Borderline, seems like I'm going to lose my mind.......

It's amazing that I'm still able to consider myself functional after many years of being depressed. I'm still able to play with kids, listen to my husband's endless complaints, go to work, tidy up my small three bedroom home and care for the dog. That's saying a lot for someone who's falling apart. Most times I wonder if I can hold it together next year. I don't know how I've been able to do this without drinking, Prosac, or shock treatment is a wonder. On the inside I'm depressed and angry. On the outside I choose to present this life of the party persona, good nature and good humor to everyone around me. Although I've been pretty good at hiding just how bad I've felt over the years, I've had my share of breaks with normal.
In 2002 I spent nine months of my pregnancy only going to the doctor, eating, sleeping, using the bathroom, and the rest of the time lying in bed, and staring up at my bedroom ceiling. I really had to do some self talk just to keep it together. Every waking thought I had was how I was going to end my life. My husband didn't know how to pull me out of this, although he suggested that we go to the zoo, circus, and anything fun and could take my mind off how utterly useless I felt.
There were times when I had the occasional emotional outbursts that came along with dealing with stressful situations (family problems, work problems, relationship troubles).
I've also made a couple of attempts at killing myself over the thirty years of my life. They were all half-xxxxx attempts.
For some reason I was able to wrangle it back in before all the craziness came flying out at one time.
For the most part I've been able to bounce back from all of these meltdowns with a little humor and maybe an entire truckload of stubbornness.
I think the craziest part of all of this is that these days I won't allow myself to stay depressed for longer than a few weeks. I'm still holding on to the belief that I'm doing this for the sake of those who either depend on my stability. Even saying that I won't allow myself is nuts because it's as if trying to stop something you can't control. I've self talked myself out of it so many times. The crazy part is that what really keeps it at bay is the knowledge that I can always A. crack up or B. commit suicide. I've entertained both options at different points of my thirty year old life. So why haven't I done either? I don't have time to do any of those options (that's where the stubbornness enters). I'm so bothered at the idea that I would get to take a permanent vacation (killing myself) or a not so permanent vacation (entering a mental hospital). I couldn't live with my family suffering because of my choices. Even my thinking behind why I'm doing this is crazy. It's as if I'm keeping this big wild tiger and dark cloud in my mind at bay just so that I can continue living a normal life.
I'm afraid that at some point I won't be able to control my depression anymore. At some point I know I'm going to need Prozac but the thought of taking that medication is even more depressing.
Pretending is depressing too. So I guess I'm locked in a tug of war with trying to keep up appearances.

I had been seeing this therapist who used to sit across from me in stunned silence as I went through every facet of my life and put everything into comedic form. Sometimes he laughed at me (I could see the corners of his mouth turned upwards and his bottom lip trembling. Sometimes he would cough to disguise laughing. And every time he said to me, "How is it you're able to do this?" Maybe he didn't understand how I could be so depressed and angry although from what I said and was doing he couldn't read that.
So I said to him, "It's my way of dealing."
I just wanted to talk to him. Have a real truthful talk with the him. I always waited for him to check me and say, "Look enough of the jokes already. Tell me how you really feel. Tell me what's really going on." He wouldn't do that. I think my entertainment value was worthwhile for him. It broke up the boring days he had to listen to the other patients. But I only had an hour which meant I could b.s the entire hour away. I wasn't getting anything off my chest except for those comedy routines (cymbals anyone)? And all the while I just wanted to talk to him about my childhood. Just talk. After a while he was just sitting back, sipping coffee and waiting to hear the next funny story. Each time I delivered. I don't know I guess I grew tired of entertaining him and everyone who knew me. Sadly my husband also thought that my childhood was more entertaining than traumatic even after I sat him down and told him the real version. I think I made a forced effort to keep things it humorous for him. My therapy sessions were supposed to make me feel better but instead it just made me more depressed. After my therapy sessions my doctor always said this, "Well we could try you on some meds that would help with your depression." Operative word was always "try." He didn't know what the was wrong with me. I also believe that he didn't care just as long as I came back with another new episode of "How my dad Dan punched the ATM machine because he didn't know how to use it or How my dad Dan got mad at mom because her sister came over unannounced."
I needed a new therapist and fast. One who would listen to me talk and check me when he saw that I was making everything into a big joke.
But I don't blame the first doctor I had. I blamed myself. I mean I set the stage for coveting the truth so I could only expect that he didn't know exactly why I was sitting in his office chewing the fat for an hour.

So now I have a different therapist. Instead of saying that I was depressed he said that I had borderline personality disorder. I didn't know what it is and never heard of anything like it. But he said all of my symptoms closely match these:
Miscellaneous attributes of people with BPD:
People with BPD are often bright, witty, funny, life of the party.
They may have problems with object constancy. When a person leaves (even temporarily), they may have a problem recreating or remembering feelings of love that were present between themselves and the other. Often, BPD patients want to keep something belonging to the loved one around during separations.
They frequently have difficulty tolerating aloneness, even for short periods of time.
Their lives may be a chaotic landscape of job losses, interrupted educational pursuits, broken engagements, hospitalizations.
Many have a background of childhood physical, sexual, or emotional abuse or physical/emotional neglect.......
_______________________________________________________
Okay some of these were true and some were completely false but I believed him nevertheless. I had dropped out of two colleges. I had a fear of being alone. When my husband went out of town for business meetings and later when my children were spending time with their grandparents over the summer I was always a wreck. I never focused enough to finish anything unless I put myself on four schedules and made little internal threats to myself if I didn't finish.
I guess I had this defense mechanism that could pushing depression and anger to the back of my mind. Sometimes I even put it under lock and key with barbed wire around it and sirens just in case it tries to escape.
I don't know if there's anyone who's going through the same thing but I'd love to hear from anyone who is experiencing the same things.

My mom always pegged me as the strong one. I was the Unsinkable Molly Brown. Nothing could make me cry--nor laugh. But hey as long as I wasn't arrested for drug possesion I was a sure fire winner.
I guess I felt that I didn't have a choice after sixteen years (my parents divorced) of not only witnessing domestic violence by my father but experiencing it first hand for myself. She always asked me for advice. I don't mean as an adult either. She didn't mind leaning on me even if I was eight, nine, or ten. I was the advice giver which had been my role until she remmaried and forgot that I had that role.
Anywho this life I was raised in was enough for me to go crazy back then. Maybe I was going crazy but I didn't notice nor my peers. I believed that stuff about being strong you know? I believed that I was the one who had risen above my abusive childhood and could now look back on it and laugh. I think that's where my problems began. I could tell funny stories about my father and have the entire room in stitches. If I was a comedian I could make money off my uncanny ability to take these bad situations and make them humorous.
It felt good to laugh about how crazy my father was (the time he went totally nuts about a can of Chicken Rice soup--don't ask) or (when he threw a tantrum because I wore my eyeglasses while I ate dinner). And although I laughed at these things, on the inside I was depressed and quite bitter. See I never told everything that happened. I only selected the situations that didn't involve him behaving violently towards us. The violent parts of him I separated in one file in my brain and the funny crazy ways he had I put into another. The great part was that people believed that my life wasn't so bad since I was able to tell them what they thought were all the juicy details.
Mom never could look at the overall picture. She has witnessed my brother fall off the deep end--depressed, drinking, drugs, and one failed relationship after another so of course she felt a little guilty that she hadn't done a thing to keep him from danger. On the other hand she viewed me as level headed, focused, and strong. So if I said to her, "I just feel depressed mom," she'd say, "you know you were always the strong one."

I guess I thought I was strong until those cracks in my veneer started showing. But I've managed to patch those cracks with humor. That's all I had--that's all I have.
I learned to hide and suppress everything that hurt me. It became my suit of armor that shielded me from losing my mind. It kept me from committing suicide and living recklessly.

I have a full time job as an office manager. It's just something to keep me busy during the day so I can be home with the kids in the late afternoons and evenings. It's not a fulfiling job for me because I believe I'm only using 25% of my talents. The rest of my talent goes to waste. I just have a hard time knowing what that talent is. Although I love to write I stink at it. I'm not the type that likes to go back and correct grammar and spelling and so forth. A thing I used to be grilled on repeately from my college English professors who always said I wrote A papers but would give me a B or C because I didn't like correcting anything. I've written plenty of stories which are clogged up on my computer as we speak. But I can finish them. I tried. For years I tried. But my mind would wander to something else I wanted to do and then after a while I didn't know what direction I wanted to go in. I'm sort of all over the place.
If asked when I was a teenager what I wanted to do with my life, I couldn't give a good answer. I didn't know what I wanted to do. All I knew was that I wanted to do something great and that I was good at doing many things. So I just floated to one college then the next. I met my husband my second float to college during my sophmore year. I think he knew something was wrong because I had this heavy courseload of classes which were a mix of everything from literature to engineering. I passed all of my classes with flying colors but I couldn't seem to figure out what I wanted. There were so many choices and options that I literally made myself sick worrying about what I would do once I got out of college. I just picked another major and college on my third float(I transferred to a third college in my junior year).
If I wasn't floating around I was reckless. My third college was six states away from my husband who was then my boyfriend so we decided to break up. Feeling lonely I got mixed up in the party life on campus. It swept me up and I became the infamous party girl.
If there was a party I was there. Parties made me feel better or so I thought. I would go and pretend that I was someone else. I could pretend that I was this happy girl without any emotional baggage.
I graduated, thank God! But I didn't have a defined major. I had a bunch over courses over the four years that they just slammed into this general studies major. After graduation I married my husband who was still drawing from my fake zest for life and fun image and moved to the suburbs in Ohio. He worked for a company which sold hi tech surveilance systems and I managed the office of a major insurance company. We settled into a sort of happy life cooked up more by me than him. We bought this wonderful home and eventually had two children. I thought I could cover up how I was feeling inside by being creative and fun. So I planned these huge parties and decorated everything beautifully (after changing things around for the zillionth time at the last minute). I wanted to be different than my mother who was so out of touch with her family. I wanted to be there for them even if I wasn't. I faked the funk just to be everything to everyone. Life for me was just making it through one day to the next. I've been at my current job for five years. It's a drain but I'm there pretending to be checked in and pretending that I don't want to do something or I'm meant to do something else.

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