Hey there, my name is Michelle, I am 28 years old and I live with diagnosed borderline personality disorder and depression.
My everyday life is usually a rollercoaster ride of emotions that takes me up and down without a break or warning; social interactions and interpersonal relationships are my kryptonite and I am in constant struggle with myself to allow closeness and love while another part of me fights against it. All that takes so much space and energy that important daily tasks are no longer feasible for me.
Last year I lost my job and decided to go to a daycare clinic to learn to deal with my problems. I got some good strategies and used several apps that should help me to implement them in my daily life (e.g. by writing down situations and related feelings and reflecting on them, or writing a positive diary to direct thoughts more positively). Then I read about Bearable and was excited about the idea to have one single app where I can track everything important in one place and also have the possibility to customize everything individually.
Meanwhile I use almost all functions the app offers. I started out by writing down my thoughts and feelings about different situations via mood tracking and highlighting respective factors in order to recognize possible connections over time via the very detailed insights, the calendar function, or even the graph, where you can select individual factors/moods/symptoms and combine them as needed. Special situations I have highlighted in the “Significant Events” feature.
The gratitude feature has helped me much better than expected to give my thoughts a push in the positive direction after half a year of “practice” and by tracking my symptoms and my sleep I have become aware that my legs are often very restless at night and now I clarify whether it could be RLS. I track my medication, have myself reminded to take it every morning, and recently started to use the food diary to keep an eye on my eating habits as I tend not to eat when I am feeling bad.
Sometimes I can make the entries very promptly so that they are as “unaltered” as possible, but it’s not always time for that, so there are usually 5 – 10 minutes in the evening to catch up on it. And even if I’m in a bad mood, I can change the settings for the day so that everything is done with a few clicks. It has already become a nice little evening ritual for me.
All in all, I think you could say that Bearable has helped me (and still does) to become more aware of my everyday life, listen more to what my body tells me, accept my feelings and fears, reflect on myself and situations – especially in a social context. It helps me to recognize important connections, become more optimistic, re-experience the feeling of self-efficacy – even more as I have the progress in front of my eyes. Above all, it helped to recognize my needs behind all of this and to strengthen strategies by which I no longer feel so overwhelmed by my feelings that often.
I’m just more “with me” again and I haven’t felt this way for a long time, because I am actually used to being heavily influenced by other people in my life. It doesn’t matter if it’s the character I somehow adapted to and under which I could never really find my own personality, or the needs of the other person, which I always put above my own because the fear of loss drove me crazy. Even now I still have to struggle with it sometimes, but it is a long way and Bearable not only accompanies me but has also allowed me to get a better insight behind the scenes. I really sat down, thought about my needs and finally got to know them. By regularly reflecting on the app, they have even become friends somehow.
I can only say that it has helped me tremendously to deal with myself. Especially with the borderline disease, mindfulness in everyday life has become so indispensable for me to be able to deal with my emotions in different situations and even triggers I can sometimes absorb quite well. Without the Bearable app as a great self-learning and documentation tool, which you have at your fingertips at all times for quick entries, I don’t think I could have gotten this far in such a short time. I can only recommend everyone to try it out!
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Start to reclaim control over your well-being today! Download Bearable for free on Apple or Android.
Bearable – Mood and Symptoms tracker for Depression and BPD
Meanwhile I use almost all functions the app offers. I started out by writing down my thoughts and feelings about different situations via mood tracking and highlighting respective factors in order to recognize possible connections over time via the very detailed insights, the calendar function, or even the graph, where you can select individual factors/moods/symptoms and combine them as needed. Special situations I have highlighted in the “Significant Events” feature.
The gratitude feature has helped me much better than expected to give my thoughts a push in the positive direction after half a year of “practice” and by tracking my symptoms and my sleep I have become aware that my legs are often very restless at night and now I clarify whether it could be RLS. I track my medication, have myself reminded to take it every morning, and recently started to use the food diary to keep an eye on my eating habits as I tend not to eat when I am feeling bad.
Sometimes I can make the entries very promptly so that they are as “unaltered” as possible, but it’s not always time for that, so there are usually 5 – 10 minutes in the evening to catch up on it. And even if I’m in a bad mood, I can change the settings for the day so that everything is done with a few clicks. It has already become a nice little evening ritual for me.
All in all, I think you could say that Bearable has helped me (and still does) to become more aware of my everyday life, listen more to what my body tells me, accept my feelings and fears, reflect on myself and situations – especially in a social context. It helps me to recognize important connections, become more optimistic, re-experience the feeling of self-efficacy – even more as I have the progress in front of my eyes. Above all, it helped to recognize my needs behind all of this and to strengthen strategies by which I no longer feel so overwhelmed by my feelings that often.
I’m just more “with me” again and I haven’t felt this way for a long time, because I am actually used to being heavily influenced by other people in my life. It doesn’t matter if it’s the character I somehow adapted to and under which I could never really find my own personality, or the needs of the other person, which I always put above my own because the fear of loss drove me crazy. Even now I still have to struggle with it sometimes, but it is a long way and Bearable not only accompanies me but has also allowed me to get a better insight behind the scenes. I really sat down, thought about my needs and finally got to know them. By regularly reflecting on the app, they have even become friends somehow.
I can only say that it has helped me tremendously to deal with myself. Especially with the borderline disease, mindfulness in everyday life has become so indispensable for me to be able to deal with my emotions in different situations and even triggers I can sometimes absorb quite well. Without the Bearable app as a great self-learning and documentation tool, which you have at your fingertips at all times for quick entries, I don’t think I could have gotten this far in such a short time. I can only recommend everyone to try it out!
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Start to reclaim control over your well-being today! Download Bearable for free on Apple or Android.
Bearable – Mood and Symptoms tracker for Depression and BPD
