She was diagnosed with BPD at 21, after experiencing symptoms since the age of 11. “On one hand, we are seen by some as overly emotional, usually stereotyped by us being assertive or firm as aggression and on the other, viewed as people who cannot feel as much pain – emotional and physical — as our white counterparts.” Black and mixed women surveyed also made up a, a platform which allows participants with BPD to share their experiences.
The online research is an issue I can relate to. When typing in Borderline Personality Disorder into Google, the suggested questions that arise include hits such as, ‘Do borderlines lie a lot?’ and ‘Can a person with BPD really love?’ Clicking these links will tell you that another BPD symptom is having unstable relationships with others due to behaviours such as ‘constantly phone and texting a person’ or ‘making threats to harm or kill yourself if that person ever leaves you.
This stigma doesn’t just affect how those with BPD see themselves, it has a measurable effect on patient care too. Aof several studies on the effects of BPD stigma noted that “nurses commonly view BPD patients as difficult, annoying, manipulative, treatment-resistant, dangerous, attention-seeking, nuisances, and timewasters,” and that “BPD is marginalised at the levels of policy, planning, staff training and service delivery, perhaps representing social oppression or institutional abuse.
“I, and my participants, mostly wish there was more education about the symptomology of BPD,” Fauziya Johnson explains, “and that there was more effort for the stereotypes of BPD to be examined and put into context accurately, rather than using it for purposes that only hinder the diagnosis.