My recent diagnosis of BPD is just one link of a very long chain of mental illness that began when I was a child, pervaded my youth and has led me to numerous breakdowns and suicide attempts. Last year I was finally given the PDQ8 test for personality disorders and scored fairly high in areas suggesting a borderline diagnosis. I haven’t taken to the news of my new label very well, and its something that has struck me when reading other blogs and twitter feeds from people who also have similar diagnoses – how the “label” makes them feel as a person. If you think about it, all the diagnosis means is that I have a name for a set of behaviours that I have been displaying for many years that have been deeply unhelpful to me and damaging to my relationships with people that I care for. I’ve known about these quirks for a long time, so why do they now feel such a big deal now that a doctor has put a name to them? This is something that I’ve been discussing with my therapist for some time and it seems to boil down to one thing… shame. BPD is not a “trendy” mental illness like anxiety or bipolar, neither is it something that has “celebrity” cache. There isn’t currently a Stephen Fry of BPD, willing to champion the illness and its sufferers. I’m not for one moment saying that either bipolar or anxiety are nice or unimportant, but personality disorders are very much the poor cousin of mental illness, even amongst the medical profession. They aren’t something that can be medicated for, they are complex (as personalities are) and often make the sufferer unresponsive to suggestion, making for a frustrating practitioner/patient interaction. Anything where defect or damage to personality is concerned sets alarm bells ringing for most people. What’s wrong with that person? Are they a psychopath? Are they dangerous? The articles in newspapers and the language used in books on the subject aren’t helpful either as they paint sufferers as manipulative, conniving emotional abusers who are irrevocably damaged. Many books, written by psychologist, psychiatrists and self-help “gurus” (lord save us from those) often write from the point of view of the family and friends of the sufferer and describe how to “survive” a relationship with a “borderline” (nice use of labelling there). An article in the Guardian of all places (a liberal newspaper for those that don’t know) recently ran an article from an American self-help author entitled ‘ How to spot if you work with someone with a personality disorder’. It went on to perform character assassination on an entire medical cohort and encouraged office workers to effectively diagnose their colleagues so they can avoid being manipulated and damaged by them. This shocked my to my core and thankfully sparked a backlash that resulted in the article being taken down and a retraction being issued. The worrying fact is that this point of view is the norm, it is the common belief about BPD and personality disorders in general. It’s my experience that people with the condition are over sensitive, quick to temper and are clingy and needy, but they are also brave, loving, empathic, helpful and kind. Since taking to twitter to meet other people with the condition I have seen a great many examples of the best of Humanity and the depth of suffering that BPD causes-not to wider public, but to the sufferer themselves. The self-doubt, the fear of being abandoned, the sense of worthlessness, the guilt about their behaviour and the shame that the label has given them. I feel all of these things too, and want nothing more that to give all fellow sufferers a collective hug of acceptance, to tell them all that it will be alright and that someone understands. When the world doesn’t understand us, or seems unable to accept us, it comes down to us to accept each other and give each other the comfort and validation that we crave and need. What people need to understand is that we are the same as everyone else, we just feel things more intensely, both the positives and negatives. We love more intensely, need more intensely and this ultimately is what makes us depressed lonely and misunderstood. In the work environment we are more likely to be worrying that we’ve upset someone than be manipulating our colleagues. The description of the scheming manipulator is of the sociopath, a person that feels nothing for people and has intense self interest. BPD sufferers are the opposite of this, we care far too much for others, often to the detriment of ourselves.
While I dislike the whole celebrity figurehead culture around mental illness, I can’t deny that it has raised the profile of illnesses like bipolar, anxiety and depression. Maybe it is time for a celebrity champion for BPD. A Stephen Fry for personality disorders? Maybe it could work….
Borderline with a PhD 