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A look at life through BPD-coloured glasses: Living with Borderline Personality Disorder

Education is critical to reducing stigma.

To gain insight and better understanding of the experience of living with or experiencing a mental illness, CMHA NS has created this platform for people who live with, have experienced or are impacted by mental illness to share insight, educate the public and inspire hope.

About Borderline Personality Disorder

Approximately 2.2 per cent of Canadians live with Borderline personality disorder (BPD).  

Borderline Personality Disorder or BPD is a serious and complex mental health condition.  

People who live with BPD have difficulty regulating or handling their emotions or controlling their impulses. They are highly sensitive to what is going on around them and can react with intense emotions to small changes in their environment.  

They have been described as living with constant emotional pain, and the symptoms of BPD are a result of their efforts to cope with this pain.  

Beth is a 41-year-old writer who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder. Her responses represent one journey with Borderline Personality Disorder. 

***To protect the identity of the individual, the pseudonym Beth is used. *** 

How does living with Borderline Personality Disorder impact your daily life, or does it?  

The best description of what it’s like to live with BPD is that I lack emotional skin. I feel emotions very intensely. Everything feels personal. I must constantly remind myself that it is not. Another description of BPD that made a lot of sense to me is that it is “chronic irrationality.” 

I wrap a lot of my self-worth in my performance in at jobs and when I make a mistake I unleash a torrent of self-loathing I would not subject my worst enemy to.  

Here’s how it shows up for me:  Let’s say, I am working on a project and I feel like my counterpart is not doing their share of the work. I am frustrated and feel like they don’t value me.  

I talk to them – calmly, which takes effort because I am angrier than this really warrants because I feel their performance is reflection of whether or not they value me. I’m frustrated and I feel taken advantage of.  

I pick them apart in my head and think about other similar situations and get more frustrated with them. 

Then I think about other people I have been frustrated with for one reason or another, and I feel like everyone is taking advantage of me.  

Then I start to feel bad because I’m being really harsh. Mind you, most of this is happening in my head. 

I think about all the interactions I have had over the week and all the things I said and how they illustrate my incompetence. I am the worst. I think I am failing. Everyone thinks I am a joke. 

I am angry at myself for thinking all those harsh things and decide I was probably at fault in the situation with my counterpart anyway. That gives me some relief weirdly and I feel slightly better and move on. 

That can happen in the course of a day. 

If you apply that line of thinking to any given situation and you will get a look at life through BPD coloured glasses.  

What are the most common misconceptions about your condition?  

That people who live with BPD are manipulative, narcissistic, attention-seeking liars.  

What is most disheartening is the misconception that people who live with BPD are difficult to treat, and by proxy, not worth treating. For me this has made is difficult to find treatment – which is incredibly frustrating.  

Aren’t a lot of serious conditions difficult to treat? Why does that make me a lost cause? It is no more my doing that I live with BPD than it would be if I had Cancer.  

Should a Cancer patient be turned away because Cancer can come back – which I think would make it difficult to treat.  

The answer is no, isn’t it?  

When you commit to treating people, you do so with the goal of recovery at best and at the very least, improving their quality of life. It should not be different because something is difficult.  

I have read that and heard, that this reputation that BPD has is earned – some patients resist or refuse treatment for any number of reasons – myself included.  

But I argue that is not a good enough reason to refuse because if I hadn’t eventually been supported and received treatment, I would not have the good life I get to live today.  

** CONTENT WARNING ** 

The following paragraph mentions suicide, suicidal ideations [thoughts] and self-harm]. If those topics feel unsafe for you at this time please skip to the next bolded question. 

 What led to your diagnosis? 

Between the ages of 18 and 27, I was angry, confused. I was felt alot of pain I didn’t know how to process and I caused  a lot of pain. My behaviour was self-destructive. I attempted suicide four times, and I was self-harming [cutting myself]. I experimented with substances.  

During this time, I did see a doctor, and a psychiatrist, who misdiagnosed me with bipolar disorder – I have read bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder can get mixed up.  

I was prescribed several different medications to try to treat the symptoms during these years, including, Prozac, Ritalin, Celexa, Trazodone, Ativan, and Lithium.  

I got into an abusive relationship at one point. Every time my situation went south [mostly because of my own poor choices] I moved and did it all over again. 

 When I was around 26, I ended up in the emergency room and got a chance to talk to the psychiatrist on duty who suggested I be reassessed for BPD. He said he didn’t think I fit the criteria for bipolar disorder after talking with me.  

He referred me to another psychiatrist, and they confirmed that BPD was my actual diagnosis. 

How did you feel when you got the diagnosis? 

At the time, I felt nothing. Later, anger. Now, relief. Every day I feel so grateful to have finally been correctly diagnosed. You cannot treat something you do not understand, right?  

My parents were relieved. My mom especially. We have always been close. Those dark years were hard on her. She and my dad didn’t really have a support network of people who understood BPD. She bought so many books! She said they helped her gain context – which, as we know, is everything.    

What led to your recovery? 

One of her books! It was called ‘The Essential family Guide to Borderline Personality Disorder’ by Randy Kreger.  

I was staying with my parents after a relationship ended and I imploded my life…again.  

I quit my job, gave up my apartment and moved back home. This was my pattern. End a relationship. Quit everything and move. And it’s not lost on me how lucky I am I had a home to go to. Not everyone does.  

Each time I repeated that pattern and it got harder and more expensive to pick up the pieces.  

One day out of either desperation I picked up that book.  When I read it, I began to cry. I thought, “These people sound crazy! That’s not me! I am a total monster!  

Then I saw all the highlighted passages and notes in the margins and dogeared pages. My mom had read this thing more than once. That’s when it hit me.  

She was IDENTIFYING with what was in the book. She was seeing me in this book.  

I thought, how could anyone love this person being described in the book. How could anyone love me??  

I realized she must love me anyway because she never gave up and lost hope – which must have been incredibly difficult. Even though she watched me make the same mistake over and over with no power to make me stop.  

I saw myself through someone else’s eyes for the first time and past my own pain.  

That was really when I made getting well a priority and pursued treatment.  

That was only 12 years ago.  

But in those 12 years, because of the support I had and the treatment I eventually received, I have lived a stable, “normal” life. I have an excellent job that I enjoy. 

I have strong relationships with my family that are based on mutual respect and honesty. I have savings and RRSP – and if you can imagine the finances of someone who lived the way I did, you would know how big a deal that is!  

I also have a partner – we’ve been together for 8 years and, most importantly, we are together because we want to be together, not because I can’t be alone. Most of my relationships were based on my need to be with someone – anyone. And that is a terrible basis on which to choose someone. It only brought more problems.  

That lesson saved my life.  

What treatment, if any, have you received?  

I took part in a Dialectic Therapy Group. I also go to therapy, which is where learned how to use tools like self-talk, mindfulness, checking my facts, etc.  

I am very lucky I have people who love me and support me and who are honest with me.  

I have people to talk to, along with the skills to continue working on myself. All because people decided I was worth it. Even if I am difficult. Even when I don’t think I am worth it.  

What advice would you give to people who love someone who is struggling with this condition?  

In my experience, the best way to support someone is to love them, tell them how their behaviour impacts you in a non-judgmental, non accusatory way and not when you’re in an argument or they are distraught or in crisis. There is education our there to teach you these skills. And there are people to help you both. 

Resources: 

Books on Borderline Personality Disorder 

Find more books on BPD 

Sources: National Alliance on Mental Illness, CMHA.ca, McLean Hospital, Project 375, the Linehan Institute, psychologytoday.com

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