Hi! Firstly I want to thank you for taking the time to come around here and read this! I have worked hard on my VTuber journey and am proud of my work. 

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There is no story

When I made NAYU or Nayumi, I didn't give her a background story. She is just a representation of my easethics and interests. She's an anime version of myself. Because who better to be than just yourself? Along my journey of growing on Twitter I have noticed most big VTubers have a model that relates to their backstory or lore. I didn't have that. I felt like I wasn't a VTuber without this, people might not be interested in me and what I do. But, since NAYU is me, I decided to connect my VTuber model with my mental illness: Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).

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Awareness

I want to represent a mental disorder and by doing so my ultimate goal is to spread awareness around BPD and lower the taboo that lingers around it. Because young people with BPD may project symptoms that seem similar to other personality disorders, it is often confused with bipolar, depression, or anxiety disorders. There is limited understanding of the experiences of people living with borderline personality disorder. Often I notice people think BPD is just people who are ''too emotional''. But we are more then just our irregular emotions and painful outbreak episodes. I wan't people to know they are not alone, and that I understand what it's like. I want to support them with positive energy to tell them to keep going, hang on, keep growing!

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What is BPD

Borderline personality disorder is a mental health disorder that impacts the way you think and feel about yourself and others, causing problems functioning in everyday life. It includes self-image issues, difficulty managing emotions and behavior, and a pattern of unstable relationships. With borderline personality disorder, you have an intense fear of abandonment or instability, and you may have difficulty tolerating being alone. Yet inappropriate anger, impulsiveness and frequent mood swings may push others away, even though you want to have loving and lasting relationships. Borderline personality disorder usually begins by early adulthood. The condition seems to be worse in young adulthood and may gradually get better with age. If you have borderline personality disorder, don't get discouraged. Many people with this disorder get better over time with treatment and can learn to live satisfying lives!

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Me and BPD

When I was first diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, I nervously typed the condition into Google, TikTok and Wikipedia to see if I could read up on it. My heart sank when I read that the higher percentage of people who are in a relationship with BPD don't work out. I can see why people who don’t have BPD find it hard to understand. BPD is characterized by rapidly fluctuating moods, an unstable sense of self, impulsiveness, and a lot of fear. That can make you act erratically. One moment you might feel as though you love someone so intensely that you want to spend your life with them. The next moment you’re pushing them away because you’re convinced they’re going to leave. know it’s confusing, and I know caring for someone with BPD can be hard. But I believe that with a better understanding of the condition and its implications for the person managing it, this can be easier. I live with BPD every day. This is what I wish everybody knew about it.

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It can be extremely distressful

A personality disorder is defined by the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition”in relation to the way a person’s long-term patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior cause difficulty in their day-to-day life. As you might understand, a serious mental disorder can be incredibly distressful. People with BPD are often very anxious, particularly about how we are perceived, whether we are liked, and in expectation of being abandoned. Calling us “abusive” on top of that just serves to increase stigma and make us feel worse about ourselves. This can lead to frantic behavior in order to avoid this anticipated abandonment. Pushing loved ones away in a preemptive strike can often seem like the only way to avoid getting hurt. It’s common for those with BPD to trust people, no matter what the quality of the relationship is. At the same time, it’s also common for someone with BPD to be needy, constantly seeking attention and validation to soothe insecurities. Behavior like this in any relationship can be hurtful and alienating, but it is done so out of fear and desperation, not maliciousness.

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It can be traumatic

The cause of that fear is very often trauma. There are different theories about how personality disorders develop: It could be genetic, environmental, related to brain chemistry, or a mixture of some or all. I know my condition has its roots in emotional abuse and sexual trauma. My fear of abandonment started in childhood and has only worsened in my adult life. And I’ve developed a series of unhealthy coping mechanisms as a result. That means I find it very difficult to trust. That means I lash out when I think someone is betraying me or deserting me. That means I use impulsive behavior to try and fill the emptiness I feel — be it by spending money, through alcohol binges, or self-harm. I need validation from other people to feel like I’m not as awful and worthless as I think I am, even though I have no emotional permanence and am unable to hold onto that validation when I get it.

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It can be very abusive

All of this means that being close to me can be extremely hard. I have drained romantic partners because I’ve needed a seemingly endless supply of reassurance. I’ve ignored the needs of other people because I’ve assumed that if they want space, or experience a change in mood, that it’s about me. I’ve built up a wall when I’ve thought I’m about to be hurt. When things go wrong, no matter how small they really are, I am prone to thinking that suicide is the only option. I have literally been the girl who tries to kill herself after a break-up. I understand that to some people this can look like manipulation. It looks like I’m saying that if you don’t stay with me, if you don’t give me all the attention I need, I’ll hurt myself. On top of that, people with BPD are known to find it difficult to accurately read people’s feelings toward us. A person’s neutral response can be perceived as anger, feeding into the ideas we already have about ourselves as bad and worthless. That looks like I’m saying that if I do something wrong, you can’t get angry at me or I’ll cry. I know all of this, and I do understand how it looks.

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It doesn’t excuse the behavior

The thing is, I might do all of those things. I might hurt myself because I sensed you were annoyed that I didn’t do the washing up. I might cry because you became friends with a pretty girl on Facebook. BPD is hyperemotional, erratic, and irrational. As difficult as I know it can be to have someone in your life with it, it’s 10 times more difficult to have it. Being constantly worried, fearful, and suspicious is exhausting. Given lots of us are also healing from trauma at the same time makes that even harder. But that doesn’t excuse this behavior because it does cause pain to others. I’m not saying that people with BPD aren’t ever abusive, manipulative, or nasty — anyone can be those things. BPD doesn’t predispose those traits in us. It just makes us more vulnerable and scared. We know that, too. For a lot of us, what helps us keep going is the hope that things will get better for us. Given access to it, treatments from medicines to talking therapies can have a real benefit. Removing the stigma surrounding the diagnosis can help. It all starts with some understanding. And I hope you can understand.