“For the first time, I felt seen not just by someone else, but by myself.”

I wasn’t the first person to notice something wasn’t right. My ex-wife was. And I resisted it… vehemently. Which is ironic, because I was basically raised with psychology. My mom was a psych nurse for over four decades. I was diagnosed with ADHD at four and enrolled in a UCLA study on Ritalin. I had therapists, psychiatrists, clinicians, counsellors. Twice a week for years, for well over a decade. I was in gifted programs. My older brother is pursuing a PhD in psychology. I even took Psych 101 myself one summer at a community college before high school and loved it so much I talked my way into AP Psych as a freshman.

I was not invisible. I was studied extensively.

So the real question for me became this… how on earth did all of that scrutiny miss what now feels obvious in hindsight? How did I?

Looking back, there were clear signs early on. Intense emotions. Impulsivity. Early suicidal ideation. A kind of constant internal volatility. I once wrote a love note to a girl I had a crush on in the 3rd or 4th grade that resulted in a trip to the school counsellor’s office. At that age, it wasn’t graphic or sexual, but whatever it said must have been intense. My love letters still are. But at the time, it all got filtered through other lenses. ADHD. Gifted kid. Troubled teen. Strong personality. No one floated BPD as a possibility. Not once.

When my then-wife suggested it at 37, I scoffed. Okay, fine, I snarled. I was insulted. I was steeped in outdated stigma. I was ignorant. I was certain it was impossible. I even remember sitting down to watch a video she’d sent me and thinking, “Ugh fine, I’ll watch it, but this isn’t me.”

And then it was me. I was wrong.

It was one of the strangest and most validating moments of my life. For the first time, I felt seen not just by someone else, but by myself. It wasn’t crushing. It was clarifying. It gave context to decades of confusion. Suffice to say, I watched a lot more videos on the subject that same night. I think perhaps all of them.

Within days I’d found a therapist who specialized in DBT. I pursued a formal evaluation immediately. I was eventually diagnosed in January 2023 following a sobering attempt to end my own life. I met all nine criteria at the time, especially the anger. Not violence. Never that. But rage. Constant, disproportionate anger that felt like it was aimed at everything and nothing at the same time.

My day-to-day now looks quite different.

I still fear abandonment. I still feel things at full volume. I still wrestle with emptiness and impulsivity. My relationships are intense. My inner world can still swing fast and hard. The difference now is that I see it coming, I listen to my body, I understand what’s happening, and I have tools. Ironically, my life has actually gotten much more difficult in the years since my diagnosis; chronic pain, disability, divorce, finances, and yet I have risen to each new level of adversity without once contemplating oblivion the way I had in the past. That’s serious progress too.

There are several things that I would recommend when it comes to giving yourself the best chances of recovery. Firstly, getting rid of- or preventing ready access to- firearms if you live in a country where guns can be legally owned. It’s fine to go to a shooting range, but for someone whose statistical probability of death by suicide is something on the order of 400% more likely than the average adult male, it seems like asking for trouble if you ask me. Especially if alcohol is part of the equation. Reduced inhibitions, coupled with poor impulse control, and seasoned with intense emotions and unstable relationships, equal extreme risk. I’d say the same thing about lethal amounts of certain meds, or certain illicit substances with a high mortality rate, such as heroin or fentanyl. That person needs immediate support. Those are dangerous for anyone, but they are akin to ‘revolver roulette’ to a person with BPD in my opinion. Not a question of, “if?” but rather, “when?”

Therapy is also crucial. Every week. At least once a week, but more if I can swing it. Probably until I go senile or pass away. That’s my cross to bear, I suspect. I’ve made peace with it. I get so much out of therapy that I don’t mind going at all. In fact, I think this is common among people with BPD. We don’t really tend to struggle statistically with therapy compliance, because we need someone to talk to who is capable of validating our lived experience and also gently pointing out steps we can take to improve our interpersonal relationships and orient ourselves to our environment in a way that is more conducive to coping in a fashion that is less impulsive/self-destructive. In my opinion, they should be familiar with BPD, not afraid of working with patients like us, and be familiar as well with (at least the general concepts of) Dialectical Behavioral Therapy.

I also started becoming mindful of the things that I would consume. If you go far enough back on my Facebook feed, you’ll see that there was a point in time where I was a very political animal. I watched the news 12 hours a day, seven days a week practically, and there wasn’t much rage-bait that I didn’t seize upon when presented with it. This was horrible for my mental health. Social media wasn’t much better; it was just the place I went to argue about these things and convert hopelessness to rage.

I still pay closer attention to the news than I let on. I just don’t engage in debates about it anymore, and I don’t mainline it the way I used to. I’ve seen enough awful things in the world that I don’t need to seek it out anymore. I speak up when it’s important, but I actually listen now too. I use my privilege to help others when/where I can, and I pay attention to the general zeitgeist, but for the sake of my own mental well-being I am very mindful nowadays of what I ingest.

To the newly diagnosed: Welcome to a new understanding of yourself and a community of some of the absolute funniest, kindest, and most thoughtful people on the planet. Please know that there are proven effective treatments for BPD, and you should find one that works for you as soon as possible (I’d recommend starting with DBT – often regarded as the Gold Standard in therapy for BPD), because the one thing the stigma surrounding BPD tends to get right is that it can be quite serious if left untreated.

You are not a bad person. You are not any of the awful things you may have heard in certain circles. Your brain works a little differently to that of someone who is neurotypical, and that is not your fault. However, now that you know this it is now on you to take this seriously. The good news is if you do, things get better. Relationships become more manageable. And you’ll almost certainly gain a greater understanding of yourself along the way, including a new vocabulary you can use to speak with the rest of us who ‘split’ on our ‘FPs’.

Please look into peer support groups online for low/no cost guidance from those who’ve been through everything you’re thinking and feeling in this moment. I can’t tell you how validating it is when you ask a question in a group like, “Hey does anyone else here forget things whenever they get too excited, or emotional?” and suddenly everyone’s hands go up and out come the, “I-am-missing-the-vast-majority-of-my-childhood’s”, followed by the chorus of “Same!’s” that lift the weight of what I call ‘terminal uniqueness’ right off your shoulders. It’s powerful stuff to feel seen and validated. Don’t miss out on that experience. Practice some DBT skills. My favourites for crises are STOP, TIPP, and mindfulness skills. Keep an icepack handy for TIPP. Works better than you might think. Don’t just learn them, really practice them. You’ll need the muscle memory later.

Lastly, be proud. You are a born survivor. Own it. I wish nobody else had BPD, But I’m also glad I’m not alone. Neither now are you.

This is something I obviously feel very passionate about, considering I spent the first 37 years of my life in the dark. I don’t want anyone else to suffer like that needlessly. If my story can help them see themselves and avoid that, then that’s what I’m going for. I am not afraid to publicly own my BPD because I feel like that’s how we begin to chip away at the stigma surrounding it, especially for men, who are grossly under-diagnosed despite BPD being thought to occur roughly equally between men and women.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget that I have BPD. I suspect I’ll always need to be mindful of it to some degree. But I don’t see that as defeat anymore. I see it as maintenance. As responsibility. As growth. I get to tell this story in the hopes that it helps another. That, to me, is precisely what gives it meaning beyond mere suffering.

And in defiance of all logic, at least from the perspective of the version of me who snarled at the suggestion I might have BPD, I’m still standing.

That is the most serious progress there is.