I have been thinking quite a bit about this lately. I watch a lot of crime shows, too, and I've also been watching a lot of stories on the news that discuss people with mental illnesses being homicidal and/or suicidal. It may be true that this sort of thing happens, but the reporters talk about it in such a slanted, completely biased fashion and they perpetrate social stigma. I keep my diagnoses a secret unless/until I truly trust someone and even then I tend to be selective about what I share to defend myself from unecessary stigma as much as possible. I even have to defend myself from family. I constantly fight the growing bitterness inside myself due to rampant negative judegment based on ignorance and fear.

What really ruffles my feathers is that this stigma is also perpetrated in antiquated psych books and, depending on who you talk to, even some therapists think that those with BPD are "manipulative" and hate to work with us. My current therapist said that when she first started, years ago, this is what all the books said on the topic. She was surprised to learn, years later, that most of us tend to be victims of abuse of some sort and we've learned to protect ourselves with defense mechanisms that no longer work for us. She says we feel deeply and strongly but that we're stunted in emotional growth through no fault of our own and that we just are ill equipped to handle chaotic emotions and life stressors and we get easily overwhelmed. She's been working with BPDs for years, now, and she says this is her favorite population, so to speak to work with now. She and I have an awesome rapport.

I know what you mean, though. The common misconceptions make us all sound like monstrous lunatics. If only they understood that most of us are self-destructive more than anything and most of us wouldn't dream of intentionally causing harm to others.There's a lot of self loathing involved in BPD, at least that's been my experience.