I have depression, anxiety, and borderline personality disorder. I’m having a hard time trying to live my life and feel like a whole and fulfilled person.

I am trying to cope with crippling amounts of mental illness and am not in a position to be receiving treatment right now.

I am unable to receive treatment for my mental illness because I am a minor and can’t be treated without parental consent. My parents refuse to acknowledge or assist me with my problems.

What feelings arise?

Not being able to be treated makes me angry and frustrated. I know I need help and that if I were medicated I could more easily cope with my illnesses, but I am sad. It feels like the inside of my mind is attacking me.

How does your difficulty affect you?

I have a hard time controlling or dealing with my emotions, due to my BPD. It makes everything I feel more intense, and combined with my depression and anxiety ends up giving me panic attacks and bouts of paranoia. When I turn to my close friends for help, I end up feeling guilty and like a burden, even when they assure me I am not. I feel like I’m constantly overwhelmed and there is little I can do because it’s not an outside source I can move away from or change, it’s all in my head and I feel powerless before it.

I don’t communicate what I’m feeling to my best friend until it’s beyond my control and I can’t handle it, because telling her what’s wrong makes me feel vulnerable and it’s scary.

I have my good days and bad days but recently I’ve been non functional. I need the love and support of my friends, who are willing and trying to help, but because I feel like an inconvenience, I isolate myself from them and end up hurting myself. I have a history of physical self-harm. I was over a year clean until quite recently and am trying to get it back under control.

What is your part?

I am unwilling to seek medical emancipation or find a way to see a therapist without my parent’s knowledge because I fear their response.

What are you learning about yourself, others, the situation?

I hate myself and cannot fix my problems.

I hate that I hurt myself and the people around me and that I am often too depressed to do the things I love.

I like writing and how much I care about others even if it makes me anxious about my friendships.

I am not my mental illness, yet I am constantly defined by it.

People with borderline personality disorder are statistically more likely to die by their own hand, or suffer abuse because they cannot regulate or rely on their feelings.

Many people experience a better quality of life after receiving treatment and being medicated.

I find myself triggered by raised voices, representations of sexual or physical violence in fiction, or withdrawing responses from those around me.

I try to cope by reading, writing or listening to music.

I try to talk to myself the way I would talk to a friend with these problems but often find it to be difficult. I often find myself telling myself that I am hurting the people around me, that I am unworthy of their love or they do not really love me, or that I am a very small insignificant part of the universe.

Talking to someone, even if not about the issue at hand, usually makes me feel safe and can draw me out of a breakdown. I am being hindered by the fact that I self-isolate when I feel panicky or afraid.

All in all, I am much nicer to others than to myself.

What can you shift in your perspective?

I can shift to finding better coping mechanisms and communicate better with the people who love me.

I know it is not my fault that I am mentally ill and it isn’t fair to blame myself for my symptoms, but I often find it impossible to do otherwise. Being mentally ill does not make someone less of a valid person.

How do you choose to work with your difficulty?

I am not coping well, but borderline-personality disorder, depression, and anxiety disorder are illnesses.

I intend to seek treatment when I am 18 and legally able to without parental consent.

What is this difficulty teaching you?

I am falling apart.

NOTE (two weeks after processing difficulty)

Most of my friends are also mentally ill and I love and support them. My problems all seem to lie in accepting and caring for myself.

I have been trying to check in more with my friend and let her know how I am feeling before I begin having a breakdown.

Thank you for listening and for your support.

16 years, female