31 Days of BPD Awareness (to be continued)

May 17 - Borderline Stigma

There are all kinds of stigma and abuse people with BPD face in the psych community. We discussed a few days ago some of the misconceptions about BPD, but unless you have BPD, you may not be aware of the full consequences of those misconceptions and how ableism affects every aspect of the borderline life.

A quick google search will compare people with BPD to children, infantilizing them and insisting they cannot take care of themselves, which leads to emotional abuse against them as loved ones follow this advice, remove their agency, and make decisions for them. Advice on How to Care For Your Borderline (much of it worded like your typical How to Take Care of Your Hamsters articles) can be compared to typical signs of emotional abuse. An emotionally abusive partner insists you cannot make your own decisions, and yet books and websites will tell you someone with BPD cannot make their own decisions. An emotionally abusive partner will insist you are crazy and that you are making up your problems, and yet books and websites will tell you someone with BPD makes up their own problems.

Even well-known sites like the Huffington Post have articles such as “9 Tips on How to Recognize Someone with Borderline Personality Disorder,” and while they actually recognize the diagnostic criteria, it still encourages armchair diagnosing from loved ones and removes agency from the person who is possibly mentally ill. It reads like a Nine Tips on How to Spot a Rare Animal and encourages non-professional neurotypical people to unofficially diagnose people in their lives while not giving them the facts of the disorder. (And I am sure these same people turn around and encourage against self-diagnosis. Because clearly non-professional neurotypical people know more about mental health than people who are actually mentally ill. /sarcasm)

There is especially a great amount of misogyny in the mental health field. Misogyny against borderline women is especially awful. You may have read in articles, asking if your borderline girlfriend is a Waif, a Queen, a Hermit, or a Witch. Shoving borderline women into categories based on misogynist ideas about women, all while sexualizing them and telling you that borderline women are attractive because of how broken they are. They tell you they’re alluring and spontaneous and mysterious, but will turn around and ruin your life. There are forums dedicated to people who have dated people with BPD, and if you have BPD, I recommend you don’t read what’s there. It’s upsetting and sickening.

If you do not have BPD, it is important to remember the stigma which exists and to be critical of any information you see. If you have a borderline loved one, ask for their opinion on any articles you find. Keep in mind the stigma also exists against many mental illnesses, especially other personality disorders, and a lot of what you read is based on misconceptions and a long, long history of ableism.