Too many people are made to apologise for how they feel, think, act, speak or look when it is trauma that has made us this way. This is my poem about that. It won an award for best illustrated poem (runner-up) by The Advocacy Project, which makes me very happy. This poem belongs to me so please do not reproduce it without my permission. No Apology She should not apologise for the trauma that formed her. Or for the fire that warmed her, burned her, turned her to ashes and reignited her in the same breath. Or for the million lives and billion deaths she fledged and shed as feathers. Or to the divers whose knees bled on stones. It’s not her loss to console. Maybe she is not one woman but many women. Maybe the way to understand her is through her anger. Her shipwrecked depths, don't require your anchor. Rosie Cappuccino. Rosie Cappuccino.

This afternoon, I was hit with a wave of exhaustion. I feel like I have been working non-stop on my DBT targets and skills. I have been exercising self-restraint, practising not surrendering to unhelpful urges and doing mindfulness and emotional regulation skills multiple times per day. One of my DBT targets is to not seek reassurance. That means, not asking people I love if I have upset them, or asking them if they still love or like me. It means not engaging in 'checking behaviours' and instead doing mindfulness skills to prevent myself analysing a situation for 'signs' that 'things are going wrong'. Because my urges to seek reassurance are very strong- and are twinned with incredibly strong emotions- these urges can be hard to resist. I have been working on the DBT skill 'urge surfing' with my therapist for a few months. The theory behind this skill is that urges are like waves. They build and build in strength, until they reach a peak. When a wave reaches its peak- the time when the urge feels the strongest- it will then come down, until the urge is either non-existent or minimal, like a wave breaking on the shore. By using the DBT skills 'opposite to emotion action', 'distract' and 'mindfulness observe and describe', I have been able to reduce the frequency with which I am asking for reassurance. I have been putting things in place, with the help of my therapist, in my close relationships in order to support me with reducing my reassurance seeking and checking behaviours. When I don't manage to surf my urges to ask reassurance and end up asking someone close to me, I struggle with feeling like a 'failure' and judging myself harshly. I felt upset today because I hadn't been able to resist my urges every time. Objectively, I know that I'm not going to be able to change a behaviour that I have been engaging in for years. However, deep down I feel sometimes that I am not 'doing well enough'. Even though, objectively, I have been doing really well. Today I felt exhausted with feeling like I constantly have to do things to reach my targets and change the way I do things. Life, undoubtedly, has become easier since I started DBT, but today I felt fed up with having to constantly 'try, try, try'. I had a cry after lunch- it all just got a bit much for me. I wanted a day off from trying. I felt flawed and like I wasn't 'good enough' for being engaged in this process of trying to change. I wanted to be seen as 'good enough', even without changing the way I do things and the way I respond to my emotions. 'Why am I not acceptable the way I am?' I thought to myself. DBT is about finding a balance between acceptance and change. It's also about being able to hold two opposites in mind at once, something which I struggle with. For example, making a mistake does not make me a 'bad person', or being angry with someone does not mean I will never love or like them again. I think part of this exhaustion was needing some recognition for how difficult it is for me to be constantly driving myself towards my DBT targets and using my DBT skills. I don't want to feel sorry for myself, pitiful is not how I feel, but it's nice to have my difficulties and efforts acknowledged. It really helped me today when someone close to me validated my experience and told me that I'm doing well and that they can see how much of a struggle it is for me. If I had one tip for people who love someone with BPD, it would be validation. For some reason, it soothes the emotions, helps to bring the emotional intensity down. Do you relate to feeling exhausted from your hard work in therapy or meeting your targets? I would love to hear from you. Rosie x

[TW, self-harm and suicidal thoughts] Six months ago I began an eighteen month long Dialectical Behaviour Therapy programme. It consists of one group two hour session and one individual one hour session every week. I have needed DBT for years, but I have finally been able to access it (will write more about that in another post). I find my individual therapist really helpful. She is really aware of the problems that people with BPD face and she is really informed about traumatic and difficult experiences that many people with BPD have faced in the past and may still experience. I have tweeted a bit about how things have improved for me since starting DBT, and seeing as lots of people seem to be curious about what things have changed for me, I thought I would describe five things I can do now that I couldn't do six months ago. 1. I can experience my punishing internal voice and overwhelming emotions of disgust, anxiety, shame and sadness, and... pause. I don't act on the urges as quickly as previously. 2. I can receive a text at night that makes me anxious and not text back asking for reassurance, instead I am able to fall asleep and wait until after I've slept to assess the situation. 3. I can stay in a situation where I am distressed in front of other people and not automatically rush out of the room in fear. 4. I am able to do the 'opposite action' skill to try to regulate my emotional response. I wasn't able to do that much before. 5. I can experience my punishing voice and not always believe in- maybe just for a second. I hope that I continue to make progress. I just wish DBT was available to everyone who would find it helpful.

TW This post mentions self-harm, suicidal thoughts and eating disorders. Just because you don't have the help you need, doesn't mean you don't deserve it. Everyone deserves help. — @TalkingAboutBPD) July 13, 2017 I have recently been able to access help from mental health services. This is momentous for me, as someone who has had either a difficult or a non-existent relationship with mental health services. I have multiple experiences of being refused help from mental health staff in Accident and Emergency. Being told to leave theA&E department without any help when I was overwhelmingly suicidal was probably the most frightening experience of my life. I ended up feeling so distressed, out of control and helpless that I fell on the floor sobbing, yelling and begging staff for help. The nurses that night told me that my behaviour was 'frightening the patients'. They told me that they would call the police unless I left the premises. So somehow I dragged my degraded, shaken, terrified body off the floor and walked out into the dark hospital car park. Yes, that kind of thing really does happen. I really did get turned away by mental health nurses with no help when I was actively suicidal. It happens to many people, many times, sometimes over and over again. It's not right. No one should have to go through that. I naturally lost trust in mental health services from that moment. I didn't dare ask for help when I was repeatedly suicidal. It is so scary to be told there is no help at the moment you need it the most. Secondly, I didn't dare engage with services because the nurses had threatened to call the police on me. The thought of police involvement absolutely and utterly terrified me- I didn't want anything jeopardising my dream career plans of working with children. Perhaps most of all, however, being turned away by mental health staff affirmed the belief that I didn't deserve help. That I wasn't worthy of help, that I didn't need help, that I was just (that horribly stigmatising word) an 'attention seeker'. Growing up, I always held the insidious idea that maybe I was 'just an attention seeker'. I used to call myself horrible names over and over again to myself in the mirror. I believed my feelings were some kind of disgusting joke that I was playing on those around me. I felt that there was something deeply disgusting and flawed about me, because I had huge mood swings where I felt suicidal, self-harmed and tried to starve myself. I told myself that 'someone like me' shouldn't be feeling and behaving that way. It wouldn't be too far to say that at times, as a teenager, I thought I was evil for feeling suicidal. That's how deep my shame and guilt had sunk into me. I told myself for years that there was no reason for the way I felt. I never felt entitled to my feelings. I hid them. I felt deeply, deeply embarrassed and ashamed. I always felt like I deserved to suffer, so asking for help didn't feel right to me. I felt like suffering way of making myself into a 'better person', seeing as I believed I was so flawed and disgusting. There were times as child, from age about nine, that I attempted to ask for help. But I was so confused and scared that my attempts to ask for help were hesitant, garbled, unconfident. The help I needed never came. But lately, as I have been receiving compassionate care from mental health services, I have realised that I have always been deserving of help- even if I needed help and then help didn't come. I have always been worthy of help. My pain has always been real. It has been really painful to look back and realise that I was suffering as a child and teenager and that it wasn't my fault or a 'character flaw'. I wasn't a 'bad person', instead I was a young person who needed--- and deserved--- help. It has been upsetting to look back and see my past self blaming herself. The more she criticised herself for wanting help, the more desperately she needed that help. *** Recently, I received a letter outlining my history of self-harm since childhood, the anorexia-like eating disorder I had for a couple of years during my late teens and my experiences with suicide as a young adult. I read that letter as if I were reading about another person and not myself. I was struck by the child and young person in pain and needing help, rather than the attention-seeking demon I believed I was. Since realising that I have always been deserving of help, I have been having some episodes of extreme distress. Talking about this in therapy for the last two weeks has left me in extreme distress after the therapy session: Distress of the inconsolable, sobbing, non-verbal, crushed, puffed-up face, crying in the street, talking to myself on the train, sitting on a wall because I can't walk, shaking kind of distress. The kind of distress that hits wave-like in the street and I feel out of control, sobbing behind my sunglasses, barely caring if strangers stop and stare, struggling to breathe, feeling on the brink of collapse, not knowing if I can make it home safely. It seems like the kind that happens to people who have been through things that are too difficult to comprehend at the time, but are repeating through the mind in the hope of being understood. It's a raw and vulnerable experience, makes me feel like an open wound, trapped in that moment and feeling only that pain. Living through these episodes is teaching me to see myself as someone who deserves compassion. Each time I survive an episode, I learn that I can get through it. I can see their intensity and length decreasing each time I get through one without self-harming or acting on suicidal feelings. I have needed a lot of professional help with all of this, it's not something that I could come to terms with by myself. It's a cliche, but if I am compassionate to others, then perhaps, in time, I can learn to be compassionate to myself? One thing that strikes me as I unfold my life out, is that I needed help as a child. Help that didn't come, but which I did deserve. Thank you everyone for your support via Twitter @TalkingAboutBPD. The dialogue and community have been fantastic.

TW This post mentions self harm and suicide. One of the hardest things is being judged. People say 'but you were laughing this morning, how can you be suicidal now?' #bpdchat— (@TalkingAboutBPD) 18 June 2017 If I had a quid for every time people in my life have said to me the following then I would be rich: 'But you were on top form when I saw you yesterday. 'You couldn't stop laughing yesterday.' 'But I thought you were enjoying your job.' 'I thought you were enjoying your degree.' Having BPD is not to do with being 'a happy person' or an 'unhappy person'. It's not about how much you enjoy your job, how much you enjoy your life. It can be very much related to that. Or it can be pretty unrelated. Or anywhere in between. All it does is invalidate me and collude with feelings of guilt that I can have about having BPD when someone says 'I thought you had a good job and friends'. BPD is often about chronic emotional dysregulation and all of the aspects that might come along with that, such as fear of abandonment, self-harm, suicidal ideation and so on. Plus, invalidation often makes my emotions even more dysregulated. So please listen to me when I tell you I am enjoying my job, enjoying my life, love my friends and so on. Because I do. BPD isn't about 'being unhappy'. It's about having a set of emotional experiences, as well as a whole dollop of social stigma to deal with a lot of the time too. I am not diagnosis. My diagnosis is not the extent of my life. I am a person with so many facets!

Today (25.10.17) The Guardian published an article by Dr Mary Lamia entitled 'Personality Disorders at work: how to spot them and what you can do', on the Careers section of their website. As a professional with a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), as well as someone who works as a blogger, poet and artist to break down stereotypes around this diagnosis I find this article stigmatising, demonising and ultimately dehumanising.  I believe that The Guardian has made an irresponsible decision to publish an article that further entrenches stigma, stereotyping and prejudice towards members of our society with a diagnosis of personality disorder. As a society, we need to work towards a more accurate representation of people with a diagnosis of a mental health condition or mental illness. I would argue that people with a diagnosis of personality disorder are amongst the most misrepresented of all mental health conditions, alongside people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder.  First of all, postulating 'how to spot' someone with this diagnosis established the article as an office jest to hunt out the personality disorder. Dr Lamia aligns herself with the damaging media trend of arm chair diagnosing people in the public eye (often Donald Trump). Arm chair diagnosis is not only unethical, but it condemns, marginalises and renders whole groups silent with its accusatory, sanctimonious waggling finger.  As you will know if you read my blog, I have a diagnosis of BPD. I am a Mind Media Award shortlisted blogger and I talk about BPD in the hope that sharing a bit of myself and my life will break down some of the stereotypes and inaccuracies that swirl around society about BPD. I have worked very successfully as a teacher in a primary school for over three years now. I have a degree in English Literature from Cambridge University, am enrolled in a Masters in Medical Humanities and I worked for two years as a counsellor at a well-known mental health charity. I was so supportive in my volunteering role, I was asked by my supervisors to become a mentor. Throughout all of these strands of my life, I am almost certain no one would be able to 'spot' my personality disorder. I can say with all certainty that I don't need anyone to 'do' anything about the fact that I'm working and I have a diagnosis of BPD.  Dr Lamia misrepresents and maligns when writes that 'a boss or a colleague with borderline or narcissistic traits can leave you feeling manipulated or affect your performance'. Throughout my career as a primary school teacher my communication with children, parents and colleagues has been nothing but open, honest and friendly.  References written by a number of my bosses and colleagues reflect that. It is deeply offensive to suggest that my so-called 'borderline traits' would leave my colleagues feeling manipulated. I used to think that the stereotype that people with BPD are 'manipulative' was finally dying a death. I am shocked to see the manipulative stereotype rear its ugly head because I thought that the overt misogyny (the stereotype that people with BPD are manipulative has a misogynistic history) and maligning of people with diagnosis of a mental health conditions has become slightly less socially acceptable to voice aloud. To see the word 'manipulative' in this article feels like a step back into the dark ages when women with a diagnosis were maligned as 'hysterical', out of control and unable to be trusted.  Dr Lamia is crude in her choice of examples of 'behaviours' that 'a person with a borderline personality would show'. According to her, people with BPD would 'admit' to 'ignoring the presence of particular co-workers when they passed them in an empty hallway to intimidate them'. Not only does the use of the word 'behaviour' infantilise people with this diagnosis, but the word 'admit' subtly aligns BPD with deviousness (an incorrect stereotype that activists like me have been long trying to remove) and even malice, as if people with a BPD diagnosis might bully and 'intimidate'. Ask anyone who has ever worked with me, and they would not 'spot' this behaviour in me. The icing on this rotten cake of an article is Dr Lamia's use of the phrase 'disordered personality'. There is nothing disordered about my personality and it is deeply offensive to suggest this. My personality centres around kindness, generosity, diligence and a desire to help others, hence why I have been continuously recognised in my community for the excellent job I do as a teacher.  I was disappointed when Dr Lamia ticked off one of the most cliched and yet most offensive stereotypes about people with a diagnosis of personality disorder, that of violence. She states that you are 'likely to encounter rage', if you 'push' a person with this diagnosis.  As a teacher, I work under pressure with children and families at the brink of crisis and I have unfailingly remained calm and respectful. I have remained my professionalism in the face of challenge, including throughout occasions when I have been subject to verbal abuse from parents and challenged by behaviour from children with emotional needs. I am deeply disappointed with the Guardian's decision to publish an article such as this which entrenches the already deeply embedded stereotypes about people with a diagnosis of personality disorder. Dr Lamia strikes three of the most rampant, inaccurate and shame-inducing stereotypes about people BPD: that people with this diagnosis are manipulative, out of intimidate and unable to control their rage. As a dedicated, caring, compassionate and well-loved teacher in my community I find Dr Lamia's words problematic to say the least. What I find even more troubling is The Guardian's thoughtlessness to publish such a damaging article that compounds the stigma that community-oriented, generous and caring people like me face.  It's bitterly ironic and startling lacking in self-awareness that Dr Lamia should state that people with BPD have behaviour that stems from 'deep internalised shame'. What she irresponsibly fails to mention is that an overwhelming percentage of people with a diagnosis of BPD have experienced sexual, physical and emotional, abuse, trauma, neglect and emotional deprivation.  Furthermore, is it any wonder, given the proclivity of a respected broadsheet newspaper with such an enormous readership to publish an article that demonises people with a diagnosis of personality disorder, that people with this diagnosis feel shame? Is it any wonder I have struggled with 'deeply embedded shame'? Articles like this one have helped to render me silent about my diagnosis and my struggles over the years, and that silence fed my shame.  I am aware that this response is not exhaustive and that I have focussed mostly on the BPD aspects of the article, rather than the other personality disorders mentioned.  If you have been triggered by this article, I would encourage you, as hard as it might be, to try to remember that people with a diagnosis of BPD are some of the most sensitive, caring and loving people out there with a huge amount to offer to society.  People with a diagnosis of BPD have often been engaged with a struggle throughout history to be heard, believed and fairly represented. I see articles such as this and the responses to them as part of that struggle.  I would love to hear your thoughts. I'm on Twitter @TalkingAboutBPD.

1. It has brought me closer to people Opening up to people in my life has enabled me to have deeper relationships with them. I have been cared for deeply and have cared for others too and this has enriched my life. 2. I have learnt so much about myself Having a mental illness takes you to parts of yourself you never knew were there. This is scary. Yet dealing with that has shown me how much strength I have. I've had quite a lot of therapy in order to recover, which has revealed things about my life which I probably otherwise not have discovered. 3. I am understanding Only a handful of friends know the full details of my mental health issues, but pretty much all of my friends know that I have experience of mental health problems in some form or other. This seems to makes them more likely to open up to me about their own problems. I have a several friends whose lives are affected in some way by mental health problems who talk with me about it in varying degrees. 4. It has enhanced my work I work in a charity where I spent time on the phone and online listening to people who want to talk about things that are on their mind- relationships, mental health, abuse, sexuality and so on. I am a well-respected volunteer because I am able to listen carefully without shutting people down or judging their emotions. 5. I appreciate what I lost for a while  For a few months I was trapped in depression and an eating disorder and I didn't go outside, communicate with any friends or do anything I loved. I couldn't even read or write- my two biggest loves in life! I was terrified I would never be back to how I used to be. Things did return, and when they did it wasn't the same because I experienced a had a new sense of appreciation for what had been lost. [photo of me when I was 21] 6. Success tastes even sweeter After an incredibly unstable and volatile time at university, I managed somehow to get my degree. Recieving my degree was a hundred times sweeter than it would have been had I not had mental health problems, because I knew what I had overcome in order to gain it. My degree ceremony felt like a personal, as well as an academic, celebration. 7. I'm not afraid of the trickier, darker side of life Knowing my own darkness makes me less afraid. Nothing about emotions and mental health surprises me anymore! 8. I feel like I can face anything now If I've got through major depression, an eating disorder and life with BPD, surely I can get through most things?! 9. I can relate to a wider set of experiences than I did before  If you've been through mental illness, you will have been to some very dark, very confusing and probably very lonely places. This can stand you in good stead for understanding a variety of experiences. 10. Feeling my own purpose in life    I have had support from some wonderful people- family, friends and professionals. I have been shown kindness, loyalty, patience and expertise that has inspired me to be a kinder and more helpful person. I want to help create a society that is more understanding and supportive of people with mental health conditions.

*This post is about eating disorders (no numbers), please take care* Once upon a time, a few years ago, I was in the midst of an eating disorder. This eating disorder was all-consuming. It invaded almost all of my thoughts and it dominated my day-to-day life. I was obsessed with food, hunger, appetite, exercise and my body shape and size. I felt uncomfortably aware of every piece of flesh, every shape of every body part; I felt pressure, suffocation and entrapment. I had no space or time to think about anything else in my life. Because I restricted my intake of food, exercised a lot and was almost constantly hungry, my body was craving food in the hope of sustenance. My hungry body made for a mind obsessed with food. And eating terrified me. [from my sketchbooks] My relationship with myself and others around me was very difficult at that time. I was so full of shame and guilt, and severely depressed. Eating became the battleground where I could enact the self-hatred and self-punishment that grew out of my shame and guilt. I was a self-loathing teenager, perfectionistic and terrified of anything I saw as criticism. Food, appetite and body became forces over which I longed to exert control. For a couple of years life consisted of counting, checking, measuring and rules. My eating disorder dragged me into a shadowy world. A world where ideas about myself and the world were chaotic and frightening. I clung to self-punishing rituals around food and exercise in a frantic attempt to make myself feel safe in a situation where I felt lonely, desperate and unseen. Now I am out of that place, I look back and see that my eating disorder was a response to difficult and painful emotions. These emotions were eating me up on the inside and so it felt right to waste myself away from the outside too. [from my sketchbooks] During that dreadful time, anxiety ticked through my body like an ever-present clock. Dread never left me, it crouched in the pit of my stomach and never retreated: I was always hungry. I never could articulate how I felt about myself and my life, so my eating disorder was my attempt to communicate that distress. I was lucky enough to finally get some professional help which enabled me to live my life without the eating disorder. This help was positive in that it gave me new ways of relating to food and my body, although it was only the start of the journey for me in terms of my mental health problems.

TW Suicidal thoughts and self-harm For the last few weeks, all of my emotions have been heightened, there's an intensity and a pressure to them. My emotions, both the happy and the sad, have an edge to them. They hurt. It all hurts. Every feeling I have is sharpened. I have peaks and troughs with huge spikes and swooping dips. The lows are really low, yet I also feel happiness and love and excitement and passion with such an energy. It's incredibly confusing and hard to deal with. These lows hit me so quickly. And suddenly I'm in the lowest of low moods and it's incredibly scary.— @TalkingAboutBPD February 20, 2017 When I feel low, it can take me close to crisis. I've had a couple of those in the last few weeks. It's when I have suicidal thoughts and I don't understand why that is, but all I know is that they're there and they are frightening and horrible.I'm not going to act on them. But all the same, it's a really harrowing and confusing experience. Usually I can't stop crying, and I panic, and it's a physical sensation too. It literally floors me, knocks me down and I have to lie on the floor- for gravity to pull those feelings that are pulling on the inside of my stomach, to let them sink downwards into the floor. Managing my emotions and keeping stable has been my second full time job more than ever these last few weeks. #BPD— @TalkingAboutBPD February 24, 2017 Basically, I am a mess when this happens. When these low episodes happen in the past, several things could happen: 1. Self-harm, especially in the past. Sometimes it seems the only thing I can do to bear the intensity of the pain. I've been able to move away from self-harming now a lot of the time. 2. I call or text someone. I want help, to keep me alive and safe, but this often led to miscommunication and panic. I often end up getting even more distressed when I call or text someone, and then end up self-harming. 3. I call Samaritans and usually am able to talk and find some relief. I have these episodes less frequently these days, but during the last few weeks I've had a few times when I have been close to a crisis. It's hard to talk about how I feel due to my (very real and understandable) fear of overwhelming people, so lately I have kept this to myself. It's hard. I feel really alone in this a lot of the time. I hope this time of heightened emotions will pass soon. Trapped being wanting to talk & wanting to silence myself. #mentalhealth— @TalkingAboutBPD February 24, 2017

As always, I'm wrestling with what's enough to say and what's 'too much'? Too much for me? Too much for others? Why am I even worrying about others? (Because the rejection stings and it feels unbearable?) These two questions make a web- one I'm constantly tangled it. I want to talk openly and yet I don't know if it's 'okay'. What does that even mean? Who needs to be okay...is it more myself than others? What does this question say about me and how comfortable I am with myself as a person with a mental health condition? It's confusing to feel like I want to show the world who I am, but at the same time feeling like that's somehow 'not acceptable'. Why should I not be an acceptable person? Or is it more that I am scared that I won't be accepted? What does acceptable even mean? What does it mean to be 'too much'? Is that even a thing? I feel as though I've had a life time spent overwhelming others. I apologise all the time for how I feel and for my life with this mental health condition. I apologise for 'taking up' time and space. I am told I need to stop apologising for my experiences, but I don't know how to, it feels scary. I'm coming closer to being less apologetic- slowly- but closer all the same...

*TW Self-harm and suicide* A few months after my diagnosis, I had some episodes of suicidal thoughts. I was very scared and I needed help. My GP told me that the only support he could give, was for me to travel to A&E and wait to be seen by someone. I didn't want to go to A&E. I felt that A&E was a scary place of flashing lights and injuries. But I was desperate, and if I didn't go, the GP would most likely call emergency services to take me, so I went. When I got there I waited and waited. I was then taken to a room not much larger than a cleaning cupboard. There were no windows. There were two members of mental health staff, nurses I think. Three chairs took up most of the room. Outside the room were curtains, behind those curtains were injured or sick people. I don't remember the conversation, but I remember the feelings. I was suicidal, on the brink of being actively so. The family member that was with me was so worried, they were asking for me to be admitted to hospital. I told them I had BPD and that I'd heard of a treatment called DBT that could help. The nurses told me they had never heard of DBT. They ignored what I was saying and told me that I had low self-esteem. I told them my suicidal episodes were happening in conjunction with times when I was extremely happy, hypomanic even. Again, the nurses ignored what I was telling them. And here I was: deeply suicidal, sent to A&E by my GP, desperate for some help. Desperate for someone to help me understand this incredibly confusing set of mental experiences. Understandably wanting something like support. The nurses told me I could join a a seven week waiting list for a self-esteem course that was starting in a local GP surgery. I reiterated how I was feeling right now. And again, they told me I could join the seven week waiting list. I said that I needed urgent help right now. Again, their response was, well we are offering you a seven week waiting list for a self-esteem course, so sign up. And so I begin to shout and scream to let out huge waves of distress and terror. I crumpled to the floor, sobbing, begging for help. It was the epitome of being 'completely beside myself'. I felt frightened, abandoned, completely beside myself. The overwhelming sadness, the fear, had turned to anger. I was shouting, 'help me, please help me, help me' over and over again. I remember their stern voices, towering over me: 'we have ill people in here, you are frightening them. You are not cooperating. Leave or we will call the police'. What about me? I was suicidal. I was frightened. I was in pain. Where was the compassion? Where was the support? Where was the safety for me? It has taken me years to come to terms with this trauma. I'm not alone in how I've been treated whilst suicidal, unsafe and incredibly distressed. Things need to change. No one who is suicidal should be treated as unworthy of help.

After an hour and a half of questions, the psychiatrist told me that I met the criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder. 'It's better if this doesn't go in your notes,' she said, referring to my NHS medical records. It's information for you, she told me, something for you to know. It doesn't need to be on official record. Being told this by a consultant psychiatrist communicated to me loud and clear that my diagnosis was something to be hidden. Something not to be shared, even with other medical professionals. It made me feel ashamed. Maybe she was attempting giving me freedom from a hugely stigmatised diagnosis. But being told that my diagnosis shouldn't be on my notes filled me with fear. It was something I carried around with me, taking care to hide from GPs, crisis mental health services, even therapists. I also know that I had an eating disorder, depression and anxiety written down in my NHS medical records without any hesitation. But according to a psychiatrist, it was 'better' if Borderline Personality Disorder didn't go in my notes. In that strange time that followed my diagnosis, I quickly learnt that BPD is amongst the most stigmatised mental illnesses, not only within society but within the medical profession too. Getting a diagnosis of BPD was completely different to my experience of being diagnosed with depression, anxiety and an anorexia-type eating disorder. A much, much harder experience...