On-The-Border-Line

Hi everyone! Today I’m going to start talking more in depth about the symptoms of borderline personality disorder and how each one has affected me specifically. Today we will be talking about efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.   This is one of the core criteria of Borderline Personality Disorder. When someone tells us that they’re leaving for an extended period of time, it can cause us to be very anxious. Things such as break ups are especially difficult for people with BPD. Even short term things like going away on trips for an extended period of time are difficult. Even as short term as canceling plans makes us feel anxious. We also get anxious over imagined abandonment. This means that if someone says something that causes us to think that they’re leaving, but they don’t outright say that they’re leaving, we overthink about what they said and assume that they mean that they’re leaving us and it causes anxiety.   Our fear of abandonment, whether it...

Hi everyone! So I decided that every few weeks, I’m going to talk about what’s actually going on in my life. I mean, I do talk about a lot of things that are huge in my life such as mental illness and celiac disease, but I don’t really talk about the other things. So every few weeks, you’ll get a recap of what I’ve been doing for the past few weeks.   WEEK ONE: January 1st -- January 6th So let’s start off with ringing in the New Year. This New Year’s Eve was actually a quieter one. The past two years, I’ve gone to small parties, and before that, I would just hang out with my family. This year, I went to my friend Gerry’s house. Just me, Gerry and his dog Pocket. We braved the cold temperatures to have some late dinner at Silly’s Restaurant in Portland and then watched Leverage on Netflix for a while. I ended up falling asleep at around 11:30pm. So, I missed ringing in the new year. I wasn’t partying hard, I wasn’t kissing anyone. Nope, I was sleeping. 24 years old and...

Hey guys! Today I decided to show you a sample of what I typically get at the grocery store. I have celiac disease which means that I can’t have anything with gluten in it. Gluten is found in products that contain wheat, barley, and rye which is typically found in the bread, cereal and pasta group on the food pyramid. Meats with breading on it are also not safe for people with celiac. Luckily, there are lots of gluten free substitutes out there. I’ll talk a lot more about this topic in my next video on YouTube, but now let’s get into the items: To start off, I got some PerDue Simply Smart Gluten Free Breaded Chicken Tenders. This is my go-to meat product because it’s very simple to prepare and it tastes really good. You can simply throw it in the microwave for about a minute and a half and it’s ready (though you can also use an oven, but I’m lazy). There is also a regular breaded chicken tenders by PerDue that’s exactly the same, but just includes gluten. Next, an ...

My name is Abigail. This is my story of my mental illness.   When I was in elementary school, it was very clear that I was different from most of the kids around me. Academically, I was the same as the other kids with learning the alphabet, numbers, writing, spelling etc. I struggled socially. I was developmentally delayed and had some autistic tendencies. When I was in a private preschool, I liked talking to the other kids and playing with them. They thought that the things I said and the way I acted was weird. So once I reached kindergarten, I had it in my mind that it was better to just keep my mouth shut about everything. I had a huge fear of being separated from my family. I would refuse to do anything if I was going to be taken away from my mom. The transition to public school was hard. I didn’t answer any questions during my kindergarten screening because I was upset that they had taken my mom away from me. I didn’t trust them. They told my mom that I needed sp...