The BPD Emotional Rollercoaster

One of the key characteristics of borderline personality disorder (BPD) are rapidly shifting mood swings. These last minutes to hours, rather than days or weeks as seen in other mental illnesses. Sara and Laurie share stories of what these rapid mood swings have been like for them and the people around them. Just like how rapid our moods may spiral this episode goes in many different directions, almost comically so. We almost named this episode “Ramblings to Two Lunatics” because of how all over the place this conversation went.

You can find Laurie and Sara on Instagram to follow their day to day lives even further @laurieanned and @saraswellnessway. You can also find the podcast on IG @boldbeautifulborderline

You can also find Sara's business as a Mental Health Clinician and mental health coach at thewellnesswayllc.com

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Transcript

Laurie Edmundson: 0:21

Hi, everybody and welcome to the bold, beautiful borderline podcast. My name is Laurie Edmundson, and I'm here with my good friend Sarah Edmondson. And we are going to be talking today about mood swings, which is one of the symptoms of borderline personality disorder and arguably the most obvious one that people associate with BPD. So Sara, you pick this topic today? You started.

Sara Amundson: 0:46

Okay, let me just ask you this. How many people in your life tried to self diagnose you with bipolar disorder when you were younger?

Laurie Edmundson: 0:54

Oh, actually. So lots, but like, because I think I was I studied psychology from like, grade nine till whenever, like, well now. So like, I think I kind of always was like, no bipolar is two weeks on two weeks off, and I did get like officially assessed by a psychiatrist when I was a kid. And they like said, You're for sure. Not bipolar. And the reason for that was obviously, because my like mood shifts were within minutes, not weeks. But yeah, I totally. You to I assume?

Sara Amundson: 1:27

Oh, well, yeah. I mean, obviously, isn't that like, classic? So yeah, the reason I asked is I feel like everybody with borderline has, at some point had a parent or a family member or a doctor suggests that they're bipolar. And I was, yeah, 17, probably when someone's really sat me down and said, like, you know, I think you could have bipolar disorder. And I think we should probably look into this and yada, yada. And I went to my pediatrician, because I was under age at the time. And I said, I think someone told me that they think I have bipolar disorder, you know, whatever. And he just said, well, let's just put you on Prozac and see what happens. Because if you truly have bipolar disorder, or Prozac would put you into your first manic episode. And we tried that and sure as shit no mania.

Laurie Edmundson: 2:20

Yeah, that's kind of a weird way of diagnosing that. But okay, cool.

Sara Amundson: 2:24

Yeah, that was like a right to the point kind of, kind of experiment. But um, yeah, I mean, so that is the thing that people with borderline experiences this rapid cycling of mood, right? I mean, I could go from like, joy, to anger to sadness all over again in a seven minute period. And like, profound experiences of joy and sadness.

Laurie Edmundson: 2:53

Yeah, not like, Oh, I feel a little bit sad. No, I'm so sad that I want to die, for example. And then the next minute, I'm super lovey, and just want to talk to my friends. Like, it's honestly, it's probably the most frustrating symptom of borderline for me. Yeah, I think it was probably the most, most like, frustrating for sure. Because it's very, very, very hard to control it. And so you can go to dialectical behavior therapy and learn all the skills that's really great. And I've definitely learned to not outwardly put my emotion and you know, turn it into anger. But I think that I kind of still feel these things and feel the intense emotions, I just am like better at kind of keeping them under control.

Sara Amundson: 3:44

Yeah, it's not the most frustrating symptom for me. But I can say 100% without a doubt, it's the most frustrating symptom for close people in my life. I don't know how Aaron feels about this. But I know, I remember watching Tory just be like, dude, I don't know what to do for you. Like, it doesn't matter what I do. You just keep cycling. And she just was like, I can't keep up with this. And I remember just watching her like, I'd be like, in a few minutes of wanting to die, and then I'd be back at joy. And on her face. You could just see she's like emotional, emotionally processing. me wanting to die. And she's just so distraught. And I'm like, wait, we're, we've moved on from that. I want to live again.

Laurie Edmundson: 4:35

Right? Yeah. Yeah. I think for Aaron. I mean, I don't want to speak for him. And I definitely plan on making him Come on this podcast at some point. But for me, it's probably a combination of this and anger. That's the most frustrating. And in that sense, it's like because I get kind of like stuck circularly in anger, or anxiety or whatever that emotion is like, that loop will kinda stick. And I think that that's really frustrating because I can't just like, kind of get over the feelings necessarily right away or like in a normal, quote, normal set of time.

Sara Amundson: 5:14

Yeah, yeah, I can truly say nothing about any of this feels very normal. And I know that, you know, that was one of the things I remember, as a really young person like grade school was, I could watch and observe my friends having feelings and writing them out, and then moving on in a way that seemed so predictable across all of their behavior. And then my behavior was just so different. It was like, I would shoot up really high and then shoot down really low, and then up really high and really low. And I do this so many times throughout the day. And they would all just kind of be in this like, nice, one, up or down standard deviation from the mean. And I'm like, you know, plus 12, minus 13.

Laurie Edmundson: 6:05

I kind of love that like standard deviation, because that's exactly what it is. I don't know what my baseline is, but I can tell you that my baseline is like, I'm rarely at it. Let's just say that. I mean, obviously, like, as I've kind of been more in recovery, it's a lot better. But I mean, I'm sure there were years of my life where I didn't have a baseline, everything was an anomaly. And it just like never was in the middle.

Sara Amundson: 6:32

Yeah. Okay, so then tell me this, what's the impact of it for you? Because for me, I like, I mean, and I really believe I could never return to like a nine to five employment setting where I have to be in an office or something. Because in the first few hours of my day, I could cycle so many times, like I have to either exercise or nap by like, 1pm every day.

Laurie Edmundson: 6:58

Yeah, I feel the napping one. Nothing's like my number one coping mechanism. Well, I mean, I do work a nine to five. And I'm lucky that in my current employment, and my previous employments, it's been pretty flexible. Like, you know, if I, if I text my manager and say, Hey, I need to sleep in today, she's not going to be mad at me. As long as I don't have meetings or whatever, it's usually fine. I don't know, I think for me, it's probably hardest on my friends in terms of like, they don't know what to predict. And then also, and in my friends, I count Aaron as well. And then also just, I think it's so distressing for me to not be able to stop that rapid cycling, like there's been, I can't even count hundreds of 1000s of times where I'm like, I just want to feel nothing or I want to feel normal. Like, I don't want to be this angry. I don't want to be this excited. It sucks.

Sara Amundson: 7:56

Yeah, I think the one thing that you and I can really identify with each other on is that we both get really, really angry, like anger. Anger is a big part of our experience with BPD. And I do find that to be the most distressing as well. Yeah, it's just like, what, what the fuck are you supposed to do with it? You know, that's the part where it's like, I can tolerate the sadness and the joy for the most part, and I can tolerate noticing that my experience is a whole lot different than other people's are far from normal, but the anger just gets me.

Laurie Edmundson: 8:36

Yeah, I think I get stuck in the anger more than I get stuck in any other emotion. I mean, I'm always gonna have intense emotions, and I'm totally okay with that. Like, I think about things like when I go to Cirque du Soleil, for example, I weep. Like, I weep the entire time, we went to a Harry Potter thing in England a couple years ago. And I love Harry Potter if everybody doesn't know that already. And I literally got into the parking lot, and I just was weeping. And but it was out of happiness. Like, I wasn't sad. I was just like, this is the greatest day of my life. And so I'm so happy for those moments where it's like, I'm so much more excited and so much more like overwhelmed by happiness than anybody else around me and I look like a freak but I don't really care. But when it comes to like, I think for me sadness, I do get stuck in as well. Usually naps fix that. Like I love a good nap. But like I will definitely get stuck in like this is never gonna end. Why am I here? And then it starts kind of spiraling into that suicidal type thinking. But anger is the most frustrating one. Where a sadness or like my whatever, more sad

Sara Amundson: 9:49

and just, um, Okay, can we just like pause two things one, three years ago to Tory and I went to Harry Potter World in Florida and I was so excited I sabotage to the entire experience like I couldn't even handle my excitement. And I remember like, Tory's probably so glad she's divorcing me. I remember that was inappropriate humor just for anybody listening.

Laurie Edmundson: 10:22

Like, let's not go there yet. Let's wait till the papers are signed. But anyway,

Sara Amundson: 10:26

um, yeah, that was maladaptive. We were at Harry Potter World I was so excited. so overwhelmed. I'm I wanted to take a selfie and she wouldn't take a selfie in front of the castle with me and I just like, lost my shit. I like stormed out of the park just like crying hysterically. I was like, so upset. That's the worst.

Laurie Edmundson: 10:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. And the thing is, is like to, again, quote normal people. They're probably like, Dude, why are you so fucking excited? This is the part that's confusing to me. It's like, why does taking this one picture like mean this much to you? And it's like, this is the best day of your life. That's how I'm feeling like whatever that is. That's how I feel right now. So like, think about how you would feel the best day of your life and maybe even times that emotion by 10? I don't know.

Sara Amundson: 11:21

Probably more like 30. Okay, but other part of this is what house are you sorted into? Because we've never had this conversation.

Laurie Edmundson: 11:29

So like, weirdly, I don't really care about houses. I know. I'm the worst Harry Potter fan. Like I'm literally in my office right now at home looking at an Albus Dumbledore, Dumbledore quote on my wall, and like, I'm obsessed with Harry Potter, but I just don't really know. Like, I feel like what happened probably is like I was on Pottermore a million years ago, and I like got a house I didn't like so I just locked it out. I'm pretty sure that's what happened. So like, all of my Harry Potter costumes and all that stuff are all either gryffindor or slytherin because like, sometimes I'm the good guy. And sometimes I'm the bad guy. And maybe that is a whole other episode.

Sara Amundson: 12:09

Oh, yes, that is we that is an episode we need to have. Okay, well, I'm a Ravenclaw. And I take great pride in being Ravenclaw. And I asked Tori I made where I take her Sorting Hat quiz on our first day, and I remember being like, you can be anything but a hufflepuff, just like please do not be a Hufflepuff. Right? I was she was like, why? And I was like, because they're cute and dumb. And then this girl is a friggin hufflepuff.

Laurie Edmundson: 12:34

Okay, sara, you don't even understand. One of them's like best friends was at a bar one time. And he like met this hot girl or whatever. And they were sitting there and the girls like, you need to do this. You need to do this Harry Potter quiz. And he was like, What? And she's like, yeah, I'm not gonna go home with you if you don't get whichever house it was. And he was like, You're, you're joking, right? And she's like, no, and she sat there for like, 45 minutes while he did this quiz and he was like, I don't even know if I want this anymore. Like, very strange. So I love that you are that person because we made fun of that girl for a year.

Sara Amundson: 13:09

No, that was a big deal to me. I was like anything but helpful path. And here it is. She's I have a path.

Laurie Edmundson: 13:14

Well, maybe that was the sign.

Sara Amundson: 13:16

Maybe that's why we're getting divorced. Oh my God, we have to edit this part out. Okay. Anyways, back to mood swings. Anger is for sure the hardest. And I don't know about you. But I find it to be the most dangerous for me, because I fully trust myself that when I am even in my most sad and most depressed moments, I'm not going to do anything that would risk my life. But when I'm really really angry, like, I just I have a hard time trusting myself.

Laurie Edmundson: 13:51

Yeah, totally. And I. So neither Sara or I want to feed into the stereotype that people with borderline or violent or dangerous or that you should be scared of them. Neither of us want to say anything like that. However, I for sure have violent tendencies. And or I used to have violent tendencies. And I was definitely like, fully a perpetrator of domestic violence when I was younger, like 100% there's no question about that. So yeah, I think the spiraling of emotions is just more frustrating than anything, mostly because it's really hard to stop. So even if you use all of your skills, it's just really, really, really hard to not be in that spot. So, yeah, I definitely find that that's really frustrating. Like, I think the only things that really helped me get to that spot are exercise and sleep, which I know Sara referenced earlier.

Sara Amundson: 15:14

Yeah, I think like, even with using all of my skills, I still sometimes cannot get my emotions back to like, what a baseline or near baseline would look like for a person that doesn't have BPD. And so that's just really hard. Because, like, I know, one of the things that I fell is that it, it feels I know, this isn't true, but sometimes it feels like people cannot love me the same way that I love them, because I just feel it so significantly, or they just like, can't understand or identify with my anger, because they just don't feel angry the same way that I do. Like, I sometimes feel kind of alienated by my mood swings, or just the severity of the emotions.

Laurie Edmundson: 16:02

So you said, I know this isn't true, but people won't know. Like, won't be able to feel love, like I feel loved to them. Do you actually think that's not true?

Sara Amundson: 16:13

Well, I don't know. There's moments I think it's true. And then there's moments I feel bad for thinking that it's true. So maybe I say that it's not true to cover up my guilt about that statement. But I mean, there's been very few times in my life where I've felt like I'm receiving the kind of love that I'm capable of giving. That doesn't mean that I haven't received like, kind whole love. It's just not all encompassing.

Laurie Edmundson: 16:44

Yeah, I totally when when you said I know, it's not true. I was like, I don't know, I feel like it might be true, like, because I feel very similarly, like, I will love more intensely than anyone that I've ever met. I will also hate more intensely than anyone I've ever met, or feel sad or anxious or whatever, more than anyone I've ever met. So, I don't know, like, so I don't want kids. And that's, I mean, I'm 27

Sara Amundson: 17:13

Dude, I would be a terrible parent.

Laurie Edmundson: 17:16

Well, there's that that's, that's part of it. 100%. But like, one of the things that people always say, when they're trying to, like, talk you into having kids is, oh, well, you're never gonna know love until you have kids. And I'm always like, really, bitch, because like, you're never gonna know, love until you have BPD. Like, don't tell me that I haven't experienced an emotion intensely, because you have no idea what you're talking about.

Sara Amundson: 17:37

Yeah, I mean, it truly is just like biological. And also, like, I'm really on the maladaptive humor tonight. But like, I think that I could be really successful with parenting, it would just take me so much more time and energy and effort to do so than a person that is more regulated. And so like, I make that joke saying I'd be a terrible parents, I wouldn't be a terrible parent, but it would just be so much work to try to parent with this particular mental illness. And I frankly, don't want to

Laurie Edmundson: 18:09

know, man, either, not to mention the fact that you're likely to pass down traits to your kid. So both of you will be as potentially as dysregulated as the other so, and I like I grew up in a household like that. So it's, uh, yeah, I don't want kids anyways, that's not that's a whole other conversation.

Sara Amundson: 18:25

I know one of the things we were going to talk about, and you can dive in, because you're so much better at DBT than I am, which is, you know, the difficulty in kind of naming the feelings when we're cycling on a, such a rapid basis.

Laurie Edmundson: 18:43

Yeah, I actually found this to be a really, really, really fascinating piece of DBT. And that is that people with borderline, generally speaking, actually have a harder time identifying and naming emotions, then people without the disorder. And that may sound like kind of trivial, but it's actually not so like Sara and I have basically said four emotions in this entire episode. And I we've been recording for a while now. So we've said anger, sad, joy / happy. And I've said anxiety, which I don't even know if that's an emotion. But anyways, like, there's actually, you know, 15 types of sadness or whatever it is, like, there's grief, there's disappointment, there's loss, whatever you want to call it. Anger, there's like frustration, anger, irritable, all of these things. And like, because we think in black and white, and because we experience such intense emotions, we have a really hard time identifying the like, nuances of different emotions. And so one of the things you do in DBT, and I can't remember what module it's in, is you literally have like, a list of emotions. And it's probably like 50/60 of them and you like categorize them under like, the ones that are similar. So like, Oh, these are all anger. And these are all in joy. And these are all sad. And it's like, such a strange thing to need to do. But it's actually really helpful. And so like, if you were to just like, listen to this podcast, and while you're listening to the rest of it, write down 10 different words for sad. 10 different words for happy, 10 different words for angry, it would be really interesting to see how many you came up with, because I bet if you don't have BPD, it would be fewer than if you do know that right. Now, it would be more if you have BPD. Yeah,

Sara Amundson: 20:35

yeah, that is really interesting. So when I was working with youth in crisis homes, we taught them the four main emotions, right? happy, sad, angry, worried, I don't know, I can't remember. And that all of those emotions stem off from that, like you just said, but I never named my emotions, I always just go straight to the like, and it's generally like joy, anger, sadness, like, I just those feel, I feel those so strongly, and I can so easily labeled just those three, that I sometimes forget to, like, look underneath them, because they're so they're so profound.

Laurie Edmundson: 21:20

But like, it is helpful to look underneath them if you can kind of get to that point, because you're like, Okay, well, I'm not angry, like, I'm not like livid, for example. I'm just irritated. You're irritating me. Stop irritating me, right? Whereas you are not pretending that I'm actually going to do this right now. I am not angry at this exact moment. But yeah, like, it's, He doesn't know what to do with that information. Yeah. So I think it's just one of those things where like, it seems so trivial, but it's not. And I think nowadays, people are teaching like emotional competency. There's a better word for that. But in like,

Sara Amundson: 22:28

social emotional learning,

Laurie Edmundson: 22:29

thank you. Yes. social emotional learning. And like, Yeah, it sounds like a buzzword, but we didn't have that. So I'm, you know, I don't love buzzwords, but like, okay, fine, do it. That's awesome. And having the zones of regulation? I don't know if that's the same in the states where it's like, red, yellow, green, or whatever.

Sara Amundson: 22:46

Yeah.

Laurie Edmundson: 22:48

Can you imagine when you were five, if somebody taught you that? It would be it would change your life? Literally.

Sara Amundson: 22:55

I mean, we will have to do a whole episode on my like, resentment around public schools. I feel so much frustration. And a big part of it is my career is mental health work. And I freelance curriculum, right. So I literally spend like Hours every week writing social emotional learning tools and lessons for elementary and middle schoolers, sometimes high schoolers. But I'm just like, when I'm writing these, and especially the activities, if I had had those tools, I would have never waited until I was 23. To get diagnosed, like my quality of life from 16, to now would have been completely different.

Laurie Edmundson: 23:36

Yeah, and you know, what your emotions would have been validated when you were five, and that may have even prevented you developing borderline personality disorder. At the end, like, there's always going to be some combination of genetics, invalidating environment, whatever, but like, being validated in the way you're feeling is a huge component of that huge, the biggest one, you know, and so that, like, I try so hard to just, like, validate everybody's emotions, like, I can say, you know what, that's a super valid way of feeling. I don't necessarily feel that way. But I understand where you're coming from just that alone. Can you imagine if your parents so that,

Sara Amundson: 24:12

you know, just even the like, Wow, that sounds really hard.

Laurie Edmundson: 24:17

Yeah, like, totally not suck it up.

Sara Amundson: 24:19

And so for me, it was like, and again, my parents did the best that they could with the very few skills that they had. And I will always like fight for them and fight for that. Like, they were not good at validating no, nobody ever taught them how so how could I expect them to have known how to validate me? But I was always met with like a ton of silence because my emotions were so significant that my parents didn't know what to do with them. And so what they thought was like neutral in being silent, or just like making space for me to talk these things out actually was super invalidating because I needed like a verbal. Yeah, you get to feel that, like yes, you can feel that, That's all

Laurie Edmundson: 25:00

Yeah. And nobody taught them that. So we can't blame them. But I think this is where like, as much as I don't want kids, I think in that sense, we would be really great parents because we would be able to say, like, Look, you are screaming your head off. I feel annoyed. But I understand that you're not getting something that you need. And I do I honestly think that that is something... one of the best parts about living with borderline personality disorder is just I feel empathy, more than anybody I've ever met. And sometimes that really sucks. But I think that it does make us really great humans.

Sara Amundson: 25:41

Yeah. But like, how many years of your life to do wasted relationships thinking that people could grow or change or adjust?

Laurie Edmundson: 25:48

Oh, way too many. Way too many,

Sara Amundson: 25:51

I really need to back off of thinking everyone is redeemable. Or I take that back, I can continue to believe that everyone is redeemable without thinking that I need to be witness to the redemption. Do you know what I'm saying? Like my empathy keeps me involved so much longer than I should ever be involved.

Laurie Edmundson: 26:11

Yeah, and I've had that used against me. I had an ex boyfriend who was super, super emotionally abusive and terrible. And he called me like, after we had kind of finally ended things and said, like, Hey, I think that I might have psychosis. And I was and I fell for it. I'm, I will never turn somebody down if they need me. And that is a significant problem in my life.

Sara Amundson: 26:37

Huge problem. I have an axe that literally, we broke up five years ago, and like will still reach out around really significant things in their life. And it's hard for me because it's like, how do I turn you away? If you're talking to me about like, a close family member that died by suicide, but also like you have a partner, you have family, you have friends? Like I'm not your person. I can't be your person. But I don't know how to not. I don't know how to not be because I feel like such desire to love and care for people that is not appropriate.

Laurie Edmundson: 27:11

Yeah, and I, I think also like, we have to understand that that is completely exhausting. People get mad at me for not answering text messages. I get. I have like 300 unread messages right now. I'm sorry that I'm not answering your text message. I would love to answer your text message. But it is completely emotionally draining for me, who is doing my own work constantly on my mental health, to be answering every single message that comes in and like, don't get me wrong, guys. I love your messages and like, they're fantastic. But there's only so many times that I can answer a phone call that says hey, I'm high on meth. And I'm at Surry central SkyTrain station, I need you to come pick me up like, I can't. I cannot do that and be healthy myself.And that's really hard to have that boundary.

Sara Amundson: 28:00

Yeah. Yeah.It's a wild life. I wouldn't. I don't know if I would trade it.

Laurie Edmundson: 28:08

I wouldn't.

Sara Amundson: 28:09

I know you wouldnt. We've talked about this, you know, no, I wouldn't trade it. Because I know that my mental illness is what makes me a really good clinician. And that is like the purpose of my life and what I think that I'm here for but like I want under other people to really understand. It is truly super exhausting. And we don't want or need anybody's like, I'm sorry, or pity or whatever. But please understand that we are constantly working through our own head all day long, trying to navigate a world that doesn't want to make space for the feelings that we have.

Laurie Edmundson: 28:48

It's so funny you say that because I remember vividly, I saw I took dialectical behavior therapy, and it was a group setting. And I remember going and like there was let's say there's eight of us. Seven people had Redbull in front of them every single time like Wednesday at noon. And I remember sitting there I was like what 18/19 and I was like, I wonder if this is because we're just completely exhausted by our emotions. I would love to do a research study on if people with borderline use caffeine to cope, because I seriously think that that's true.

Sara Amundson: 29:22

Oh my God, please. Let's do it.

Laurie Edmundson: 29:23

Yeah, okay. CIHR give us some money to do a study.

Sara Amundson: 29:27

But how much coffee Do you drink every day? I, I could drink coffee at 830 and still be asleep at night. I mean, I'm currently drinking coffee. It's 6pm and I nap every single day, every single day.

Laurie Edmundson: 29:42

I sleep more than anyone I know. Like I sleep more than people's babies. Literally. The other day. It was a weekend. And to be fair, I had a really weird week. But like I went to sleep at like nine I woke up at 1030 was up for an hour and a half and then had a two hour nap.

Sara Amundson: 29:59

Yeah.

Laurie Edmundson: 30:00

It's exhausting to feel this much. And that was that was a day where I was regulated. I wasn't even doing anything that was making me feel. I was literally like doing readings for school and getting bored, but like, I still slept. I drink so much caffeine. It is like, I 100% have an addiction to caffeine. And I at this point in my life, don't care because it's all function. Yeah.

Sara Amundson: 30:29

Girl, I quit smoking a pack a day, and I'm currently eight days sober of alcohol. I am never gonna stop drinking coffee.

Laurie Edmundson: 30:38

No, ever. I just... did I tell you that Aaron stopped drinking coffee. Like out of nowhere.

Sara Amundson: 30:43

I would not marry him.

Laurie Edmundson: 30:44

I legitimately am questioning my decision. I am so mad. Because now it's like obvious that I'm the problem. Right? Like because I used to make like, you know, three pots of coffee. I get up at six. He gets up at eight. Oh, the first pot of coffee is gone before he wakes up. Like I guess it was him? Like, I don't know. But now he drinks no caffeine. And I don't understand it. Like it's completely foreign to me. I would I would not function, which is I understand is completely problematic.

Sara Amundson: 31:13

I don't think it's problematic. But maybe that's another issue.

Laurie Edmundson: 31:18

Yeah, but if it was like, cocaine, you would think it was problematic.

Sara Amundson: 31:23

Right.

Laurie Edmundson: 31:24

Pretty much, one is socially acceptable and one is not. But I mean, alcohol is socially acceptable. And it's-

Sara Amundson: 31:32

IIt's like binge drinking and having sex with everybody and their mother, like every night of the week,

Laurie Edmundson: 31:36

Their mother? I haven't heard these stories.

Sara Amundson: 31:40

I know that was an exaggeration. But-

Laurie Edmundson: 31:43

I hope it's not an exaggeration, because I would love to hear that. The whole thing like it's, it's not just when you're binge drinking, like you can drink, you know, two glasses of wine a night and like have a serious alcohol problem. That's like affecting your relationships and nobody bats an eye. But, you know, you do cocaine once or you do heroin or whatever. Like it's, it's a problem. It's it's one of those weird society things.

Sara Amundson: 32:11

It is. Well. Yeah, I mean, I think the risk with caffeine is pretty low compared to alcohol and cocaine, though. Right? Like,

Laurie Edmundson: 32:24

do you want to hear a really terrible story?

Sara Amundson: 32:26

I do I love terrible stories

Laurie Edmundson: 32:28

When my emotions got ahold of me. So we were going a couple years ago to Leavenworth in the states and I had been having like, weird- Have you been to Leavenworth? Because you look really excited.

Sara Amundson: 32:40

It's so beautiful

Laurie Edmundson: 32:41

It really is. Yeah, we were going for Oktoberfest and it was really fun. And, but I was really pissed that day because of situations that had happened in the morning. And I had also been having like weird heart problems, like really, really, really racing heart. Like I have an Apple Watch. My heart rate would literally be 210 for like, 45 minutes. And I was like,

Sara Amundson: 33:00

That's like dying.

Laurie Edmundson: 33:01

Yeah, I know. I was literally like laying there. And it would be like 210 it was crazy. So I hadn't had you get all this like heart holter monitors for two weeks and like you can't shower properly. That's this whole thing. And anyway, so we get down to Leavenworth. I'm like, one of the things that my cardiologist said was you need to stop drinking excessive amounts of caffeine. And I was like, Okay, well, I'm not going to stop drinking excessive amounts of caffeine, but I'll like limit my caffeine intake. So for whatever reason, I was like really angry. So out of spite, to nobody, because Aaron wasn't mad at me. But I was just like, mad at the world. I go to the gas station and buy like three liters of Redbull. And I'm like, I'm just going to give myself a heart attack. Things like that was like Laurie. You're literally only hurting yourself right now.

Sara Amundson: 33:47

And you're not going to have a heart attack. Just gonna feel like shit.

Laurie Edmundson: 33:52

Totally. I actually never drank them. But like, I regret like I- Aaron was pissed. And I was like, I'm gonna buy them anyways. And it was like, Laurie, You're so dumb. If that was like three years ago, and I finally got rid of that.

Sara Amundson: 34:04

Honestly, you might as well just bought a four LOKO.

Laurie Edmundson: 34:07

Oh, yeah, they don't have those up here.

Sara Amundson: 34:09

Good.

Laurie Edmundson: 34:11

Yeah, I'm pretty sure they like are illegal here. Actually, like, I don't even think you can bring them across the border.

Sara Amundson: 34:17

Yeah, no, that's a terrible, terrible. Terrible.

Laurie Edmundson: 34:20

Do they still sell those in the States?

Sara Amundson: 34:21

Yeah, but I think they did something like a few years back where they took out like the certain amount of caffeine or whatever. And um, so they're not as bananas.

Laurie Edmundson: 34:29

Yep. Those like literally kill people.

Sara Amundson: 34:31

Yeah, yeah. Anyways, so we should all limit our caffeine, figure out how to regulate our emotions, and none of you have bipolar disorder.

Laurie Edmundson: 34:43

Yeah. Long story short. Thank you for putting up with this episode. Because it was it was a lot. Honestly though. The bipolar disorder thing is not a joke. And we will have an episode specifically about bipolar disorder and borderline and how they differ and how that misdiagnosis is common. So if you're interested in that, and you don't want us to just be making jokes about it the entire time, please do tune in to that episode. It'll probably be in a couple of months.

Sara Amundson: 35:10

Yeah. And actually, have you ever met someone that is diagnosed with both BPD and bipolar disorder? Because I've always like really struggled with that comorbid diagnosis

Laurie Edmundson: 35:20

that's -

Sara Amundson: 35:21

co-occurring diagnosis

Laurie Edmundson: 35:22

Yes. I don't know if I know, like a close friend with both of those. But I definitely like seen people identify as having both of those diagnoses. And I have a big issue with it as well, like I, I mean, I guess you probably could, because you could be having like, your, let's say your baseline is like a zero. And your manic episode is a 50. You could be like, for two weeks, or whatever it is, with a standard deviation of around 50, as opposed to around zero or around negative 50, which is your depressed state. But I feel like that's a weird misdiagnosis. Like, I feel like it's gonna have to be one or the other. But people people identify with both. So it's not for me to say,

Sara Amundson: 36:09

Yea and I've seen clients, I haven't diagnosed them with both. But I've seen clients historically that I've had both diagnoses on their medical records, and it's just hard for me to imagine sustaining one's emotional state for a long period of time.

Laurie Edmundson: 36:28

Yeah, and I think for me, because they're so misdiagnosed so often, I'm always like hesitant about that, right? Because like, it's easy for people to like, diagnose people with bipolar, when they're not, and when it's borderline, and they just either don't want to give them a borderline diagnosis, because they don't want it to be on their medical record and the stigma to mess them up. Or they don't know enough about borderline. So they give a bipolar disorder diagnosis, but like, you kind of need to know the medication you're going to be taking for either of those disorders is going to be significantly different. And like, you don't want to have a misdiagnosis and misdiagnosis for borderline. I mean, we could talk for six years of misdiagnosis of borderline, but you can't heal in my opinion, you can't heal until you know what's wrong. And so I, I just, it always makes me so sad when I see people with misdiagnosis whether or not it's like you were mis diagnosed as borderline or you were misdiagnosed as bipolar and you're actually borderline like, whichever it is, I just always feel so sad for those people, because you just you need to know what the root causes.

Sara Amundson: 37:38

Well, the other part of it too, is the way that you safety plan around bipolar disorder is going to be very different than the way that you save the plan around borderline personality disorder. And that's one of the things I don't know about you, Laurie. But for years, I carried a handwritten safety plan on a like a post it note in my wallet that I wrote on a, you know, intensive outpatient program seven years ago. And that was always the same safety plan. And it was always going to work for me, but I know that that would be very different than a person with bipolar disorder.

Laurie Edmundson: 38:11

Yeah, I wouldn't be really curious to know the stats of people with diagnosed bipolar disorder and self harm, because that's like such a core diagnose, or diagnostic criteria of borderline. And I can see where like I know, like suicide, in people with bipolar can be pretty high when you're coming out of a depressive stage, like when you're like shifting between the two. But I don't know about self harm. Like I feel like I haven't really heard that. It's more like, the dying by suicide part is like super problematic, but less so like the kind of up and down self harm.

Sara Amundson: 38:51

We'll have to do some research and maybe have a couple of different people with bipolar disorder on the pod because I really want to do some, I really want to understand the perspective of staying in like longer emotional state, for like a set period of time what that's like, because I truly can't say I know what it's like to stay in a state longer than like 15 or 20 minutes. Even if there's been weeks of my life where I've consistently been depressed, there's still moments of profound joy in each day.

Laurie Edmundson: 39:25

Yeah, and I think that's the thing is like, I can definitely have moments. Sorry, I can have days of like, more depression than not, but there Yeah, there's still that shift, which is strange and like, potentially, like neither of us have bipolar disorder. So like, maybe there is that shift within a manic or depressive stage? Like, there's no way that it's, you're just feeling like this exact same level of mania for two weeks. Like that's just not possible as a human being? I would think so. We should definitely find someone If you have either bipolar disorder or both. You should definitely reach out to me Actually, I was talking Somebody who's listening to the podcast. And she said that her, she has bi polar and her partner has borderline. And so they're finding the podcast really interesting because they're finding a lot in common with both of them. So that could be a really interesting perspective as well.

Sara Amundson: 40:15

Yeah, definitely. Okay, guys. Well, thanks so much for listening to this episode of the podcast and putting up with us. As always, your love and support means just the world to us, and we'll see you next time. Hi, friends. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the bold, beautiful borderline podcast. Laurie and I are so grateful that you're here with us on this journey. And we can't wait to dive into more topics in the future with you all about borderline, and even have some more fun and exciting guests to join us on the podcast. If you really enjoyed this episode, we would love if you would rate review and subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen. We would also love to see you interact with us on social media and on our Patreon page, the links to that are included in the show notes. So check us out there. We would be incredibly honored to get to know you all as you get to know us and our recovery stories. We love you and we'll see you next time.