If I plan to keep a regular record of my moods and what's going on then I suppose I should start with introducing myself to anyone who maybe so inclined to read this.

 I am Bam. I'm 29. I'm female. I was first diagnosed with BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) and Dysthymia/Chronic Depression when I was 15 years old though I can remember showing symptoms as early as 12, maybe earlier. See, I don't quite remember much from my childhood prior to age 12. Nothing tramatic happened when I was 12, that's just when I decided to actively start remembering. No, the trauma was much earlier.

 The trauma began at age 4. Yes, I am yet another victim of molestation (there seems to be quite a lot of us in the world). My step-father sodomized me for 3 years until I finally tipped my mother off to it and she left him. Unfortunately things went to court but never to trial (lack of evidence… for some reason the medical records and police statements poofed). While I remember bits and pieces of the abuse, I don't remember other parts of my growing-up.

 I started feeling down around 12.. around 13 I started cutting. Only I didn't hide it like a lot of cutters. I did it right out in the open… my arms, my legs… didn't matter. I carved names into my flesh, kept tally marks on my arms, crosses on my feet. This went on for a year or so. Mom took my razors away thinking that would stop me but it didn't. I used any knife I could. Rusty butter knives?  No biggie. I wanted to die anyway… I secretly hoped the rust would get into my blood and kill me off.

 From there I moved into suicide attempts, often attempting to choke myself, drown myself or take my mom's various medications hoping that I would never wake up when I went to sleep. I always did. That just made me feel worse. The pill-popping suicide attempts went on till I was about 15. Then I started trying to slice my wrists. Now, this whole 3 years I'd been having anger outbursts… getting into fights with my siblings and my mom… not just little squabbles but all out, knock-down, drag-out fights. I'd hit, punch, kick, throw things, break things, etc. I was a down-right little bitch. When I was angry and couldn't take it out on anyone, I'd put my fist through walls, doors and windows… I especially loved windows. That guaranteed bloody knuckles and that sound that glass makes when it breaks. This coming from a pre-teen! 

 Back to wrist-cutting. I say I started trying. See, for some reason I never could cut my wrist. I could cut anywhere else on my body, but not my wrists. I don't know why. It wasn't the pain that scared me. It wasn't that I was scared of dying. I wasn't. There was nothing I wanted more than to end my existence upon this earth. To this day I still don't know why. But I tried. I tried my damnedest. I would sit for hours holding a knife to my wrists. I would dig the knife edge into my flesh and run it down my arm but was never able to break the skin. So I would sit and cry and cuss myself for being so stupid.

 One day, when I was 15, Mom and I got into a fight. I don't remember what over but I took off out the door. I hid in the woods across the street until I saw her leave. Once she did I ran back home and pulled out a bottle of aspirin. I was going to take it all. I didn't realize at the time that it really wouldn't kill me. It was a brand-new bottle of tri-buffered aspirin… generic brand. Blue label with white writing. 100 count. I managed to get three handfuls down before my baby brother slapped the bottle out of my hands. I guess my mom came home about that time. She started hitting me around and told my brother to call 911. He went next door to the bar.

 The ambulance showed up. I was sitting on the couch, pouting. The whole time, Mom was cussing me. The para-god poked me with a saline line and they loaded me into the truck. The whole ride to the hospital, the para-god thought it would be a good idea to tell me how stupid I was to attempt suicide, and especially so with aspirin. The one thing I remember him saying is "You know what's going to happen now? When we get to the hospital, they're going to take a hose the size of my thumb [he had a huge fecking thumb] and ram it up your nose and down your throat. then they're going to suck everything out of your stomach and make you drink some nasty drinks to get it all out." Kind wasn't he? All I was thinking was how I was going to succeed next time.

 We got to the hospital and they didn't pump my stomach. They purged my system with Ipikak, charcoal and glucose. Fun, yeah? Anyway, I stayed in the hospital on a 48 hour suicide watch. When I got home I found out that the para-gods had dripped my blood on the brand new white sofa, which pissed off my mother even more. She hit my brother around a few times and made him clean it up (the same one that had knocked the bottle from my hands). I look back now on how shitty of a sister I was. I mean, I took my baby brother for granted all the time then he had to sit there and watch me attempt suicide, call the ambulance for me and then clean my blood up. Not a very good role model. Not much of one now, either.

 Not long after that Mom and I got into another fight. I tried to go to the bar to call my father. She didn't like that. She drug me out, slammed me against the wall (almost broke my elbow), dragged me by my hair back to the front yard, kicked me about the head, face and ribs. She bloodied my nose really good. She finally stopped and walked away. I thought I was ok but she picked up a hammer from the porch and threw it at me, hitting me in the ribs. After a few minutes she came and grabbed me again by the hair and drug me into the house. She beat on me some more, calling me all sorts of names. I finally ran into the bathroom and stood in the tub to get away from her wailing on me. She finally stopped and told me to clean myself up. She was taking me to the psychiatric hospital. I had blood all over my face, in my hair, all over my clothes. She didn't want them to see it. So cleaned up and changed like she insisted but I left a bit of blood on my foot. 

 When I got to the center, I let her tell her story and then I told mine. They checked me in and said I'd be in for a while. I ended up staying for 4.5 months. It was an interesting and informative time. It was there that I was diagnosed as BPD and clinically depressed. They tried me on tegratol then on depekote. Both gave me bad effects but I left the hospital AMA before they could change the meds again. 

 I went for a long while without meds at all and thought I could just manage it by myself. Finally in 2000 I agreed to try Paxil. I was on that for a bit and switched to Celexa. But I had the horrible side effect that sometimes accompanies Celexa. I attempted suicide… for the first time since 1994, I attempted suicide. It didn't land me in the hospital or anything.. no, it was another wrist cutting attempt that didn't work. And one more time, my baby brother was the one there to save me. Gods, I've been a horrible person to him. No wonder why he hates us all, now.

 Anyway, I immediately took myself off of the Celexa and vowed to never do SSRIs again.

Fast forward to 2007. I decided that my depression was getting out of control again so I started seeing a counselor. He decided that I needed to talk to someone about meds. I agreed as long as I didn't have to do SSRIs. A couple of months later, I met the RN. She diagnosed me as having OCD, anxiety disorder, PTSD and paranoia along with the BPD and  depression. She suggested Effexor XR. She, of course, hyped it up and assured me that it wasn't an SSRI. I agreed and it's been horrible.

 I've weened myself off of the Effexor for a second time (I went off once after the first month, then back on after a month and now off again). I don't plan to return to it. It's been horrible. The side-effects are just insane.

 But I'm sure you're asking yourself, "But where do you sit today?"

 That's a good question. Right now, I'm feeling angry because things don't go my way. I feel sad because I'm not in the position that I want to be in. I feel suicidal and think that everything would be better without me. I feel horrible that I've been such a bad person to my family. I feel scared because my fiance and I want children but I'm afraid that I'll be a horrible mother. Most of all, I feel empty. And I feel like I have no right to feel that way. I have a wonderful, loving fiance that totally understands me and does everything he can to help me and take care of me. I have a Mom that has come a long way away from her problems and I'm so proud of her. I have a brother that has a beautiful daughter, a brother that is a great person when he's not strung out and a brother that is pure love incarnate. I may not be int eh financial situation I want to be in but I have a lot to be grateful for. But I still feel empty. I don't know why. And it makes me sad. And angry. And worthless.

 This has been an introduction into me. I'm going to try to keep track of this on a daily basis and use it as a way to track my moods.