On the Borderline

Our time in Peru’s capital Lima didn’t go as expected. This blog post is coming to you two weeks later than planned (you’ve got four posts to catch up on!), because it’s taken me a while to put into words how I’ve been feeling recently.

This is the only photo I took in Lima, and I’m guessing you know who it is. I didn’t get to explore much of Lima at all, because I just didn’t have the energy to do so, but I made sure to go out and see Paddington.

Travelling isn’t always fun and games, far from what people show on social media. Sometimes things go wrong, or you are just so exhausted that you want to crawl up into a ball and cry, or even just quit the whole ride.

About ten years ago in my final year of university, I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). It affects me everyday in various ways, and I generally have a handle on it, especially in more recent years. Sadly, the last few weeks I could feel my symptoms getting worse, and I lost control of them in Lima.

I’m not going to use this post as an education into what BPD is, but if you are interested then Mind have a great article on it. However, for me, there’s certain traits of BPD which affect me. In this instance, my inability to regulate my emotions and anger.

Those who know me well or have worked with me will know that I flip very quickly from being on top of the world, thinking situations and ideas are amazing, to being very down in the dumps, angry, irritable, and thinking its the end of the world. 

Certain situations exasperate my symptoms, when I am stressed, or not necessarily in control of a situation, among others. The last couple of weeks have left me wondering why my symptoms have been worse compared to earlier in the year. The only answer I have is how I am now travelling differently.

Prior to South America, I was a solo traveller. I organised everything that I was doing, where I was staying and how I moved around. I would often spend more time in places than I needed to as a buffer day to chill out and recharge. I was also in full control of how I travelled and was organised enough that if things went wrong, I had a back up plan. I also didn’t need to spend a great time with the same people, moving from place to place as often as I wanted to.

This time around, things are a bit different. I am on a tour with a prescribed itinerary, even though you can go off and do your own thing. This feeds into the lack of control. I am also with the same people constantly, which I find quite hard to remain consistent around. Finally, the pace of travel has increased, meaning you don’t have time to really relax and take a break.

All of these changes have meant I have not been able to cope or look after myself as I would if I was travelling solo. My emotions were increasingly all over the place, and I finally became angry with some of my fellow travellers, which was the final blow in admitting I wasn’t quite in the place I needed to be.

I even thought about quitting travelling and coming home, but talked myself out of it. The amount of times in my previous job that I said I was going to quit because I had a BPD breakdown and didn’t go through with it shows that I’m never really reasonable with myself in these situations.

Over the last two weeks, I have tried to adapt how I am travelling in order to ease my symptoms. It’s been important to take breaks within the travelling, and having alone time without hanging out with the group. It’s also fine to miss out on activities to ensure a break is taken. I can tell when my symptoms start to become unmanageable (even in normal life I can tell this), but I didn’t take action in this instance until it was too late over fear of missing out. 

One of the important things for me to do in this case was to tell people what was happening and why, particular those who had been affected by my inability to regulate my emotions. I don’t often publicise my BPD diagnosis as I am generally worried about what people would think about it and that they may treat me differently.

This was actually a really hard thing for me to do as I’d only known these people for five weeks, but it felt like a weight was lifted. I’d only ever told some friends in the past, and broadly mentioned it in a wedding speech (which was equally terrifying). I’d never mentioned it to previous managers in work (even though it may have explained some aspects of my behaviour), or even some people I consider to be close with.

I’ve been having a lot of thoughts about this over the last couple of weeks, and maybe I should be more open about it. 

For now, I am feeling much better, more in control, and more relaxed, and we plough on with our journey across South America!

If you are, please don’t worry about me. I’ve been dealing with this for years and know I’ll come out the other side, because while sometimes it doesn’t feel like I’ll get out the other side, my past proves that I always do.