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

My mom always pegged me as the strong one. I guess 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. This life I was raised in was enough for me to go crazy back then. But I believed that stuff 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) 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. 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 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 bullshit 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 well that is until I just sat him down and told him the real version. 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 fucking 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 fucking 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.......
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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 constantly have a few of being alone. When my husband goes out of town for business meetings I often grabbed his shirts to smell or looked at his pictures. I was always a wreck when I was alone. I was always a wreck and couldn't stay focused to finish anything unless I put myself on four schedules and made threats to myself if I didn't finish.
I guess has a defense mechanism and mine is 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.
To read more about me or to find out more about Borderline Personality Disorder please visit my site
http://www.squidoo.com/depressedbutfunctional