Borderline-ings Playbook

I should have announced that I was going to stop running my blog. This community has done so much for me and my recovery, and I owe you all an explanation.

So you all know how I was studying hard to be a therapist? Well, it happened. I’m finally a licensed therapist! That being said, it would be ethically quite sticky for me to give mental health advice to people who aren’t my clients. Therapists are supposed to refrain from offering any clinical interventions or interpretations to people who are not in our care, so I am not sure if answering asks is appropriate. But perhaps I can still post about coping skills and strategies for mental wellness that I find helpful, without necessarily recommending them to anyone in particular? I’ll give this some thought.

When I started this blog, I had just been diagnosed with BPD and was really suffering. This community helped me understand my disorder and connect with others who relate as well. I have met several friends through the BPD community here, and one of them I actually now live with!

All of you here—your guidance, support, feedback, and love—have made such a big difference in my recovery. I finished DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) and I can now say I no longer meet criteria for BPD. Yes, some days are hard, but overall my illness is far more manageable and my quality of life has dramatically improved. I just wish everyone had access to therapy like I did.

Now that I’m a therapist, I do CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), DBT (of course), CBTp (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Psychosis), and I have just completed training in CPT for PTSD (Cognitive Processing Therapy). The exciting aspect of this work is that there is so much more to learn and so many ways to help clients. It’s very rewarding, but admittedly I am struggling with feelings of inadequacy. I wonder if I was better at giving advice when I was running this blog!

My personal life has changed too. I found out that I don’t have major depressive disorder and persistent depressive disorder, like my therapists thought I did; it turns out I have bipolar II. I also have delayed onset PTSD. I have alluded to this before, but I had trauma in high school. Up until a few years ago, I was pretty much okay, but then I ended up in an environment that very much reminded me of my trauma and that triggered full-blown PTSD and the hypomanic episodes. This also triggered panic attacks and eventually panic disorder, though CBT has helped immensely with that.

Not gonna lie, these new diagnoses felt like a major setback. I made so much progress with BPD… and then these other disorders developed. PTSD in particular is really kicking my butt. Thankfully, it’s not affecting my work at all. I would still say that I’m not struggling nearly as much as I was several years ago, before I was in DBT. I’m trying Prolonged Exposure Therapy for PTSD, so I will see how that goes.

Anyway, I appreciate you all. Thank you for everything you have done to make my days brighter. It’s been a honor running this blog and being part of this community. Recovery is possible. And beautiful.

All my love,

Hey there,

Part of this might be that who and what you are attached to is part of your identity. If you don’t really feel like you have your own sense of self, you may feel like the things and people you like comprise your entire identity. It’s common for anyone to have their sense of self partially derived from their interests (like if you are a huge fan of martial arts or love seeing Broadway shows) and feel a little hurt when someone makes a negative comment about it. If you are extra attached though that can amplify how much more it hurts and how much more personal it feels, because if you struggle with identity it may feel like this celebrity or interest is everything you are, like you don’t exist outside of your attachment to them.

I had a similar experience. When I hear someone say something negative about a group I affiliate myself with, I translate that to “They are not talking about me specifically. It is not about me. And I am more than my affiliation with ____.” Every time I hear that I take a moment to breathe and translate what I just heard. I have to remember that other people aren’t quite as sensitive as I am and may not realize that not liking my interests feels like disapproval of myself as a person. They don’t mean what our brains tell us they mean. They don’t associate us with that group as intensely as we do. They are talking about this one person/thing separately and don’t really see it as talking about us, if that makes sense.

This isn’t to say that I am simply telling you “well don’t take it personally.” I’m encouraging you to take a step back, check the facts about what they are really saying (which is surface-level really), and remind yourself that they see you as a person beyond just an association with a celebrity or interest. Remember, people can disagree on things and still like who the other person is. Try to think about times when you still liked someone overall even if you didn’t like something they liked. Does that mean you disapprove of that person? Or that you love them any less? Definitely not.

Trust me, I know it’s hard and it requires practice. It will get easier with time though.