diagnosed with anorexia. But when it comes down to how it is impacted, I've had a lot of struggles to inhale in crisis because I was at a point in the year where I was constantly in crisis. People around me were like, you can't always be in crisis. There's no way you can feel like that. And unfortunately, it's very common for people with BPD to be in permanent crisis. Hard to deal with. And I wrote a little bit about this in my book, and I'm not here to just sell you my book and whatever, but I wrote a book early this year about my entire experiences this year. And it's a very raw representation of what living with BPD is like, especially when you're having a lack of support from the system. I've had crisis teams hang up the phone on me. I have been inpatient three times, properly. And my BPD has been right out of control this year. It's now back in control and managed. I am very happy to say that I haven't had like a BPD episode in a good few months. And I'm very, very happy with that. I don't miss the chaos and my meds keep me stable. All I would say is if you know someone with BPD or if you're getting back nose with BPD or you want to know more about BPD, research it. Don't read all the facts just off. It's terrifying and horrible. Read personal experiences. It sounds bad, but people who have been through it know it better than the professionals do. And I'm going to be making a whole little mini series talking about borderline personality disorder and everything like that because it's something you guys apparently want to see. And if you want to see it, I'm happy to make it. All I want to say is if you get diagnosed with BPD, there is 100% hope that you can get stability back. It usually doesn't occur until you're in your teenage years. It doesn't occur during childhood normally. It's very rare to have a child diagnosed with BPD. Usually it's late teens slash adulthood you get diagnosed with it, which is why a lot of the time I get people commenting on me. I hope you're too young to have that diagnosis because in the state, in some parts of the state you can't be diagnosed with BPD until you're 21. I'm 21 now. I live in the UK. It's a diagnosable disorder from the age of 18, though it can be diagnosed younger. Overall I found it very hard to get support on the NHS. And this advice would be to focus on don't rely on other people that I think medication's going to change your life. Medication won't. It will help. It will make things easier. It will magically cure it. Unfortunately, that's not how it works. It can cure it. You can help to brush in with it. You can help anxiety with medication. You can help insomnia with medication. Like medication helps a lot but it's not going to change your life. Am I happy to be on medication? Not really. Do I need it? Yes. And I'm going to take it. Of course I am. At the end of the day, would I rather be suicidal in the hospital or would I rather take a few tablets a day and be okay in the community? Doing what I love doing, which is making videos and having an amazing time in my life. Like I live in London now. Five months ago I was in a psychiatric unit. Basically about ready to die. I didn't want to be alive. I had no intention on the wing to see my birthday. And I did. My birthday was yesterday and I'm 21. I made it through the year and I just want people to know that it is possible to have stability with BPD in the second edition of my book which is coming out the end of the year. I've got an entire chapter wrote on BPD and stability and how you can achieve it and it's got loads of self-help stuff to do with BPD and it would be the world if you could get and get maybe there's a sale on the Kindle edition of my book at the moment. So if you want to read it you can go get it for a pound rather than two pound which is my gift to you. And like I say, my book is something that it's not perfect. Like I'm not a fucking English person. I don't know. Oh, not me. I make videos. I'm a film student. I work very hard on the book and yes, the spelling of grammar might be trash. It's my life, my story. And I wrote it to share with you. It is raw. It's from my perspective and it's about what happened this year. I also wanted to say that if you are someone with BPD who is struggling there are plenty of people that you can talk to. If you're in crisis and the NHS aren't offering much support there is loads of help lines out there and I will leave a link to some of the description down below. As it is for other countries I really don't know. If anyone in other countries knows of any help lines or a help line that has helped them if you have BPD leave them in the comments down below. The big issue with a BPD diagnosis is the stigma. I think the stigma surrounding BPD is fucking beyond a joke. And because of BPD often co-occurs with other disorders mainly depression and anxiety, complex PTSD it's actually very rare to have a diagnosis of just PTSD and BPD because PTSD and complex PTSD are two completely different things and like I said I've made a video once before. I think that's all I've got to say for you guys if you have any questions or any videos relating to BPD you're going to need to make these in the comments down below which I hit the thumbs up button if you're new here punch the subscribe button in the face and click that little notification bell while you're there. That's the fastest outro I've ever done in my life. Holy fuck. I hope you're having a good time in the moment. Like I know Christmas can be a bit of an intense time for people and I've got some videos coming out soon about Christmas and festive season and mental health and all the fun subjects. Like I said if you're new here hit the subscribe button. It means a lot to me if you have any video questions questions or things you'd like to add to this conversation we have going on here on my channel leave it in the comments down below follow me on my social medias and I will see you guys in my next video which will be tomorrow I post every single day especially this month I'm doing a video every day in December wish me luck I wish this were the vodka or wine but it's not it's just cola life's amazing peace guys