Thanks for posting, it was good to read this and I'm so pleased that you're doing so well. That is great to hear.

I absolutely intend to be fully recovered. I have no intention of resigning myself to a life of 'being borderline'.

I was diagnosed relatively recently, and read a lot of articles and forum posts and so on about how it couldn't be recovered from, and only managed, but I also found quite a bit of research which just doesn't support that idea. Within only a few years from diagnosis, many people will no longer fit enough criteria for the diagnosis.

Of course, not everyone will end up being able to fully recover. But even then, being able to manage and cope with it is a positive thing! The recovery model is becoming very popular with regard to mental health in general, but it seems like when it comes to PDs, the same ideas are often framed in a more negative way. Instead of emphasising the positives about being able to live a meaningful life in spite of symptoms, and the resilience that that takes, it can be put more like "oh BPD? You'll never get rid of it, the best you can hope for is learning to cope a bit better and reducing some of those behaviours."

It frustrates me. I was told by my doctor that since it's a personality style rather than an illness, there's nothing that can be done, and it can't be changed. Which I think is just such an unhelpful and outdated point of view, and I think it's terribly sad that he's telling people this.

Anyway, for me right now, it's hard to say how recovered I am. I have been very well and I think I cope better with the bad bits, but for me it's always been very episodic, so we'll see whether that can be sustained. Hopefully it will and I won't end up back where I started!