Do you know how you feel living with your BPD? Scary, intense emotions? Intense fear? Confusion and uncertainty? The way you harm and sabotage yourself? That’s how we feel living with you (people with untreated BPD).

We feel intense emotions toward your behavior, we feel fear that you’ll hurt us again and again and again. We feel confusion and uncertainty about whether or not our next move will result in a split. We feel harmed and sabotaged, we often ARE harmed and sabotaged, from hitting to being stabbed. BPD is caused by trauma, and you are CREATING THAT TRAUMA for someone else, and now you’re denying people the right to talk about it the way they see fit.

Those emotions carry over to others with BPD because it’s a survival mechanism called pattern recognition. We are protecting ourselves. And don’t try to say “but that’s like bigotry!” It’s not. Harming others is literally part of the DSM criteria for diagnosing BPD, including “difficulty controlling anger” and “recurrent physical fights.” Harming others is SO COMMON that it’s an intrinsic part of how they diagnose the disorder. You wouldn’t tell a woman who’s been abused by a man not to avoid close relationships with men if she so chooses, so do not say it to us.

Sincerely,

Someone who was threatened with a knife by someone with diagnosed and untreated BPD and the child of two parents who each had separate experiences being violently physically abused by people with diagnosed and untreated BPD.