[Music] all right grace grace so where are you from originally where'd you grow up i'm from san diego california um i've been there my entire life so tell me about your family my mom passed away when i was one from lung cancer and my birth father is not in my life anymore um he when i was aft when my mom passed away um my father's drug use got really bad and it got to the point where it was by uh i was like two i think um i had already had um cps reports when my
mom um had me she was she tested positive for drugs and so immediately i got removed from her um and placed with my dad and after after a while they were still living together and everything but i was in his custody and about when maybe one and a half she had passed away and as time got farther along uh my dad started getting worse in his addiction like he didn't it was almost like he was a completely different person after she passed away um [Music] meth was like the main cause of his issues that he
had but i think it was also just the blame of like losing my mom and he started to get really aggressive and i remember one time he had gotten so violent that we had gotten kicked out of our house that we lived in when i was about three we got kicked out and we were living on the streets for a while um we were trash can diving for the longest time and i i have like visual memory of that which is weird because i was so young um there was one time where we were sitting
in front of a 99 cent store at like three in the morning and some random person came by and decided to pick me up and start running with me just running down the street and if that person wouldn't have stopped and dropped me i don't know what would have happened because he was so high he didn't care and eventually after a while being on the streets we moved into a boat house and most of my memories there were sitting on a top deck just like bawling my eyes out because i was so hungry and so
overwhelmed and what happened a lot of the time there was he would bring in prostitutes a lot of the time he would go and find prostitutes and bring them there and i remember just like covering my ears all the time just covering my ears and just not wanting to hear this not wanting to hear what was happening but all the different types of abuse that he put towards me which was mostly physical there was sexual here and there but it's it was mostly physical and um i ended up being in his custody until i was
like seven years old so um you went to school yeah yeah um not regularly i i had to keep switching schools because um i was between like cps and foster houses and polinsky a lot of the time so i would switch schools but i only missed i think i missed i got held back for two grades um i think it was like second and third i think but i got held back so um and ended up catching up when i was a little older by moving upgrades because i was doing so well in school and
how old are you now i turned 21 in a week so you're still young yeah but you you figured out at some point that you have borderline personality disorder yeah um i was 17 i think and i started noticing that i've always had this issue with relationships whether it be dating friends whatever um that i can't keep i can't keep a solid relationship it would always turn into whether it was fighting or distance or anything like that i couldn't maintain loving someone really close from a distance it's okay but very closely it wouldn't happen so
i finally went to a psychiatrist and started talking to them and they diagnosed me with bpd adhd and depression um which i mean is really common with people in that have bpd they don't usually just have one diagnosis and there's a bunch of factors into it but i think i think the older you get the more you kind of discover from the issues that you have and that's personally what's happened with me so what kind of things have you been through um because of this i think i gravitate towards people that are not good for
me i think that's kind of the overall thing i think that i i try and find people and fix them because i can't fix myself and i i have no example of like what a good stable relationship is so it takes it takes a lot of time to it takes a lot of time to understand someone for me and i don't i think i'm attracted to people who can represent my past whether it be abuse or just anger issues violence and it's because it's comfortable for me it's not healthy but it's more comfortable than finding
someone and just understanding immediately oh they're going to be good to you they're going to love you because they can and i and they want to and i've never understood that that's probably one of the harder things for me is i just don't understand that people can love you and there doesn't have to be repercussions to it um you've had you've been in love before yeah that's something about me is i love i love people deeply but because of my bpd it causes me to split a lot of the time which means i can love
them a hundred percent feel on top of the world and then i noticed like as soon as they do one thing or something said it immediately turns to i hate this person i don't want to be around this person and i don't like that i don't like that i want to be able to love somebody unconditionally and love them even if they make mistakes but because of how intensely i feel emotion i don't i'm not able to provide that at this time maybe it will get better but it's it's hard you know i think it'd
be hard to find a partner who understands that behavior yeah nobody nobody understands but i don't blame anyone i don't i don't blame my father i don't blame anybody who's hurt me because people can only love to the extent that they've been taught and you can't expect somebody to love someone with all these issues when maybe they had completely different issues growing up or none at all they are never going to get why why little things make you mad or why you can wait i could wake up one morning and just be angry just angry
for no reason um and sometimes i feel really bad because i'll i'll snap i'll snap a lot of the time like the littlest things and i'll just ruin the rest of my day but it's something i'm learning to kind of get a grasp on are there any medications i think there are um there's nothing that treats bpd directly it's like treating the symptoms like a lot of people with depression take lexapro i tried that and it made me feel like a zombie so they put me on something with a higher dosage something to increase serotonin
because that's a really common thing in people with bpd is that they don't have the right levels of serotonin in their brain um but there's nothing that treats it directly unfortunately have there ever been times where things have improved for you um or is it just it's always with you it's it's like having an angel and a devil on your shoulder the angel you really really want to be that person and you want to you really want to be that person and like be good but it's constantly in the back of my mind it's constantly
there where it's like you should get mad you should feel sad like all the time but i'd say the best times the best times for me is when i'm alone because there's nothing that can make me feel like something's wrong if i'm by myself besides my own head and that's something i live in every day even if i can't control it or balance it i can try and improve it with time so what's been the worst thing you've gone through because of this um i would say losing my relationship with my adopted mom like losing
it for a period of time because i felt when i was like 15 um i ran away from home for like two months and i blocked her number and i just out of nowhere i just packed my things and i left because i i had my well 15 16 i had my license i had a car and i packed my stuff and i just left i didn't tell her anything blocked her on everything didn't tell her nothing did she deserve that no it's not her fault it was mine um she's now i mean she's like
my best friend but at the time and for a few years after it was almost like living in a house with a stranger because we didn't talk because i eventually did go back but i did that because i felt unwanted it wasn't anything she did it was i was so in my head that i didn't feel loved but i was loved and i think that's one of the hardest parts of having this disorder is you get so in your head that you can't even see reality sometimes there can be a room full of people and
if one person says something or does something it can make you think everyone in the room hates you and it's it's hard it's hard um my cousin my mom's sister's daughter like blood cousin had bpd as well um and she got the other aspect of it where she fell into drugs very heavily and she passed away when she was 16 from a heroin overdose and the last thing that she she wrote a big letter to everyone and the last thing she said in it that resonates with me every single day is i wish you could
see how i am in my head so you would understand why i didn't want to be here and i think now getting older i'm starting to see exactly that it's you're so in your head you can't even live your life this was your cousin who is a blood relative she's a blood relative so it could have been something you inherited probably i'd say so my mom was the same kind of pattern where she would jump from things she'd jump from partners she'd jump from jobs and it's it's so common when you have certain issues to
certain issues dealing with bpd to want to just be super um indecisive so like she could have the best job in the world uh she she actually was working as a um she was one of the head techs at a dealership working on cars and she was making really good money that was right before she got pregnant with me she was making really really good money and i remember when i was told the story one day she just never went back and chose to lose her house lose her car lose everything just because and there
was no reasoning no rhyme behind it and i think that's a big part of why i have it because i think she had it and no one took enough time to care to ask why she had the issue issues she did you know um mental health's more discussed now in the world we live in it's more prevalent it's more cared for but it's still not understood and if you are whatever you have whatever issues you have or trauma people don't they'll never understand if they didn't live it they can have empathy but they don't understand
and they never will bpd has got to be very difficult for your family and friends and relationships yeah um my my mom actually doesn't even know i'm diagnosed um she i choose not to tell her um not because i don't want her to know but i just don't want her to have the stress of being like oh something's wrong with my child like a lot of parents are like that it would help you it would help explain your behavior yeah in her in her mind yeah i probably would because i'm very um i'll just react
on anything i want to do like if i want if i want to go shopping and buy 300 worth of clothes but i know i have bills to pay i'll still do it if i want to impulsively just like go out and trade in my car and buy a new one i've done that twice already i'll have a car for like three months and then i'll just be like ah and then just go and get into a bigger car payment or put myself more in debt or very impulsive very impulsive and i think that does
affect it does affect people around me it sucks what do you uh what are you afraid of what do you worry about i think i think i'm most afraid of ending up alone like in every aspect just because i'm a very hard person to deal with i love people i really do i love people like no other i but when i love you it's easier for me to show you my bad side and not necessarily bad but my my problems like if i have a lot of feeling for you it just it comes out because
i'm so scared of losing you i think that's my biggest fear is i just don't want to be left so alone because nobody can handle me and the only way i can fix that is try and work on myself i think so your your behavior will push your partner away even though even though that's the last thing that you want yeah like i've had i've had friends um like one of my best friends from high school he you know i think we were so close um he we were very close and he was always right
there for me and i think my choices of jumping from relationships and jumping from um really good contact and talking really closely to completely shutting him out he was one of my best friends and i think he just got tired of it do your friends understand that you're like this and and work with you or tolerate it or or just help you write it out the thing is i feel like i feel like that's the hardest part is i don't feel like anybody is really my friend so i choose to not talk about it um
feeling like you're not wanted is so common for me that i don't i don't choose to get really close with people so my acquaintances and people that i would consider friends don't even like them watching this is going to be the first they've heard probably about any of it so it's almost like your bpd works against you and almost sabotages your relationships in your life yeah it's um even though you're you're trying to be yeah a better friend a better partner better it's almost like it it's a whole different person like i'm grace and this
person in my head that does all the negative and like does sabotage things um i hate that person and it causes me to hate myself it's like having a devil on your shoulder yeah another like i think the biggest struggle besides relationships with me is personal image like self-image and just insecurity like in the i developed a pretty severe eating disorder like two years ago and after about six months i started losing weight because of it and in a year and a half i lost 92 pounds 92 yeah 92 pounds um i was i was
very very unhappy and very it doesn't matter like it felt like something i could control about myself because my head i can't control so i could control the physical aspect but it didn't help because even now going down all that weight losing all that weight i'm here and i'm not happy i think the biggest problem is no matter what what i see in the mirror i'm never going to be happy with and that's one of the harder things i think what emotions are you typically what are the most common for you is it anger is
it depression anxiety anxiety i would say is the most common all day long like all day long and i get shaken up pretty easy by things but it's more about things that aren't happening like i think so much that i'm anxious about something that's going to happen a week from now or it might not even happen um and i get angry really fast anger and it's not it's explosive anger it's not like silent treatment stuff like that i i just blow up and it's i'm so in my head that the person sitting next to me
whoever it is won't even know that there's anything wrong until i blow up and then they just think you're crazy yeah yeah it's something i've gotten better at though i've gotten better at like communicating and saying hey this is not comfortable for me or this is gonna make me a little upset and i don't expect people it's no one's responsibility to make me feel comfortable but i just feel if someone does love you they can be understanding um but my issues are no one else's responsibility so did you feel helpless against this against this issue
yeah like against my own head i feel like i can't control my thoughts and i can't control my actions but on the other end of that in a positive light i do feel like i do feel like i could it's pushed me to be more just go for it go get her kind of thing like um i i've always worked really hard i've been working since i was like 15. um you've had jobs yeah yeah yeah i've been working able to hold jobs huh you've been able to hold the jobs yes but um after a
certain amount of time i'll just get tired of it i'll just be like not interested and i'll go into the same field like i i'm a mechanic i'm ase certified i've built and sold cars and that's that's my passion and i'll stay in the industry and um currently like i'm in i'm a manager in part sales because i'm trying to buy my own shop but it's like i'll jump from like different parts stores and like different dealerships and it's not it's not holding stability for me i'm really bad at keeping stability because it gets so
boring to me um but it does push me to go for what i want are there positive aspects to this to bpd i think that would just be the main one is like and i think it's different for everybody but for me that that jumping from thing to thing is it's bad in some aspects but it's good if you want to get a bunch of different experiences and a bunch of different work fields and work areas i think that's a good thing um [Music] i think a positive is that i do love people really deeply
too i love like i said i i think love comes a lot stronger when you're way more terrified of losing the thing you love but it can be smothering if you could have chosen at birth to either have bpd or not seems like you were probably born with it would you have chosen to not have it i wouldn't wish it on anybody because you can't you can be happy but it's so up and down i don't think i've ever had a week in at least in the past few years where a week seems so long
to go without breaking down just just getting overwhelmed and breaking down and it tears you apart and you still gotta get up you still gotta go to work you still have to do normal people things but you don't feel normal and drugs are not part of your life no i mean like weed is it's everywhere i mean i'll smoke here and there but i don't i don't do anything like that it's great nothing crazy i don't do anything crazy i've tried stuff but i think that might be another positive of bpd is that i'll try
it get bored with it and not do it again so it's kind of that's that's a one positive i think um but you feel like this is something you were born with it wasn't because of your rough childhood losing your mom and dad on drugs i don't know i'm not sure i mean because my mom had the same characteristics and patterns that i start to see now um possibly i might have been born with it but also i think to the severity i have it it could have been a little bit manipulated and increased by
my past um the stress that you were going through as a young child yeah and when you're young and like just for me personally um if you've been like i've been molested as a child i've had adults numerous adults that i trusted a lot break my heart and break my trust and in all different aspects just up and disappear and just do things that adults should know will ruin someone when they get older um but i mean ultimately i think it's something i was born with and i need to learn to live with because i
know i know that up to like 10 of people with bpd i've done a lot of research on it just to try and understand my own head and like up to 10 of people diagnosed with bpd commit suicide and i understand that i i do i've attempted but i couldn't go through with it just because i love life as much as i do i do love life i just don't love myself so i think it's something i really want to learn to deal with and not give up because a lot of people it's so hard
that they they feel like they have to give up and it's a sad thing what would you say is the most important lesson you've learned from all of this it's a lot easier to let things go than to let them eat you because especially with me i'll have something in my head and it will just like like turn and turn until i can't handle it i think letting things go and forgiving people for things that weren't ultimately their fault is huge um yeah all right grace thank you so much for sharing your story yeah and
i wish you the best of luck thank you thank you very much thanks you
