What does it mean to have borderline personality disorder? Does it mean you are a manipulative monster, or one can never have a healthy relationship? Oh, it’s the same thing as bipolar, isn’t it? Or is it something that just doesn’t exist? It’s not any of those. It is a complex mental disorder that has had such a huge negative stigma in our society. A more in-depth overview of the stereotypes and stigmas can be found here. For me, living with BPD is a complex thing. It’s knowing that someone who raised me, inflicted so much pain and abuse that I’m like this. It’s the feeling of having to learn who you are because you never got the chance before. It is going to therapy three times a week, just to survive. BPD is actually when someone does not have control of one’s emotions, so they feel all of their emotions extremely intensely. When I am happy, I am ecstatic, when I am sad, I am depressed. The constant up and down is exhausting, having to shield your emotions just to look “normal” in our society. As one cannot just talk about it, the stigmas are too powerful.
Our society, for centuries, has used mental illness, and the stigma behind that to control people, and oppress them. For example, in the 19th century, the term drapetomania was invented, to “diagnose” slaves who tried to escape. If you wish to learn more about this atrocious act, click here. Creating a stigma of madness for these African Americans, trapping them in their physical and mental cells. Being labeled as “mad” throughout the centuries, disabled people from growing into their true potential. Now you may be wondering what this has to do with BPD. Well, it has everything to do with it. Living with a borderline takes a lot of hard work. The treatment for it is incredibly intense and very emotionally draining. When one lives with this, and then has the pressure of the world’s stigma, it really inhibits growth and healing. Being labeled as mad or manipulative, causes one to draw back from society, limiting healing.
Unruly Bodies 
I completely understand the struggle of being labeled as borderline personality. Before the diagnosis you feel so angry and frustrated with yourself all the time, you feel out of control. Once you get the label, guilt overwhelms you. I was diagnosed a little over a year ago with BPD and its so frustrating. I’m a psych major so I had done so much research on bpd because I was desperate to know what was wrong with me. Once I got the diagnosis I researched more, I researched how to live in a relationship with bpd (never do that its really upsetting everything is about how to break up with someone with BPD). I felt so alone. Just know you aren’t alone and you aren’t a monster, thank you for sharing your experience, it means alot.
You should look into DBT, I do DBT and it helps a lot. It is interesting to see how much DBT relates to the concept of phenomenology, because the concepts they teach us are all about how we react to different phenomena.
Thank you for sharing.
I also have BPD. Before the diagnosis, I was confused, enraged, anxious, tired, and lost. I couldn’t understand why I felt the way I did. I began therapy because I couldn’t take the feeling of constant suffocation anymore. Once diagnosed, although I felt relieved as I finally had an answer, I also felt extreme shame. A PERSONALITY disorder? Movies put a lot of stigmas on personality disorders, making it embarrassing to talk about. A lot of my childhood and early adulthood started making sense…why I did what I did…what my real trauma was and just how bad everything I experienced at a young age really was. As stated by dietbeepis, DBT is a great resource. Emotional Regulation and Distress Tolerance skills are taught to manage everyday life.
@plantmom8155 I fully enjoyed reading your informative blog post. I appreciate that you are providing a platform for a conversation about BPD because it is more common than people realize and it goes unaddressed and untreated for many unethical reasons. The people who read your post should count themselves very fortunate. I have a sister with BPD who has been fighting to keep her symptoms in check. Its not always so easy to follow the normalcy script. With that, I will say keep up the good work.