«I was managing a rape centre back in 2013 when it became apparent to me that almost every woman on our caseload and waiting list had been told that she had borderline personality disorder, within months of disclosing or reporting sexual violence. Many of them were put on a cocktail of different medications and were then subjected to all sorts of maltreatment and discrimination as a ‘borderline’ patient.
Unfortunately, borderline personality disorder is one of the most harmful diagnoses a woman can be given, as she will be reframed as a manipulative, deceitful and emotionally unstable person.
This is why women with borderline personality disorders are often ‘flagged’ to health and emergency services without their knowledge. Many GP surgeries flag a female patient with borderline personality disorder as a high-risk person; as do ambulance services, fire services, police services and social services. What this means in reality is that women and girls with this diagnosis can be treated as if they are unstable, unreliable or exaggerating when they call emergency services for help.
It appears then, that instead of addressing the enormous and complex traumas of women and girls subjected to male violence, there is a strong culture of diagnosing them with mental disorders and encouraging them to take daily medication. One of the most damaging impacts of this practice is the subsequent internalisation of self-blame and self-doubt for women and girls who are told that their trauma responses and coping mechanisms are not valid or relevant, instead, they are mentally ill due to some form of ‘disorder’, or ‘imbalance’, or ‘faulty genes’.
Borderline personality disorder in women has earned its place as the modern-day ‘hysteria’. Women and teen girls are the majority of people diagnosed with it, the criteria are as loose as the professional needs or wants them to be, and it results in years of medication, discrimination and treatment.
Once diagnosed with a personality disorder, you can only ever be in ‘remission’ but never ‘cured’. When and if you struggle again, it is seen as evidence that you have ‘relapsed’. How does a woman or girl ever escape this diagnosis when the language and theory is so circular?»
- Sexy But Psycho: How the Patriarchy Uses Women’s Trauma Against Them by Jessica Taylor
