Mine is a somewhat long story.

It started a few years ago. I've had issues with depression for years and years and years. A couple years ago, I felt like I was depressed but I was also noticing mood swings that didn't seem to be characteristic of depression. I was not seeing a doctor or therapist or anything at the time (no insurance). So I took to the internet, trying to figure out what was wrong with me or if everything was in my head and I should suck it up and get on with life. In my searches, I kept ending up on pages about BPD, but even though it seemed to fit my symptoms very well, I always said "no, that's not me" because those pages I was on said people with BPD are needy and manipulative and such, and even after trying to think it through objectively, I didn't see myself that way. (And now I think that people who say we are manipulative and needy are full of ****.)

Fast forward a year, I got insurance and was hooked up with some mental health services. Unbeknownst to me, the first psychiatrist I saw thought I might have BPD but never said a word to me about it. A couple months after that, I ended up involuntarily locked up in the psych ward. When asked why I self harm, I responded that it calms me or something like that, and the psychiatrist blurted out, "that sounds like BPD!" So while incarcerated, I looked at some BPD books (the dummies one and the tealish one), and it was like they were written about me. I wouldn't find out for a couple months that I was officially diagnosed with BPD while in the hospital.

It was a relief to finally have a reason for all these things about me that I thought can't possibly be normal.