Our stories
You're most welcome @octavia and @Woyapp 
@Woyapp I hear you about being in a difficult place right now. Getting a diagnosis can be really confronting and especially if you get different ones from different psychologists or psychiatrists. I have bipolar 1 and complex PTSD but was also diagnosed borderline personality disorder many years ago. In my case I'm sure they've finally got it right, but it took until I was 46 (now 56) to reach the correct diagnosis. I don't think of it as a label, rather a pointer to research more about. Getting the meds right can take some time too, and going through adjustments to being on them can be really difficult as it takes a while (sometimes a few weeks) to know if they're working the way they are meant to for you. I still had a child at home when I was going through the long journey to get to accurate diagnosis. You can only do the best you are able to at any given time, and forgive yourself for what happens because of your mental health. Hopefully your partner will be more understanding as you both learn more about what's going on for you and how to best manage it. For me it's a 3-fold approach that works - psychiatrist for meds, psychologist for therapy (doing EMDR at the moment and it's working really well for me, but CBT and just talking with her is helpful too), and self-management and maintaining 'insight' into where I'm at. Being able to recognise triggers, times when things are changing, and form strategies to deal with both has helped me enormously. Learning what self-care activities work best for calm and focus really helps too.
That's probably enough from me - bit of a rave - do take care.
