Beyond Borderline Quotes

“didn’t want anyone to know that I was one of those dreaded borderlines. I was walking on eggshells, everywhere, making sure my secret was safe with me. It was really hard, and it made me really depressed. Why did people have to feel this way? Why did future social workers have to feel this way? Why were they learning about the difficulty of borderlines? Why were they being taught to stay away from borderlines? Why were they taught to hate them, to hate me?”
― John G. Gunderson, Beyond Borderline: True Stories of Recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder

“When someone is diagnosed with depression, you won’t hear them say, “I am depression.” This is equally unlikely with a patient diagnosed with anorexia or bipolar disorder or even schizophrenia. A rare few psychiatric conditions enjoy the pleasure of being both an adjective describing one’s mood or classification of behaviors and a noun—a label—to encompass all of who one is. Alcoholics. Addicts. And borderlines. Unfortunately for me, I identify with all of these conditions.”
― John G. Gunderson, Beyond Borderline: True Stories of Recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder

“BPD patients are often misdiagnosed; for example, nearly 40 percent of people diagnosed as bipolar are, in fact, borderline. There is a heritability factor of about 67 percent. Interestingly, it is one of the few psychiatric illnesses that is not lifelong, with remission likely and relapses rare.”
― John G. Gunderson, Beyond Borderline: True Stories of Recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder