Well I always felt very different even as a child, as a young child I was very frightened of things, extremely sensitive as I said before I didn’t mix well with people, I didn’t get on very well at school because I was bullied quite a lot through school and college actually but now…I was, I was very timid, just didn’t, I just never felt normal if that makes sense.

I think, no I mean there was times I remember quite lonely [um] that I didn’t feel normal that I didn’t feel like the other people in my class or things like that [um] I felt sorry for my mum and dad because they’d had, I still can see that they know I thought that and I was only five and I can see that day very clearly and I can still remember the music that was on the radio in the morning before I went to school and it was at the school desk that I thought it [um] that I just felt so sorry for my mum and dad that they hadn’t got a normal daughter [um] that came out of school happy [um] that had people that liked her, yeah.

Well as I say the BPD makes you feel like that anyway, it makes you feel lonely, it makes you feel isolated you haven’t always got the connection with people you find, I find people very difficult and I always have, I don’t particularly enjoy being around a lot of people. In some cases yes I do because I’ve got to know them and I’ve allowed them into my life if you get what I mean.

I: Yeah

I don’t find it easy to allow people into my life but no it, the borderline feeds on the loneliness, it gives you the loneliness it’s one of two things really, it’s that, it just makes you feel like you’ve got a gaping hole and you can’t fill it.

Nothing, food or whatever I use to try to, to fill it I can’t, I can’t fill it and it’s, yeah it’s, it’s brought me to the point on several occasions of suicidal thoughts and feelings quite recently even it’s brought me to that because it’s just, you just can’t see a light at the end of the tunnel, you’re locked in this dark room with no way out which then makes you feel lonely again and you can’t always describe it to people how you.

I: If, if you tried to describe it with, how, how would you describe that loneliness?

It’s crushing, crushing and it’s frightening to not see a light at the end of the tunnel, a light in the room that you’re locked in it’s frightening.

A lot of the people I identify with and this is gonna sound really quite xxxx probably [um] are dead

I: Yeah that’s okay

Marilyn Monroe

I: Why so?

I think because she had, she had the borderline personality disorder herself  and a lot of in the way she behaved and how people treated her I can relate to. She was just a lost soul and again couldn’t find that connection she needed with someone to keep her alive.

I: Mmmm yes she was, she was a very lonely figure as you said

Yeah

I: Okay

She got the stars, you know, and she was a very, and she just, she was hunting for her own family because she hadn’t got one of her own so I relate to her a lot, I relate to, I mean I was a, still am a big massive fan of like Nirvana and Kurt Cobain and [um] the grunge scene xxxxxxxx Alice in Chains and Chris Cornell, I think it’s people that have got, have mental health issues and perhaps killed themselves or drug problems, I sort of feel for them, I emphasise more with them. Yeah, they’re lost souls.

I: They had families however didn’t they, they, but

Yeah

I: Yeah so they experienced another, an internal form of loneliness as you described it.

I think so but that fed into the external loneliness as well because like Kurt Cobain had, obviously mental problems himself to do what he did but he, I think he, I think he actually said it I’m not, don’t quote me on that but, you know, he could be in with a room, a crowd but he felt so empty and lost and alone and I think a lot of people felt like, and I think that stems from obviously things weren’t great in his childhood and I don’t think things were working out too well with his wife and plus the drug problem [um] all fed into how he was feeling and that was it. That was the end of him and I think with the same with a lot of people that go buy drugs or suicide is, there’s something there going on that’s fed into that internal loneliness and which projects outwards onto how you feel on the outside as well.

I have no-one to share my life with, no-one of my own to love and be with if you get what I mean [um] I sit at home at night, well through the day with nobody apart from when I speak to someone on the phone, that’s it. I don’t have someone to turn to, to tell my problems to or anything like that

It’s that feeling of as I said earlier I’ve always been one that’s always wanted someone in their life properly, you know [um] you know a partner of my own, proper, you know, relationship and I think and I’ve always wanted to have a family and that unfortunately I’ve never had the chance of that so that adds to it you sort of ruminate over past situations and if what if and it just, just not having someone there to give you that that you belong, if you get what I mean.

I: Yeah

I felt, I don’t feel I belong anywhere

I: You talked about your support worker

Yeah

And [um] their help in finding groups

Yes.

I: Could you talk to me a little bit about that?

Well I’ve worked with [name] her name is, she’s, she’s been a Godsend really in the fact of being such a help, no pressure put on me because I’m not good with pressure.

I: And she understands that?

Yes she does very much so and she’s just worked with me patiently now for like, I think it’s seven or eight years now. She could see how I was from the start that I wasn’t going to be pushed into anything, I’m not good at being pushed into things that I’m not comfortable with because of feeling I’m gonna fail because if I can’t do something it makes me feel like I’m a failure. And so she picked up on that from the start and I think she slowly sort of integrated me into thinking about meeting some people at, it’s like a community, you know, like a group to just sit and talk to people, you have your lunch there, a cup of coffee or tea or whatever and play cards or dominoes or something, it’s just one of those sort of groups for people with mental health issues. I mean she, she ran it with another lady when I was there but she had to move on but she still works within [name] but she just went straight with just doing the outreach work instead of the group as well as outreach. But she still had times when she was there and stuff like that and she was able to take me over you know. And I

I: Sorry, yes please go on

And I integrated well in the group, I did and I got on well with them and eventually it took a while but yeah I got on well there within the group. They were lovely people and yeah I miss, I miss not going actually.

I: What would good loneliness support look like for you? So for both of the forms of loneliness that you discussed.

I think it’s having trust and confidence in someone that you know you can talk to that you build a trust up with somebody, I couldn’t just talk to someone willy nilly and say about how I felt. I think you need that interaction of getting to know someone like I did with [name of support worker] That support, that feeling that you’re not being pushed that you’ve got someone that’s listening to what you’re saying internally and externally about how you feel lonely and taking it on board. Because I find, well, A like I said earlier I don’t find it easy to interact with people anyway very well sometimes, you know, but nice that, I think you need to have that trust in someone that’s gonna, you know, that’s gonna help you just be there.