Is borderline personality disorder any more volitional than bipolar disorder?
I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder years ago, and have been hospitalized many times. During a recent hospitalization, the staff began throwing around the word “borderline.” This terrified me, as I am aware of the stigma surrounding BPD. Ever since my initial diagnosis of bipolar, I have taken some consolation in knowing that it’s “not my fault;” that my symptoms and inappropriate (and humiliating) behavior were the result of a chemical imbalance in my brain, not an act of the will. With the borderline diagnosis (and I have not been formally diagnosis, but I admit I fit a lot of the criteria), I feel as if I don’t have that luxury; I feel like it’s my fault. While genetics and biology play a role in BPD, from all the literature I have read, it is usually a response to some kind of trauma, and therefore not organic. Further, unlike bipolar, therapy is usually the most effective way to treat it. So, all this makes me feel like the old cliché “Mental illness is not you’re fault because
