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What is borderline? The Cambridge dictionary says that it is something that separates two different qualities. But what does it mean to be a borderline person?

Borderline disorder is a personality disorder. When people hear about “personality disorder,” they usually think that a person with this disorder has several personalities. But that’s not how it works.

I didn’t know about my diagnosis till last month. When my doctor said that I had a borderline personality disorder, at the beginning, I didn`t understand it and didn`t believe it. I thought that I had only a few symptoms, and they were not critical. The more I studied my behavior, the more similarities with the diagnosis I saw. I used to think that people with this disorder can`t be stable at all. “People like this are crazy,” that’s what I thought. Their mood is changing all the time, they are very aggressive, they don`t have their own personality — they are chameleons.

No. I was wrong. My mood isn`t stable. I can be aggressive. I realized that anger could be directed not only at others, but also at myself. Even though I have a personality, it is obscured by others. This is how borderline personality disorder works. I began to understand my feelings better. Now it has become clearer why I feel chronically empty, why I act impulsively, and why I cry over trifles. And most importantly, I realized why people didn’t understand my emotions.

I`m not too emotional, I just feel them differently, I feel them on a physical level. When I have too many feelings inside, it can be dangerous for me. I want to release these experiences in any way possible, even by physically hurting myself.

But why do people become like this? Some research says that it is because of a certain division of personality as a result of trauma. This is not the only cause; genetics also plays a role in the formation of some features or predisposition to this condition.

Borderline personality disorder can be different. People like this can have unstable friendships, but others can have the same friends around. Some people can keep acquaintances and colleagues close in any way, and someone can push others away at the first cold.

According to a book ‘The Borderline Personality Disorder Workbook’ by Daniel J. Fox this disorder is divided into 4 subtypes: impulsive, self-destructive, discouraged, petulant. Therefore, everyone with this disorder may have different tendencies.

All in all, the disorder has a negative impact on the lives of people with it. The person does not intentionally destroy relationships with their loved ones, may be unpredictable, prone to destructive habits, fall into depressive episodes, and cause physical harm to themselves. But you can learn to live with it through therapy and medication. A disorder is not a sentence, it can be a defense mechanism. For example, at a certain period of time, idealization and black-and-white vision helped me to get out of a certain depressive episode.

I’m a person who walks on the edge between black and white, a person who doesn’t know who I am, who gets tired of experiencing a lot of emotions and mood swings, but despite this, I can learn to regulate them, for now on my own with medications, and someday with a specialist. In spite of everything, I am an optimist.