There are many pathways toward healing. What works for one person may or may not work for another person. It’s crucial when faced with any health problem to do a lot of research and be our own best advocates. Learning all we can and practicing self-care should be considered essential steps in recovering from BPD.
Now, I’m not intending to bash on therapists here, there are a handful of really great therapists out there… I had one myself for two years. However, I also feel that the most essential healing aspects of my recovery came from doing a lot of reading and research on my own. I read books on BPD and psychology, accounts of people with BPD and went through several BPD skills workbooks. I don’t think I would have gotten as far as I did in my recovery without doing these things on my own.
One conclusion I came to is the belief that BPD arises from essential steps of learning that were missed when we were children, teenagers or young adults. Most likely this was because we were too busy dealing with assorted traumas (abuse, abandonment, etc.) in our lives instead of experiencing typical stages of development. Lack of proper guidance during this time that would normally come from supportive parents, siblings, etc., were absent as well.
As far as I know, the only way to truly heal from BPD is to go back and learn all those crucial things we missed… how to cope with rejection, is one example. How to self-soothe without self-destructing, is another.
If you or a loved one has this disorder or know of someone who does do all you can to educated yourself and set yourself on the path of feeling better soon!
Hope everyone is having a great day!!
BPD mythbuster series intro: Recovery
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The Sunstone Journal 
Thank you for posting this piece. I am going to look into the self-soothe and rejection stuff.
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Glad to hear it! Hope you find success!
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When I was diagnosed with BPD, my ex father-in-law stated to me that BPD was “terminal” and that if I had a better relationship with God, I wouldn’t need therapy. Its common for people to think that if you’re diagnosed with BPD that you have to learn to cope with it rather than work towards a recovery that would send the symptoms in remission.
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Wow, I wonder what he meant by terminal, makes it sound fatal or something. Hopefully better education about the disorder will help dispel the myths and stereotypes for people like your ex father-in-law. Unfortunately you can’t always cure stupid though. 😕
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For him, terminal meant I was destructive to anyone I wanted a friendship or relationship with, including myself. He was an arrogant ass that believed main stream Christianity was the only way to live.
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Yikes. Some people just seem to have tunnel vision and can’t see their way out if at all. They want everyone else to have the same tunnel vision I suppose.
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You make a vital distinction, JoAnn, in that, ultimately, no-one can help us as ably as we do ourselves.
Still, we need others to provide interactions that we lacked in our formative years. You’ve accomplished this, in part, by blogging. By sharing your insights and by inviting conversation.
Thus, you started down the path, and you gather companions along the way.
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Yes, I’m getting better at the “interacting with others” thing. I used to be extremely bad at it. Human communication can be deceptively difficult when you don’t always understand the rules that people abide by… I’ve since come to realize that nearly everyone struggles with this same thing though and we’re all just trying to do the best we can… well, except for maybe Trump who always has perfect communication! 😆
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Self-soothing sounds so easy and natural but it is not at all. I think it can be also important to put emotions into words so you can understand what is happening in the moment. Emotions can be so quick and we get tangled up in them.
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So true. When I was having the worst of my symptoms I kept a journal and would write in it constantly. Something about that process can be very cathartic and you can also learn a lot about yourself also. 🙂
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