Other people's expereience

I have a weird relationship with reading/hearing about other people's experience of mental health.

It makes me feel less mad, more stable and less alone when I read/hear that other people feel the same, or similar to how I do.  I relate most to those with borderline personality disorder diagnosis (or traits); the self harm, depression, poor relationships, eating disorders, anxiety, mood swings and anger. It's the diagnosis that I think is right for me, but we'll wait and see.  To realise there's people out there that experience the same range of emotions, confusing and often scary thought patterns and generally struggle with life in a similar way I have gives me hope; I am not alone.

But the when I read/hear about people's extreme experiences (again, especially with BPD but also BiPolar) I feel alone again, like a total fraud and as if I have no right to feel the way I do; it makes me believe the people who tell me I'm not "sick enough" because I "function".  The reason for this is the extreme side of people's mental health problems.  I've never been sectioned, I've never harmed myself to the extent I need medical attention and I've never made a real suicide attempt. These are all good things, of course. But it makes me feel like a FRAUD. What right do I have to feel so crappy, to whine to the medical professionals (actually I rarely whine, I tend to hold everything inside me to make people think I'm capable, an achiever) about my problems, when there are people out there that go through such turmoil that hospitalisation is the best option.

These issues might explain why I've had a pretty crappy week; I feel like I've been on a downer again.
Last Tuesday I was fortunate enough, through work, to attend a Personality Disorder training even run by the NHS at Runwell Hospital (a secure mental health unit). This was run in the main by a forensic social worker but there were several presentations by an "expert by experience"....a 50-odd year old woman who's been living with iffy mental health since she was 18; having had diagnoses of BPD, psycosis, anxiety, depression and most recently BiPolar.  Her story would have been moving to anyone.....but bits of her presentations left me in tears - actually having someone stood in front of me speaking the words I struggle to, about her own experiences.

On Friday, I went back to Runwell for the 2nd module of this training - again, run by the FSW, expert by experience plus a forensic psycologist. Again extremely moving for me.  It's tough sitting in a room of professionals (mainly mental health nurses from Runwell and several Probation colleagues) who, as a whole, are "sane" and I'm supposed to be one of them, they don't know you're crazy inside....and I'm sat there trying to hide my tears so I'm not revealed as the fraud I am.

So maybe my downer this week is because I'm again struggling to make sense of who I am. Am I this mad person that I feel inside, or am I a total fraud with no reason or right to make out like life sucks for me? I don't know, all I know is that I've been crying alot, withdrawing from my partner, anxious about seeing people, struggling with my eating and the feeling/voice inside me is telling me to get out the razor blades to make it all better.