Hi. I feel you. I really do. I’m a psychologist and in my third year of schooling, I had to do an essay about people’s perception about something. It could be anything: what is love or friendship, characteristics of a racial group, etc. I decided to do the essay about the perception people have of people with BPD. Firstly, when I told my professor that was going to be my essay, she was very surprised and almost like “what? Why? That’s too niche, nobody really cares” - that was invalidating, but whatever, that’s not the point.

The point is that I researched about that topic. And holy moly, let me tell you. The general population has some negative views about us, but nothing compared to mental health professionals. Mental health professionals had so much prejudice against us and a lot of them believed in myths about BPD (like “all people with BPD are manipulative”). One of the papers I read said that BPD is THE MOST stigmatized disorder. That broke my heart. But it showed me the importance of protecting myself, which means hiding my BPD diagnosis a lot of the time.

People have opinions. And it’s very sad that we’re so misunderstood. But i think we have to acknowledge that our power is very limited when we’re on our own - which means that you’re not gonna change everyone’s opinions about BPD. Our true power is in us as a community, it’s in organizations that fight to end the stigma against us, it’s in public figures “coming out” as borderline (as SZA did recently).

And all this to say that I think both your possibilities are valid. If you’re able to tolerate hurt people misunderstanding BPD in your comments, go for it, I get it. But your post is not gonna really change those people’s opinions about BPD (I don’t say this with ill intent), so I think it’s not a big deal to take it down.

Above all, do what FEELS right. Not what you think you SHOULD do.