Hello,

I'm curious to see if there are current borderlines on here who have mostly recovered to the disorder, so that the symptoms are not nearly so bothersome? Or, are there former borderlines who are completely symptom free and have been that way for some time?

I was diagnosed with BPD myself, having all 9 of 9 DSM symptoms, 10 years ago by a psychiatrist. I was 18 then, and the next 4-5 years were a nightmarish hell full of negative emotions, suicidal thinking, self-hatred, and despair. But after being in therapy for several years, I started to get much better, and after 6-7 years, I was mostly better with only a few of the symptoms at any one time. For the last three years I have no symptoms and no relapses.

I moved from being unable to go to school or work, to having a great full-time job where I get to work with children. I stopped my acting out behaviors, am not at all depressed anymore, and have much better self-esteem. Over the last year I've had my first serious girlfriend. The last few years have felt so alive and and so real- it has been just incredible after the suffering of being borderline as a teenager and in my early 20s. In those years, things felt hopeless and I believed that I would never get better. I appreciate what I have so much more now after that experience.

For the last few years, I haven't even been thinking that much about BPD; I've just been living a normal life with my work, friends, girlfriend and family. However, in the last year, I stumbled across some articles on the internet asserting that BPD can only be managed - that is is life-long, and one can never be totally free of it. That made me curious, and I found that borderlines on some forums believed this view and were resigned to suffering from their symptoms in some form for the rest of their life. That motivated me to let people know that full recovery is possible and one can become fully non-borderline, after having been diagnosed with BPD.

I was extremely fortunate to have my parents support me financially to go therapy 1-2x a week for several years. My type of treatment was psychodynamic-psychoanalytic, and that field is something I've read a great deal about to understand BPD and its associated defenses, like projection, projective-identification, splitting, acting out. There are actually many stories in psychoanalytic case books out there of borderlines who were treated in intensive therapy, and recovered fully to live normal lives in their work and relationships. Unfortunately, most people don't know about them.

I've now seen several blogs and websites by fully or almost fully-recovered (former) borderlines, so I know I'm not alone. I'm interested to know if there are some others like me on here.

To those of you who are still suffering with the condition or have been recently diagnosed, you have my full sympathy - I understand deeply how very difficult and painful being borderline is, and how frustrating it is to not be able to have normal relationships and enjoy your life. But it doesn't have to stay that way. I hope it's encouraging that other people have managed to recover fully, and there's no reason you cannot do the same.

To those who have active BPD, I'd like to say that therapy with someone who really knew how to treat BPD was the most helpful thing I ever did. If you can see a good therapist once (or ideally twice) a week for a long period (meaning years), it makes a massive difference. You can't imagine at the beginning how much you can positively change, after years with a good therapist who knows how to treat this disorder.

Also, the other thing that really helped was reading extensively about BPD from psychoanalytic, psychodynamic, CBT, DBT, and other perspectives to understand the disorder. It's like a difficult puzzle that starts out slowly, but once you understand why and how your problems developed, it's much easier to resolve them. For me, I had never had a dependent, vulnerable relationship where I really trusted someone else deeply and allowed them to "parent" me in the way in the good way my abusive parents did not. As I gradually formed that with my therapist and also with some friends that I risked opening up to about my abusive history, I was able to change so much.

Lastly, if anyone needs support and/or non-directive, non-judgmental mentoring, I would be happy to help anybody who is just starting out on their journey of recovery from BPD. Feel free to message me privately.