Borderline Quotes

“I couldn’t trust my own emotions. Which emotional reactions were justified, if any? And which ones were tainted by the mental illness of BPD? I found myself fiercely guarding and limiting my emotional reactions, chastising myself for possible distortions and motivations. People who had known me years ago would barely recognize me now. I had become quiet and withdrawn in social settings, no longer the life of the party. After all, how could I know if my boisterous humor were spontaneous or just a borderline desire to be the center of attention? I could no longer trust any of my heart felt beliefs and opinions on politics, religion, or life. The debate queen had withered. I found myself looking at every single side of an issue unable to come to any conclusions for fear they might be tainted. My lifelong ability to be assertive had turned into a constant state of passivity.”
― Rachel Reiland, Get Me Out of Here: My Recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder

“Imagining that you are deep and complex, but others are simple, is one of the primary signs of malignant selfishness.”
― Stefan Molyneux

“The theologian Paul Tillich wrote that "loneliness can be conquered only by those who can bear solitude." Because the borderline finds solitude so difficult to tolerate, she is trapped in a relentless metaphysical loneliness from which the the only relief comes from of the physical presence of others. So she will often rush to singles bars or with crowded haunts, often with disappointing--or even violent--results.”
― Jerold J. Kreisman, I Hate You—Don't Leave Me: Understanding the Borderline Personality

“So at family gatherings… I try to stick to the acceptable script. Indeed, I discover that the less I say, the happier everyone seems to be with me. I sometimes wonder if I wouldn’t have been better off as a paraplegic or afflicted by some tragic form of cancer. The invisibility and periodicity of my disorder, along with how often I border on normalcy, allows them to evade my need for their understanding. And because our most enduring family heirloom is avoidance and denial of pain and suffering, I don’t need much prompting to shut myself down in their presence.”
― Kiera Van Gelder, The Buddha and the Borderline

“DBT's catchphrase of developing a life worth living means you're not just surviving; rather, you have good reasons for living. I'm also getting better at keeping another dialectic in mind: On the one hand, the disorder decimates all relationships and social functions, so you're basically wandering in the wasteland of your own failure, and yet you have to keep walking through it, gathering the small bits of life that can eventually go into creating a life worth living. To be in the desolate badlands while envisioning the lush tropics without being totally triggered again isn't easy, especially when life seems so effortless for everyone else.”
― Kiera Van Gelder, The Buddha and the Borderline

“I’m not interested in Bob Marley telling me to ‘lively up’ myself. The only music that satisfies me is Nine Inch Nails and Trent Reznor’s voice crying through industrial rhytms. In the August evenings, I lie on my bed with earphones, letting his laments roll through me like unrepentant thunderstorms. I envy the courage that carries his voice into the world. He doesn’t berate himself for pain and anger; he howls. And this delights me, even though I feel ashamed when my own rage comes to the surface. My anger doesn’t signify courage; it’s just more confirmation that I’m bad.”
― Kiera Van Gelder, The Buddha and the Borderline

“Suicide is not a way of ending pain; it's just a way of redistributing it.”
― Mishell Baker, Borderline

“            Tempting as it may be to draw one conclusion or another from my story and universalize it to apply to another's experience, it is not my intention for my book to be seen as some sort of cookie-cutter approach and explanation of mental illness, It is not ab advocacy of any particular form of therapy over another. Nor is it meant to take sides in the legitimate and necessary debate within the mental health profession if which treatments are most effective for this or any other mental illness.
            What it is, I hope, is a way for readers to get a true feel for what it's like to be in the grips of mental illness and what it's like to strive for recovery.”
― Rachel Reiland, Get Me Out of Here: My Recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder

“Children who live with a predatory mother become unconsciously preoccupied with reading their mother’s moods. A fleeting glance, a furtive gesture, deceleration, and a shift of direction are signals of an approaching Turn. Bracing, hiding, or merely holding on gives children a much-needed sense of control. Shutting down, avoiding eye contact, and getting away are other means of establishing control.”
― Christine Ann Lawson, Understanding the Borderline Mother

“Children of borderlines and survivors of hurricanes have much in common. Survival is dependent on finding a safe place, staying low, and not being fooled by the eye of the storm.”
― Christine Ann Lawson, Understanding the Borderline Mother

“...it felt as if they had all died while he had slept...or perhaps (He) died, and they had forgotten him.”
― George R.R. Martin

“Have you ever not known something but known it at the same time?”
― Cecilia Ahern

“Witch mothers are more likely to bring their children for treatment than to seek help for themselves. They project their own pathology onto their child, and often expect the child to be institutionalized. Because the no-good child is the target of the Witch’s projections of self-hatred, the mother may wish for the child to be sent away.”
― Christine Ann Lawson, Understanding the Borderline Mother

“Emotionally stable parents share their children’s joy and quiet their fear. But caretaking roles are reversed for children of borderlines whose mothers are chronically upset. Children repress their fear in order to calm their mother. Situations that should frighten children may not because they have learned not to feel.”
― Christine Ann Lawson, Understanding the Borderline Mother

“In his last book, in 2005, Masterson does touch upon a variation of the abandonment depression in ’the three primary cornerstones of character work.’ For the borderline, a sense of abandonment arises from a question of ’competence’; for the narcissist, ’painful vulnerability’ rests on a sense of deep imperfection; and for the schizoid, there is ’danger’ in the possibility of not being able to make any connection at all.”
― Candace Orcutt, The Unanswered Self: The Masterson Approach to the Healing of Personality Disorder

“His life cries for an unknown land of joy;
where sadness lingers between border lines
His discolored steps towards the decoy
misconstrued as the mystery declines

From the poem Sonnet For A Man (Part II)”
― Munia Khan, To Evince the Blue

“I know how bored and resteless fyou must feel when you have no one on whom to focus your passion. It's why Teo's dismissal enraged you; he was your best candidate."
pg. 104”
― Mishell Baker, Borderline

“Everything has a borderline; crossing that line becomes an offense.”
― Ehsan Sehgal

“Zaburzenie z pogranicza nie jest niczym wielowarstwowa tkanina, misternie wyszywana niezliczoną liczbą splatających się ze sobą nici.”
― Jerold J. Kreisman, I Hate You-Don't Leave Me: Understanding the Borderline Personality

“Zmienia swą osobowość niczym w kalejdoskopie, gdy układa rozkruszone szkło własnego istnienia w różne konfiguracje - każdy kolaż jest inny, każdy odzwierciedla jednak ją samą.”
― Jerold J. Kreisman, I Hate You-Don't Leave Me: Understanding the Borderline Personality

“Self-compassion is not an easy way out: it’s actually extraordinarily hard work for most people with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder.”
― Amanda Smith LCSW