Living With Borderline Personality Disorder Quotes

Many MPD patients have spent years in unproductive therapies based on the assumption that they were borderlines. ~ Donald R. Ross

The biographies of the great men see their excesses as signs of their greatness. But Jean Rhys, in her biography, is read as borderline; Anaïs Nin is borderline; Djuna is borderline; etc. etc. Borderline personality disorder being an overwhelmingly gendered diagnosis. I write in Heroines: "The charges of borderline personality disorder are the same charges against girls writing literature, I realize - too emotional, too impulsive, no boundaries. ~ Kate Zambreno

To a large degree, a particular collision of genes and temperament with a suboptimal or hostile environment may explain the development of borderline personality disorder. ~ Dolores Mosquera

It doesn't occur to me that alcohol might be unhinging me, that drinking at the rate I am can induce depression, impulsive behaviour, and symptoms of bipolar and borderline personality disorder. ~ Koren Zailckas

Research has also revealed that women who have developed PTSD in relation to early childhood sexual abuse often develop borderline personality disorder. Some severe cases will result in the development of dissociative identity disorder or depersonalization disorder. Patients who have been exposed to protracted and repeated sexual abuse may also develop schizophrenia simultaneously with PTSD. ~ John M. Duffey

There weren't as many layers between her and the world as there were with the rest of us. ~ Renée Knight

What does borderline personality mean, anyhow? It appears to be a way station between neurosis and psychosis: a fractured but not disassembled psyche. Though to quote my post-Melvin psychiatrist: "It's what they call people whose lifestyles bother them. ~ Susanna Kaysen

Dissociative symptoms - primarily depersonalization and derealization - are elements in other DSM-IV disorders, including schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder, and in the neurologic syndrome of temporal lobe epilepsy, also called complex partial seizures. In this latter disorder, there are often florid symptoms of depersonalization and realization, but most amnesia symptoms derive from difficulties with focused attention rather than forgetting previously learned information. ~ James A. Chu

The theologian Paul Tillich wrote that "loneliness can be conquered only by those who can bear solitude." Because the borderline finds solitude so difficult to tolerate, she is trapped in a relentless metaphysical loneliness from which the the only relief comes from of the physical presence of others. So she will often rush to singles bars or with crowded haunts, often with disappointing--or even violent--results. ~ Jerold J. Kreisman

People with BPD are like people with third degree burns over 90% of their bodies. Lacking emotional skin, they feel agony at the slightest touch or movement. ~ Marsha M. Linehan

The role of the therapist is to reflect the being/accepting self that was never allowed to be in the borderline. ~ Michael Adzema

Some of our fiercest battles are fought and won in silence. ~ Kianu Starr

To stave off the panic associated with the absence of a primary object, borderline patients frequently will impulsively engage in behaviors that numb the panic and establish contact with and control over some new object. ~ Christine Ann Lawson

The man reeks of mental illness. I can taste his pathology... Goes well with my palette. ~ Juditta Salem

Multiple personality usually develops in the presence of severe and repeated trauma, beginning at a very early age, when the personality is developing. ~ Joan Coleman

Do you have a multiple personality disorder? ~ Stephenie Meyer

I'm so good at beginnings, but in the end I always seem to destroy everything, including myself. ~ Kiera Van Gelder

A crucial element of the real self is its unconditional acceptance of itself. ~ Michael Adzema

Switching is the term in dissociation theory used to refer to the change of state, or moving from one part or alter to another. Some writers use the word splitting when referring to switching, creating a further confusion. ~ Donald A. Price

Multiple personality [Dissociative Identity Disorder] should also not be confused with alternations of mood from happy to sad, characteristic of the cyclic temperament. These are merely emotional swings; personality splits are far more comprehensive. ~ Ralph Slovenko

I can honestly say that my misery had been transformed into common unhappiness, so by Freud's definition I have achieved mental health. ~ Susanna Kaysen

Thirty seconds of pure awareness is a long time, especially after a lifetime of escaping yourself at all costs. ~ Kiera Van Gelder

A borderline suffers a kind of emotional hemophilia; [s]he lacks the clotting mechanism needed to moderate [her] spurts of feeling. Stimulate a passion, and the borderline emotionally bleeds to death. ~ Jerold Kreisman, Hal Straus

The most chronic and complex of the dissociative disorders, multiple personality disorder, was renamed multiple personality disorder, was renamed 'dissociative identity disorder' in 1994 in DSM-IV (American Psychiatric Association). The rationale for the name change, was among other things, to clarify that there are not literally separate personalities in a person with dissociative identity disorder; 'personalities' was a historical term for the fragmented identity states that characterize the condition. ~ Colin A. Ross

Looking back on the God my friend believed in, he seems a little erratic, not entirely unlike her father - God as borderline personality. ~ Anne Lamott

That was the crux. You. Only you could work on you. Nobody could force you, and if you weren't ready, then you weren't ready, and no amount of open-armed encouragement was going to change that. ~ Norah Vincent

They love without measure those whom they will soon hate without reason. ~ Thomas Sydenham

An inner ease spreads inside me. Such is the power of acceptance and understanding from other people, the power of validation ~ Kiera Van Gelder

I need them to be aware and present with me in the midst of the storm, not just tell me what to do. ~ Kiera Van Gelder

Even fictional characters sometimes receive unwarranted medical opinions. Doctors have diagnosed Ebenezer Scrooge with OCD, Sherlock Holmes with autism, and Darth Vader with borderline personality disorder. ~ Sam Kean

... as Herman (1992b) cogently noted two decades ago, these personality disorders can be iatrogenic, causing harm to individuals as an inadvertent result of the social stigma they carry and the widespread (but not entirely accurate) belief among professionals and insurers that those with Cluster B personality disorders (especially borderline personality disorder[BPD]) cannot be treated successfully, cannot recover, and are a headache to practitioners. For example, the BPD diagnosis continues to be applied predominantly to women often, but not always, in a negative way, usually signifying that they are irrational and beyond help. Describing posttraumatic symptoms as a personality disorder not only can be demoralizing for the client due to its connotation that something is defective with his or her core self (i.e., personality) but also may misdirect the therapist by implying that the patient's core personality should be the focus of treatment rather than trauma-related adaptations that affect but are distinct from the core self. In this way, both therapists and their clients may overlook personality strengths and capacities that are healthy and sources of resilience that can be a basis for building on and enhancing (rather than "fixing" or remaking) the patient's core self and personality. ~ Christine A. Courtois

My skin is so thin that the innocent words of others burn holes right through me. ~ BPD Pieces Of Me Community

The need to compile lists is a personality disorder, as is the need to assert the superiority of some things over other things. ~ Jeremy Hardy

The borderline Queen experiences what therapists call "oral greediness". The desperate hunger of the borderline Queen is akin to the behavior of an infant who had gone too long between feelings. Starved, frustrated, and beyond the ability to calm of soothe herself, she grabs, flails, and wails until at last the nipple is planted securely and perhaps too deeply in her mouth. She coughs, gags, chokes, and spits, eyeing the elusive breast like a wolf guarding her food. Similarity, the Queen holds on to what is hers, taking more than she could use, in case it might be taken away prematurely. ~ Christine Ann Lawson

He may attempt suicide, often not with the intent to die but to feel something, to confirm he is alive. ~ Jerold J. Kreisman

Everybody's a bit screwed up, you know. You can take it as symptoms of a disorder, or you can take it as personality. Me, I'd rather think it as parts of personality. ~ Jarvis Cocker

We propose that BPD involves secondary structural dissociation. Consistent with this, Golynkina and Ryle (1999) found that patients with BPD encompassed a dissociative part of the personality that seems to represent an ANP (a coping ANP) and more than one EP (abuser rage, victim rage, passive victim, and zombie). Some patients with BPD have severe dissociative symptoms, and may actually border on DDNOS or DID. Our clinical observations suggest that dissociative parts in BPD patients have less emancipation and elaboration, and less distinct sense of self than in DDNOS or DID. ~ Ellert R.S. Nijenhuis

Multiple Personality Disorder - MPD - is not a game. It's not "acting" to impress anyone. Trust me, survivors do not receive positive attention for being multiple. Anyone who fakes it would be setting themselves up for a lot of rejection. ~ Margaret Smith

Mary was my first encounter with dissociative identity disorder (DID), which at that time was called multiple personality disorder. As dramatic as its symptoms are, the internal splitting and emergence of distinct identities experienced in DID represent only the extreme end of the spectrum of mental life. ~ Bessel A. Van Der Kolk

A lot of people that get out of prison have anti-social personality disorder, which makes them promiscuous and erratic, and they can't form ordinary relationships. ~ Antony Starr

Cincinatti was where I learned that running away from your problems has a three-month statute of limitations, a lesson I have found repeatedly to be true. Three months is still a first impression
of a city, of other people, of yourself in that place. But there comes a point when you can no longer hide who you are, and the reactions of others become all too familiar ... ~ Stacy Pershall

For those of us with BPD, entering into a shared experience means passing through the ring of fire that leaves us feeling even more burned - and in this case branded with a label no one would ever choose to wear. ~ Kiera Van Gelder

The general public is bewildered and fascinated by Multiple Personality Disorder/Dissociative Identity Disorder. Through books, television and movies, a distorted view of MPD/DID is often presented. While it may make for good entertainment, it fails to truly present the depth and intensity of the inherent trauma. Outside the ordinary day-to-day life experience of most people, it is hard to understand. ~ David Yeung

My significant other right now is myself, which is what happens when you suffer from multiple personality disorder and self-obsession. ~ Joaquin Phoenix

Yet I also recognize this: Even if everyone in the world were to accept me and my illness and validate my pain, unless I can abide myself and be compassionate toward my own distress, I will probably always feel alone and neglected by others. ~ Kiera Van Gelder

The DID patient is a single person who experiences himself or herself as having separate alternate identities that have relative psychological autonomy from one another. At various times, these subjective identities may take executive control of the person's body and behavior and/or influence his or her experience and behavior from "within." Taken together, all of the alternate identities make up the identity or personality of the human being with DID.

- Guidelines for Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder in Adults, Third Revision, p7 ~ James A. Chu

But what if you simply don't have a solid self to return to - if the way you are is seen as basically broken? And what if you can't conceive of "normal" or "healthy" because pain and loneliness are all you remember? ~ Kiera Van Gelder

Another of the difficulties of having DID is the denial. DID is a disorder of denial. It has to be because if the original person knew about the alters and felt their pain, they would either go crazy and be hospitalized permanently, or would die. ~ Eve N. Adams

From a pathological standpoint, the incipient twenty-first century is determined neither by bacteria nor by viruses, but by neurons. Neurological illnesses such as depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), borderline personality disorder (BPD), and burnout syndrome mark the landscape of pathology at the beginning of the twenty-first century. They are not infections, but infarctions; they do not follow from the negativity of what is immunologically foreign, but from an excess of positivity. Therefore, they elude all technologies and techniques that seek to combat what is alien. ~ Byung-Chul Han

This will sound strange, and yet I'm sure it was the point: it was a bit like being high. That, for me, anyway, had always been the attraction of drugs, to stop the brutal round of hypercritical thinking, to escape the ravages of an unoccupied mind cannibalizing itself. ~ Norah Vincent

Parentified children learn to take responsibility for themselves and others early on. They tend to fade into the woodwork and let others take center stage. This extends into adulthood - adult children may put others' needs before their own. They may have difficulty accepting care and attention. ~ Kimberlee Roth

In some ways, com­ing to terms with my­self and work­ing to­ward re­cov­ery has been like say­ing "I love you" to some­one but keep­ing a loaded gun hid­den in your back pocket, just in case that per­son pisses you off enough. ~ Kiera Van Gelder

Secondary structural dissociation involves one ANP and more than one EP. Examples of secondary structural dissociation are complex PTSD, complex forms of acute stress disorder, complex dissociative amnesia, complex somatoform disorders, some forms of trauma-relayed personality disorders, such as borderline personality disorder, and dissociative disorder not otherwise specified (DDNOS).. Secondary structural dissociation is characterized by divideness of two or more defensive subsystems. For example, there may be different EPs that are devoted to flight, fight or freeze, total submission, and so on. (Van der Hart et al., 2004). Gail, a patient of mine, does not have a personality disorder, but describes herself as a "changed person." She survived a horrific car accident that killed several others, and in which she was the driver. Someone not knowing her history might see her as a relatively normal, somewhat anxious and stiff person (ANP). It would not occur to this observer that only a year before, Gail had been a different person: fun-loving, spontaneous, flexible, and untroubled by frightening nightmares and constant anxiety. Fortunately, Gail has been willing to pay attention to her EPs; she has been able to put the process of integration in motion; and she has been able to heal. p134 ~ Elizabeth F. Howell

My mind instinctively developed new parts to specialize in skills I needed to make it through law school. They learned to focus on the important information: the outlines, the nutshells, and what each case meant. ~ Olga Trujillo

You think she's got a personality disorder?"
"No, she's just a nasty bitch. An unpleasant personality isn't a medical condition. Just a symptom of not being slapped around the head enough. ~ Karen Traviss

This new co-consciousness brought me to a state of awareness in which my core personality was directly able to experience "her" personality. Being co-conscious with her, he explained, would stop me from experiencing the feeling of leaving my body or dissociating. ~ Suzie Burke

Bipolar depression really got my life off track, but today I'm proud to say I am living proof that someone can live, love, and be well with bipolar disorder when they get the education, support and treatment they need. ~ Demi Lovato

I'm manic-depressive, technically bi-polar II with many borderline features. ~ Kate Braverman

Words are living things. They have personality, point of view ... agenda. ~ Hannibal

If your dog, your best friend turns on you, take a good look at yourself. You may have a serious personality disorder. ~ Will Leamon

Dear little ones, I know this might be scary and confusing right now, but my name is Jade and I'm here to help. ~ Jade Miller

The idea that I might be sociopathic was nothing new to me - I'd known for a long time that I didn't connect with other people. I didn't understand them, and they didn't understand me, and whatever emotional language they spoke seemed beyond my capacity to learn. Antisocial personality disorder could not be officially diagnosed until you were eighteen years old - prior to that it was just "conduct disorder." But let's be honest: conduct disorder is just a nice way of telling parents their kids have antisocial personality disorder. I saw no reason to dance around the issue. I was a sociopath, and it was better to deal with it now. ~ Dan Wells

The reported numbers of MPD alter personality states are given great play by critics. As usual, these critics rarely consult the research. Although cases with dozens or scores of alters have been reported, the mode is 3 and the median typically 8-10 (see, e.g., Putnam et al., 1986; Coons et al., 1988; Ross, Norton, and Wozney, 1989f; Kluft, 1991). ~ Frank W. Putnam

The story of Sybil is true, not fictional or fraudulent. One early commentator actually suggested that Sybil and Dr. Cornelia Wilbur, her treating psychiatrist, were a case of folie à deux, or shared psychosis (Victor, 1975). Having met Dr. Wilbur, listened to her presentations on multiple personality (now known as dissociative identity disorder), and read the many critiques and reviews of Sybil, I have concluded that Sybil was not iatrogenically created by Dr. Wilbur. ~ Philip M. Coons

[Adult children of a BPD parent] may seem old before their time or like an old soul (and probably were that way as children too.) They may easily assume the role of fixer and nurturer. They're the ones friends lean on, the ones to whom people tell their problems. Helping others gives them a sense of purpose and worth. ~ Kimberlee Roth

I'm a writer, there for I have a split personality disorder. How else can one person create so many people each with their own personality, who live within the pages of a book ~ K.D. Nelson

We live by choice and by necessity. We choose the mechanisms that are essential to ensure satisfaction of our baseline survival. What labor we willingly endure in order to meet our minimalistic subsistence requirements and what activities we elect to pursue in order to mollify our desire for living joyfully and attain self-realization defines our essential self's core personality. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Everyone seemed to be getting healthier, happier, and more productive... I now felt that I was sharing this body, this physical space, with a whole group of very interesting and worthwhile people. ~ Joan Frances Casey

God, I loved this woman: this very crazy, borderline-homicidal – on second thought, scrap the borderline – woman. ~ Suzanne Wright

There's no borderline for the things that I can say, do, and create ... ~ Madonna Ciccone

traumatic diagnoses such as post-traumatic stress disorder and dissociative identity disorder describe a shared array of human responses to degradation and dehumanization (Good & Hinton, 2016; Ross, 2011) ~ Michael Salter

I'm self-aware enough to know that I have a somewhat fractured personality. Not exactly multiple personality disorder, but clearly there were different drivers at the wheel depending on my mood, and depending on my needs. Over ~ Jonathan Maberry

000-x02 Dissociative reaction
This reaction represents a type of gross personality disorganization, the basis of which is a neurotic disturbance, although the diffuse dissociation seen in some casts may occasionally appear psychotic. The personality disorganization may result in aimless running or "freezing." The repressed impulse giving rise to the anxiety may be discharged by, or deflected into, various symptomatic expressions, such as depersonalization, dissociated personality, stupor, fugue, amnesia, dream state, somnambulism, etc. The diagnosis will specify symptomatic manifestations.
These reactions must be differentiated from schizoid personality, from schizophrenic reaction, and from analogous symptoms in some other types of neurotic reactions. Formerly, this reaction has been classified as a type of "conversion hysteria. ~ American Psychiatric Association

I might have some sort of personality disorder. I might not have proper filters; it might be some kind of version of Asperger's meets Tourettes meets prose. ~ Jonathan Ames

Ego is essentially self-loathe, not self-love. ~ Richie Norton

I've grown up with an ethic, call it a part, that insists I hide my pain at all costs. As I talk, I feel this pain leaking out - not just the core symptom of BPD, but all the years of being blamed or ignored for my condition, and all the years I've blamed others for how I am. It's the pain of being told I was too needy even as could never get the help I needed. ~ Kiera Van Gelder

As you know, Bergson pointed out that there is no such thing as disorder but rather two sorts of order, geometric and living. ~ Jean Piaget

I was a borderline guy in the NFL. ~ Darren Flutie

FMSF Advisory Board Members Dr Martin Orne and Dr Louis Jolyon West are CIA and military mind control contractors with TOP SECRET CIA clearance. Both received MKULTRA contracts to study dissociative disorders, implantation of false memories, and techniques for creation of Manchurian Candidates. The dissociative disorders, false memories, and the therapist-created multiple personality are the focus of the FMSF campaign. ~ Colin A. Ross

I have this side of me that is a very European flamboyant; I won't say queenie, but it's borderline - could be perceived as homosexual. ~ Charlie Bewley

That is the problem with repressed memory and dissociative identity disorder. Your mind represses certain traumas for reasons of pure survival. And then you learn that to survive as an adult, you must uncover the memories, find the parts, and relieve the traumas. The contradiction is almost too much for the mind to comprehend and for the heart and soul to endure. ~ Suzie Burke

Because of media portrayals, clinicians may believe that dissociative identity disorder presents with dramatic, florid alternate identities with obvious state transitions (switching). These florid presentations occur in only about 5% of patients with dissociative identity disorder.(20) How ever, the vast majority of these patients have subtle presentations characterized by a mixture of dissociative and PTSD symptoms embedded with other symptoms, such as post-traumatic depression, substance abuse, somatoform symptoms, eating disorders, and self-destructive and impulsive behaviors.(2,10) ~ Bethany L. Brand

On its own, my internal dissociated part now came to the surface, and I found myself hiding from everyone. I still was not connecting it to the dream I'd had. At one time I had thought I could control these sudden episodes, but I was apparently mistaken. I had grown very unsure about every facet of my mental health. A disturbed part of me was taking over and I was terrified. I began to wonder if Big Suzie would completely cease to exist. ~ Suzie Burke

One in six people suffer depression or a chronic anxiety disorder. These are not the worried well but those in severe mental pain with conditions crippling enough to prevent them living normal lives. ~ Polly Toynbee

Dissociation, in a general sense, refers to a rigid separation of parts of experiences, including somatic experiences, consciousness, affects, perception, identity, and memory. When there is a structural dissociation, each of the dissociated self-states has at least a rudimentary sense of "I" (Van der Hart et al., 2004). In my view, all of the environmentally based "psychopathology" or problems in living can be seen through this lens. ~ Elizabeth F. Howell

I think I do find humor in disorder, and reality is disorder. ~ Julie Delpy

Homosexuality is a mental disorder that can be cured through counselling. ~ Stockwell Day

I promise no food will ever hurt you as much as a negative mind. ~ Brittany Burgunder

It is thought that the virus is a degeneration from a more complex life form. It may at one time have been capable of independent life. Now has fallen to the borderline between living and dead matter. It can exhibit living qualities only in a host, by using the life of another-the renunciation of life itself, a falling towards inorganic, inflexible machine, towards dead matter ~ William S. Burroughs

I don't know if my mother was a narcissist - or bi-polar or borderline. Those were words she tossed around over the years. ~ Ariel Gore

Somehow the disorder hooks into all kinds of fears and insecurities in many clinicians. The flamboyance of the multiple, her intelligence and ability to conceptualize the disorder, coupled with suicidal impulses of various orders of seriousness, all seem to mask for many therapists the underlying pain, dependency, and need that are very much part of the process. In many ways, a professional dealing with a multiple in crisis is in the same position as a parent dealing with a two-year-old or with an adolescent's acting-out behavior. (236) ~ Lynn I. Wilson

This was typical of my parents: in their minds, no one was just an asshole. There was always something wrong with people other than just sucking: they had socialization disorders, or borderline personality syndrome, or whatever. ~ John Green

I'm not a U.S. citizen. I mean, I'm an earth-izen. Borderline policies are crap to me. ~ Chuck D

Patrice had long since buried the particulars of events so painful that they caused her to resolve only to see good. With such a stance, such as dissociative split, she could walk with evil and believe it did not exist. She was Joe's perfect mate. ~ Judith Spencer

It is important to learn about being multiple, and what works for their healing, from your client. To work with the alters, rather than trying to get the ANP to control the rest of the personality system. ~ Alison Miller

We need this help from the outside because we don't know how to to do this for ourselves. We start with a deep deficit - a chasm really - when it comes to understanding and being tolerant of ourselves, and that's even before we go forth to do battle with the rest of the world. As soon as someone judges, criticizes, dismisses, or ignores, the cycle of pain and reactivity ramps up, compounded by shame, remorse, and rejection. The act of validation, simply saying, 'I can see things from your perspective,' can short-circuit that emotional detour. ~ Kiera Van Gelder

For a person who promised hope and civility in politics, Mr. Obama has shown a borderline obsessiveness in blaming Mr. Bush. ~ Karl Rove

Bitch Personality Disorder ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

People who dress up in bizarre costumes have a savoir-vivre - not to mention the sort of personality disorder - that he admires. ~ Thomas Pynchon

Many ritually abusive cults deliberately divide the personality system down the middle of the head, making sure that there is no communication between the two sides. "Left side" parts might be instructed to speak to no one other than the perpetrators. ~ Alison Miller