Borderline Personality Disorder

I heard about a football player who is raising money to research mental health issues.

He is involved because he had been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. This piqued my curiosity because borderline personality disorder sounds pretty harmless to me. Sounds like something I could and should be diagnosed with.

It doesn't have the bite of someone who is diagnosed to be psychotic or schizophrenic. Those sound frightening, there is a darkness there, as well there should be with disorders of the mind. I'm picturing old tymey insane asylums, straight jackets, dark, damp hallways and  special "re-orientation rooms."

Emotionally Unstable Borderline Personality Disorder is described by the World Health Organization in this way: "characterized by a definite tendency to act impulsively, and without consideration of the consequences; the mood is unpredictable and capricious. There is a liability to outbursts of emotion and an incapacity to control the behavioral explosions. There is a tendency to quarrelsome behavior and to conflicts with others, especially when impulsive acts are thwarted or censored."

This is not a mental disorder - this is life.

Our society is predisposed to creating excuses, diseases, afflictions, and syndromes to explain away the fact that we are essentially weak, undisciplined, whiny, uncommitted and unfocused.

Where did this come from? Some of it is tied up in the medical communities commitment to sell more drugs. We got pills for everything, baby. We are so weak and focused on pointing the finger of blame anywhere but in the mirror that we are willing to take pills whose side effects include eye lid convulsions and nose hair proliferation.

Some of it reflects a shift in the way our society thinks, and this is what I cannot put my finger on. What happened along the way to make us lazy and unaccountable? What factors combined to rob us of ambition? How did our psyches shift to a place where we never feel compelled to accept the consequences of our own actions?

Characteristics of borderline personality disorder include emotional instability, unstable self image, social instability, desire for casual or illicit sex, harmful impulsiveness, and hostility.

That covers just about everybody I know.

Everybody is emotionally unstable because we don't know who we are or where we are going and have a complete inability to even begin to understand life.

We all have unstable self images. Even those who project total confidence are full of shit because they go home and night and think "I hope everybody bought my performance today."

We are socially unstable because our society is so screwed up. Or is it the other way around? Who knows. Most of us are uncomfortable with where we are or where we want to go or where we have been. Most of us want something else or regret something tangible.

Casual or illicit sex? Who the hell does not want that?

We act impulsively because we are boxed in. The pressure builds and you do something to express yourself or try to drag some happiness into your life.

There is lots of hostility to go around. Everybody is frustrated, trapped, lost and unfulfilled.

At some point we decided in this country that the best way to deal with our own problems is to blame somebody else and/or identify those problems as syndromes and disorders and "treat" them.

This allows me to throw a plate of garlic mashed potatoes in my waitress's face and walk out triumphantly without paying the bill or getting arrested because I have borderline personality disorder.

I am not the toughest guy around. I make a lot of excuses, I whine (so do you, so don't be so quick to point the finger). But I am trying to make changes. I am putting some effort out there to try to grab a hold of my life, my life as I know it could be.

Perhaps my efforts are misplaced.

If I am not mistaken, I believe I was recently diagnosed with Underachievers Syndrome.

They have a pill for that. The technical term for the medicine is Getoffyourass citrate.

The side effects are intimidating. They include success, improved self esteem, an exponential increase in income, and peace of mind.

I am going all in. Gonna take the risk. Gonna call Dr. Feelgood tomorrow for my prescription.