tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83397649942538908282024-02-19T10:01:17.247-05:00borderlinePhDAuthor of GIRL IN NEED OF A TOURNIQUET: MEMOIR OF A BORDERLINE PERSONALITY. Writing my way through life as a high-functioning borderline personality, a radically tenured member of la vida academia, and a queer-married gal in the rural southeastern United StatesborderlinePhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08681276079795586997noreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339764994253890828.post-72255175293136619142012-05-14T15:01:00.002-04:002012-05-15T14:37:09.644-04:00BPD Intensity: Stacy Pershall Turns Up the Volume<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghnsF9hP4-IpS0E44DELhHtAT-clEO993ZoI9rwUZqQt51On5McOGooOCWFquTVEkdQsOssSQFIrDcKo7A1zz3uUZkOgPZx9zxM1Ljrufjp03uW-XP1PDVMHzP6lTBr994K-sSmzZmxheJ/s1600/Pershall+paperback+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghnsF9hP4-IpS0E44DELhHtAT-clEO993ZoI9rwUZqQt51On5McOGooOCWFquTVEkdQsOssSQFIrDcKo7A1zz3uUZkOgPZx9zxM1Ljrufjp03uW-XP1PDVMHzP6lTBr994K-sSmzZmxheJ/s1600/Pershall+paperback+cover.jpg" /></a><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Recently, I invited <a href="http://stacypershall.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">author Stacy Pershall</a> to engage in a "diablog" with me on the aesthetics and politics of borderline personality disorder. I was curious to talk borderline to borderline about the writing process. </span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">MLJ:</b> I'm sitting
here with your beautiful paperback edition of <i>Loud in the House of Myself:
Memoir of a Strange Girl</i>, thinking about your exploration of borderline
personality disorder, a disorder characterized by excess, the too-muchness of
emotion, the too-muchness of a personality that is loud, strange, uncomfortable
to have, and often uncomfortable to be around. The question came up for me, in
writing my own borderline personality disorder memoir, of how to convey the
experience of this condition without alienating my readers. I remember one
editor at Random House telling my former agent that she felt sympathetic to my
story at first (in an early draft) but soon became frustrated and eventually
just felt like she wanted to be away from 'me' (or at least the persona of me
in the book). A couple of more friendly early readers translated that comment
for me, urging me to figure out how to give the reader enough of the
environment inside my head to get them interested but not so much that they
felt overwhelmed by full immersion in the (or 'my') borderline personality
experience. So, very early in the writing process, I was already thinking about
how 'loud' to be in my memoir, how to write about the too-muchness of
borderline personality disorder without making the book feel like too much to
bear for the general reader. How much to show, what to reveal - it took a long
time to adjust those levels in my own manuscript.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">I have always admired authors of literary nonfiction who were
willing to reveal more than is usually considered 'polite' or appropriate,
feminist authors who are willing to put themselves in unflattering lights in
order to explore some under-attended part of human experience. There is a book
on feminist performance art called <i>The Explicit Body in Performance</i>, by
Rebecca Schneider, where she theorizes a similar theme in more visual art
forms, looking at the work of Carolee Schneeman and other artists who put their
bodies into the performance in unexpected ways to jar the viewer into some new
understanding of their subject matter. I think about this idea of 'the
explicit body in performance' when the question comes up, as it often does
at readings from <i>Girl in Need of a Tourniquet</i>, about how I felt about
revealing such private things about myself (obsessions, indiscretions, etc.) in
such a public forum. There is a reason why I include scenes and details that
might strike people as too embarrassing to share, and the reason has to do with
conveying the process of how I came to understand that something was
psychologically wrong with me. It is not about exhibitionism, which is
something I think non-borderline readers might assume, but rather about the
creative benefits of borderline disinhibition. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">All of this was on my mind as I read your book and encountered
images of your self punishments (eating from a bowl in your room, sitting in a
closet writing degrading words on yourself, and so on). I was especially
interested in the last section of the book and really saw myself in the brief
anorexia narrative, especially in your choice of not presenting the eating
disorder as a big catastrophe but rather just another form of BPD, but I also
liked the willingness to reveal the total catastrophe of the suicide attempt on
camera and to permit the excess of BPD emotions to show. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">My main question to you has to do with these choices: What was
your process of deciding what to share, what not to share, and what tone to use
when narrating your symptoms? Did you ever worry about being 'too' loud in the
house of yourself?</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw7pYThXO9M51QMWu17gGm6oGBiom_x76R-qPF5rqBr-I9-Oi5B67VjCt386esaU-fOhIw9-kGxTxRqIXzHpSvMvjgjnrSxLdU3YQ3MV8gCJ_9X3NcM76NEthyyzq8JP7I-x_PLETPVlM-/s1600/Pershall+Author+Pic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw7pYThXO9M51QMWu17gGm6oGBiom_x76R-qPF5rqBr-I9-Oi5B67VjCt386esaU-fOhIw9-kGxTxRqIXzHpSvMvjgjnrSxLdU3YQ3MV8gCJ_9X3NcM76NEthyyzq8JP7I-x_PLETPVlM-/s320/Pershall+Author+Pic.jpg" width="294" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #b45f06; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><b>SP</b>: I have an
MFA in electronic art with an emphasis in installation and performance, and I <i>love</i> that book by Rebecca Schneider! I had it on my shelf in my studio,
and while I was working on my thesis I went back to it many times. I
definitely consider all my work, writing included, as a tribute to the female
performance artists who came before me - Karen Finley, Marina Abromovich,
Tracey Emin, Laurie Anderson. <a href="http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/tracey_emin.htm" target="_blank">Tracey Emin</a> in particular. The piece I'm
thinking of is the one where she set up a tent in the gallery and painted the
names of all her lovers all over the inside. She also painted things
they'd said to her, one of which was 'psycho slut.'</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #b45f06; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> </span> </blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #b45f06; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Another artist whose work I love is <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/sep/26/pipilotti-rist-hayward-gallery-review" target="_blank">Pipilotti Rist</a>. She made a
video where she's skipping down the street swinging a giant flower by its stem.
It's lit very dreamily, in slow motion, and she's wearing a frilly dress. She
turns the corner onto a sidewalk next to a line of cars, and she swings the
flower into the windshield and shatters it. Then she goes down the street
shattering the windshields of the rest of the cars. I think both of these
pieces are so transgressive, because they're women willing to express the worst
about themselves. </span> </blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBgZHabCrPgEhgz_rpk-UDJnq5fJX4SRNy_CyMSwR22S1s7N558ErZuFlnWKcWQTyavbE7DlJxQD8DEPV0ZBJU5eFVOM5eucR_rHe_7n7Gqnaq7Q-ncNz44t6eyaKK1eywzj3a6k8zF9Ni/s1600/Pershall+Pull+Quote.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBgZHabCrPgEhgz_rpk-UDJnq5fJX4SRNy_CyMSwR22S1s7N558ErZuFlnWKcWQTyavbE7DlJxQD8DEPV0ZBJU5eFVOM5eucR_rHe_7n7Gqnaq7Q-ncNz44t6eyaKK1eywzj3a6k8zF9Ni/s320/Pershall+Pull+Quote.jpg" width="320" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #b45f06; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">They're revealing the two most shameful states of BPD:
obsessive love and rage. Not that I am in any way pathologizing the artists or
the art, of course. These are also the states people are most afraid of
and threatened by in women. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; color: #b45f06; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">So when choosing how much of myself to reveal in my book, it
was always all or nothing. LITHOM may be (though I certainly hope it
isn't) the only book I ever publish, so I was going to get it all in lest I
never get another chance. And everything's relative when you've tried to
kill yourself on the internet. I finally had a chance to tell my side of
the story and let other strange girls realize they weren't alone, so I went
balls to the wall.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; color: #b45f06; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">You have to. BPD is a crisis.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; color: #b45f06; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Especially in small
towns where there's no </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #b45f06; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.dbtselfhelp.com/" target="_blank">DBT</a> or decent pharmacologist for miles. People are
dying. Teenagers are killing themselves and each other, and I'm up
against assault weapons and pro-ana websites and cutting communities on LJ
where they compare pictures of themselves slashed and bleeding, so I have to be
equally loud. Kids nowadays have no escape from
their bullies; the bullies can come into their bedrooms through their phones
and Facebook and email. They're in the tent with Tracey Emin, in their most
private and intimate space, with the words 'psycho slut' written on
the walls. They're in the closet with me covering their skin with Sharpies.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #b45f06; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">I was incredibly fortunate to have agents who were
completely behind me and encouraged me every step of the way to write this book
in my voice and my intensity. The first was Katie Boyle at Veritas. She signed me in '04 after reading a manic, scattered, angry version, and told
me I had to get the meanness out. The anger was fine, but I was being
mean, and I had to write that draft and get it out of my system. Then I
took a memoir workshop with Mindy Lewis, the author of <i><a href="http://www.mindylewislifeinside.com/" target="_blank">Life Inside</a></i>, and I
started to turn myself into a sympathetic character. That took two more
years and about three more drafts. I wrote my book seven times from start
to finish, with only very small sections carried over. </span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #b45f06; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Katie had to take time off for health reasons in '06, and she gave me permission to find another agent. We have remained
great friends and still talk every few days, but I think at that point she was
exhausted with me. We'd been through
fire together. I'd bled all over her and completely invaded her
boundaries. Halfway through our time together, I overdosed, ended up in
the hospital for the last time and then finally started DBT. She saw me
at my most out-of-control, but she never stopped believing in the book.</span><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #b45f06; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> </span></o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #b45f06;">My second agent was Penn Whaling. She and her boss Ann Rittenberg have been full-on
gung-ho supportive of me since day one, and they're delightful, intelligent
women who are passionate about making good books. I've been on my best
behavior with them and have been respectful of their boundaries, because I
lucked out when I found them and I don't want to fuck it up. Same with my
editor, who is very no-nonsense and would not for one second put up with my
psychic bleeding. She made me scream into my pillow many times, but I by god
kept my screams contained to my pillow and did the work she asked for, because
being published by Norton is a tremendous honor and I don't want to fuck that
up either. And thank god I found all of them during and after DBT, because that
is the one and only way I had the non-fucking-it-up skills. </span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">MLJ</b>: </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">I'm so impressed that you wrote the manuscript seven times, and
that you deliberately worked to get the meanness out of it. I think mine
remains sort of mean, and a lot of the meanness is directed at myself, like I
went so far in the opposite direction from my original work of explaining my
good intentions that I ended up draining them from the book, focusing so much
on resisting self-deception that I produced another self-deception, one where I
was only ever wrong and bad. An example would be the line where I describe
comforting my youngest sister and then immediately undercut it by saying we
were 'two losers clutching each other in the dark, calling it a hug.' But the truth is, it <i>was</i> a hug, and I <i>was</i> comforting her, and myself.
Somehow I couldn't leave the good intentions in the book, like I didn't want to
get caught thinking too much of myself, so I rushed to say the negative thing
lest anyone think I didn't see its possibility (I struggle with that in
everyday life even now). I would love to hear more about the workshop with
Mindy Lewis. How <i>do</i> you go about turning oneself into a sympathetic
character? </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #b45f06; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><b>SP</b>: I think the question
of how to make yourself a sympathetic character in memoir is such an important
one. I'm thinking of Elizabeth Wurtzel's books, <i>Prozac Nation</i> and <i>More,
Now, Again</i>, and how much flak she's taken for the fact that people don't like
her as a character. I have to admit I was one of those people because she
was writing from a place of unappreciated privilege and because she disses body modification even though she has tattoos and piercings, although I absolutely give her props for being willing to come out about her mental illness at a time before mental health memoirs became popular. </span> </blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #b45f06; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">One of the ways I made
myself a sympathetic character, one of the ways I differentiated my book from
others in the genre, is that I wrote about what it's like to have the odds
stacked against you as far as class, educational opportunity, and wealth. I wrote about the struggle of dealing with the health care system when you're broke
and uninsured. Other broke, uninsured people were looking for themselves
in a memoir, so that's the book I wrote. That's the story I have to tell.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #b45f06; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">However, if there's one thing I've realized in the year and a
half since LITHOM was published, it's that <b>books are mirrors</b>. There are
always going to be people who hold your book in their hands but make up their
own narrative as they read your words. Because many of our readers are
struggling with emotional issues they may not be ready to face, they'll project
onto you things they don't like about themselves. One reader wrote a
review of my book saying that it was interesting to read the story of a woman
with bipolar disorder who was more manic than depressed. I think I make
it very clear in the book that I struggled with depression long before I
struggled with mania, and to a much greater extent. I also clarify that I
doubted the bipolar diagnosis (I have since dismissed it entirely) once I was
diagnosed borderline. But that woman may well have been bipolar and had
more manic episodes than depressive, and if that's what she needed to get out
of my book to help or comfort herself, so be it. </span> </blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #b45f06; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">I've also been taken to task for being dismissive of the South,
for thinking I was too good for the place I came from. I don't think that
at all, but I pull no punches about what it felt like to be bullied by
Christians because I didn't believe in God, or by cheerleaders and jocks
because I was smart and dressed like David Bowie. I talked about the pain
of longing for more educational opportunities than my hometown could offer.
That was my experience of that place, and it would have been disingenuous to
say I was happy there. If that's not the reader's experience, fine. But my book's not for her, it's for kids who want to hurt or
kill themselves because they're <i>atheists queer hyperintelligent </i>isolated in
places like that. A gay boy who's now being bullied at my old high school
wrote and told me I gave him hope. When I hear from those kids, it makes
all the criticism completely irrelevant. One of the things DBT helped me
come to terms with is that <b>not everyone's going to like me, and that's
fine</b>. </span> </blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #b45f06; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Also, it's really important to think of yourself as a character, instead of an angry
ball of pain out for vengeance. I wrote about myself as a strange little
kid, which is a character readers tend to love, from Scout in <i>To Kill a
Mockingbird</i>, to Frankie in <i>The Member of the Wedding</i>, to Matilda in <i>Matilda</i>. <b>We
relate to those characters because everyone knows, to some extent, what it's
like to feel that others don't understand you</b>. Whether you're the artsy
kid who feels too ugly to fit in with the cheerleaders or the cheerleader who
feels too pretty to be taken seriously, we all know about being
misunderstood. Finding the universal truths is how you make yourself
relatable to the reader. As William Faulkner said in his Nobel acceptance speech, what makes a good story,
a sympathetic character, is 'the problems of the human heart in conflict
with itself . . . Only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the
sweat.' The story he must tell is one of 'the old verities of
the heart, the universal truths . . . love and honor and pity and pride and
compassion and sacrifice.' Those are the things we all feel. How to feel those things fully and unashamedly, those are the questions all
readers want answered. It is our job, our responsibility as writers, to
give them that.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><b>MLJ:</b> I posted a question in my last blog entry: </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">What is blocking the thought of borderline pride?</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> What is your reaction to the idea of BPD pride?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #b45f06; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><b>SP:</b> I don't know that I'm proud to have BPD; it's just a thing that is. I do, because of my own experience of it, think it's an illness, and it's caused way too much pain and trauma in my life and those who love(d) me to consider it an asset. Now that I've learned to manage it, I appreciate the intensity of my ability to love and feel joy, and I am thankful for the traits that so often go along with BPD, namely creativity and wit. But I don't think I have those traits because of BPD, I think I have them alongside BPD. In other words, this mental illness does not give me the things I like about myself. Instead, they run concurrent, and I struggle to harness them because of the guilt and shame I feel about things I've done in the past. There will always be that little voice telling me I don't deserve success, that I instead deserve to spend my life punishing myself and denying myself happiness because of my previous terrible behavior. That's the central struggle of my life. There is always a mourning for the time I wasted being sick and a jealousy of the people who got treatment earlier than I did and therefore had those years. I compare myself unfavorably to others who spent that time achieving things, and, at 41, feel that I am very much behind. If there's something I'm proud of, it's that I'm still alive despite this, and that I found the self-awareness and humility to get through DBT because I so desperately wanted to live instead of die.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><b>MLJ: </b>Pride in still being alive. I like it. So what's next for you as a writer? I believe I heard you say you're working on a new book. And what else are you up to these days?<b> </b></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #b45f06;"><b>SP</b>: Oh god, the new
book! I'm fighting my way through a serious bout of writer's block. (Does any writer actually like writing?) It's a Southern
Gothic novel set in 1980s Arkansas. It's about ghosts, the Cold War,
numbers stations, analog technology, and Chernobyl. The brilliant Lance
Vaughan, whose blog, <a href="http://www.kindertrauma.com/" target="_blank">Kindertrauma</a>, you should read (but only when you have a
million hours to spare), is illustrating it with his gorgeous, creepy
paintings. There are lots of footnotes, mostly about horror movies. It
was inspired by the three best books I read last year: <i>Iodine</i>, by Haven
Kimmel, <i>Cruddy</i>, by Lynda Barry, and <i>House of Leaves</i>, by Mark Z. Danielewski. Took me three tries over 10 years to get through the last one, but it was
worth the frustration.</span><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #b45f06;"> </span></o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #b45f06;">As for what else I'm up to, I recently moved from NYC to DC,
where people talk about their security clearance at dinner parties. It's
pretty weird the first time someone casually mentions that they work for the
CIA. I work as a speaker for the Active Minds speakers' bureau, educating
folks about BPD, suicide prevention, bullying, and the difference between body
modification and self-injury (in other words, climbing up on </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #b45f06;">my
soapbox for money, which, booyah.) As I write this, I'm on the Metro on my way
home from teaching my first writing class to high school students as an
instructor for Writopia Lab, my other (awesome) job. When I'm not
writing, teaching, dancing, reading about nuclear holocaust, or proselytizing
about DBT, I'm working my way through every Tim Minchin video on YouTube. He's my non-Stewart Copeland imaginary boyfriend. (Laurie Anderson
and Annie Lennox continue fighting to be my girlfriend. Oh, the drama.)</span></span></blockquote>
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<br /></div>borderlinePhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08681276079795586997noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339764994253890828.post-65189896594713837012012-05-06T11:11:00.000-04:002012-05-06T13:53:28.586-04:00The Unthinkable Thought of Borderline Pride<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglnDpP0Vbi77vRK4ALLgCFDRZjD_vA2PbO01x-zYCwpbZcYMdEWyMv5UI-RJS3i557gdG6-w_v3twwFweFZh6jz5iotwBmVsG2lDsYsSQ3gyH3T4bm0GCuE629dqfFOcj4OP1umKIa2b0J/s1600/neurodiversity.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglnDpP0Vbi77vRK4ALLgCFDRZjD_vA2PbO01x-zYCwpbZcYMdEWyMv5UI-RJS3i557gdG6-w_v3twwFweFZh6jz5iotwBmVsG2lDsYsSQ3gyH3T4bm0GCuE629dqfFOcj4OP1umKIa2b0J/s200/neurodiversity.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Neurodiversity logo</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">As I said <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Girl-in-Need-of-a-Tourniquet-A-Borderline-Personality-Memoir/203672071470" target="_blank">on Facebook earlier today</a>, I am still sorting through the idea of BPD pride and recognizing BPD as a form of neurodiversity. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">This is not to say I'm overlooking the negative sides of the disorder, but that I see value in shifting the paradigm from an illness model to a disability model, and then using the path established by disability studies to make our assets and surpluses as visible as our impairments and deficits. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">It is a complex balance to strike because I don't want to underemphasize the fact of psychological suffering in the lives of borderlines, and sometimes I find it useful to describe BPD as a kind of chronic illness, so there is no one single way to conceptualize the condition that works for all purposes and in all contexts. I'm less interested in proposing borderline pride as the new or best or right way of looking at BPD and more interested in noticing how difficult it is to form a thought about "borderline pride," how unthinkable it is under the existing conditions of knowledge about BPD. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">When something seems to be unthinkable, according to feminist epistemologists like <a href="http://philosophy.la.psu.edu/faculty/profiles/tuana.shtml" target="_blank">Nancy Tuana</a>, it is sometimes because there are biased forms of knowledge that get in the way of the blocked thought. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">What is blocking the thought of borderline pride? </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">What might the phrase mean? Is it pride-in-being-borderline? Is it pride-despite-being-borderline? How might we distinguish it from BPD grandiosity? Or BPD complacency? Does BPD pride make sense in the way that autism pride or <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=2719254&page=1#.T6aTJu3roQ0" target="_blank">Deaf pride</a> does? Or is it nonsensical in the way that cancer pride might be? (As soon as I wrote that sentence, I googled "cancer pride" and discovered the Bald Is Beautiful campaign.) </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bald Is Beautiful T-Shirt</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">If cancer pride exists, it is even more difficult for me to understand why BPD pride is so unthinkable. Still, cancer pride and BPD pride tend toward a focus on pride-in-recovery or pride-in-survival, unlike autism pride and mad pride which foreground pride-in-alterity. </span><br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">I would like to see a form of BPD pride based in the disavowal of stigma. The fact that BPD pride is difficult to think - that it feels, in fact, unthinkable - is an index of the depth of the stigma, and therefore a marker of the necessity of BPD pride. One message of BPD pride might be, "I have it, I am not ashamed of myself for having it, and I feel compassion for and community with others who also self-identify as borderlines." BPD pride might say, "It is normal to experience pain, suffering, illness, and setbacks. It is not a sign of monstrosity. It is not a sign of being a failed human being." </span></b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrTfzie4sExhj8rwl2wNjDR5eCg1Pip5PVTNNfxtmwk4p6CNfy3UsZeEaobd9brcEzl3XzRjvQumBZDeVMBa7tQ3oBimlFu7LWE2TFm_izzfWFQtH6b7SGYbydEM4ABQK1hJ3yHIfzRNfK/s1600/Reback-Gay+Pride+Sburg+2011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrTfzie4sExhj8rwl2wNjDR5eCg1Pip5PVTNNfxtmwk4p6CNfy3UsZeEaobd9brcEzl3XzRjvQumBZDeVMBa7tQ3oBimlFu7LWE2TFm_izzfWFQtH6b7SGYbydEM4ABQK1hJ3yHIfzRNfK/s320/Reback-Gay+Pride+Sburg+2011.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rainbow colored balloons tied to<br />
bronze statue of a woman dancing.<br />
Spartanburg Gay Pride Parade 2011<br />
(Photo Caption: Charles Reback)</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">In the world of queer theory, the pride/shame binary has been rejected, a fact that is unfamiliar to the general public, which is still entangled in fights against gay rights (see the current fight in North Carolina around <a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/04/26/151450256/n-c-gay-marriage-amendment-has-unlikely-foes" target="_blank">amendment one</a>) and fights for gay visibility (various towns continue to inaugurate gay pride parades, <a href="http://www2.wspa.com/news/2009/jun/18/gay_pride_parade_this_weekend_in_spartanburg-ar-1208/" target="_blank">as my own town, Spartanburg, did three years ago in 2009</a>). In the context of sexuality, what lies beyond the pride/shame binary is a more complex look at difference (can we handle the fact that people are radically different from each other?) and sameness (can we handle the fact that people are far more similar to each other than our categorical thought processes tend to reveal?). In the context of disability, those same questions about permission for radical difference and recognition of unmarked similarities apply. </span><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></b><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">I think BPD pride is a thought worth thinking. </span></b><br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">I also think it is not the desired endpoint of the conversation.</span></b><br />
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</div>borderlinePhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08681276079795586997noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339764994253890828.post-21866127486190389172012-03-06T10:21:00.002-05:002012-03-06T10:31:16.922-05:00Borderline Voices Project<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBtXmWcArXTRCo0xndyTx5hYIrUm1Wl0KlCdPNe_Bgb9367kgY2W6_dzVlSAghjMwMzRguxs0P8dgAcY_3L72CbA5GYCygMDMyzTI-0cosodXBnZawS9OH7r3naF82RtONMd8GOXg1oJL_/s1600/autismpride.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBtXmWcArXTRCo0xndyTx5hYIrUm1Wl0KlCdPNe_Bgb9367kgY2W6_dzVlSAghjMwMzRguxs0P8dgAcY_3L72CbA5GYCygMDMyzTI-0cosodXBnZawS9OH7r3naF82RtONMd8GOXg1oJL_/s320/autismpride.jpg" width="309" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">I continue to be fascinated by the proliferation of memoirs, scholarly texts, and cultural projects dedicated to reoriented the public understanding of autism. And also, I'm a little bit envious, to be honest. Where, I wonder, is the borderline personality pride movement? </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">Where is our creative intervention in the public understanding of BPD? </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">What would a Borderline Voices Project look or sound like? Is it possible to take pride in oneself 'as a borderline,' in the way that <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jYBsTUmUFo">Donna describes her pride in herself as a person on the autism spectrum</a>? </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">I spend so much time reflecting on what I don't like about my borderline-ness, alternating with fears that borderline personality disorder doesn't really exist, or shouldn't really exist, that it has begun to feel like I'm having a borderline reaction to my borderline personality, with a heavy emphasis on devaluation. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">I'd like to put the shame and the anxiety on the backburner for a while and redirect my own focus to (1) exploring the positive side of being borderline, and (2) promoting recognition that 'borderline' is as true and real, yet also as historically situated and socially constructed, as autism is. (See "Autism as Culture" by Joseph N. Straus in <i><a href="http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415873765/">The Disability Studies Reader</a></i> on this point about autism as socially constructed.) I'm going out on a limb to say borderline personality warrants equal attention to these other, more positive ways of representing <i>the benign neurodiversity of borderline personality</i>. </span><br />
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</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">Toward that end, I'd love to hear from the borderlines on the question of borderline pride and borderline realness. Let's get this Borderline Voices Project started. Post your responses, send video blogs, or what-have-you. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">What do you like about being borderline? </span><br />
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</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">What are your positive borderline traits? </span><br />
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</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">What is there to say about borderline personality besides the fact that it hurts? </span><br />
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</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">Is crip pride applicable to BPD? </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDNiOJcLF-FLj2OaE_pQr9dKZW4q5GISuBb43UvLpyUzof_4bCvVepjHq2RxJmvDKHP-s3b_UIJ8lc-Zs6Xjy7gmHYxhywSEhSy29eS8rw5tx4_L0ZZ0BdeV948de637XnO-DUPFq2nLZe/s1600/fuckpity.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDNiOJcLF-FLj2OaE_pQr9dKZW4q5GISuBb43UvLpyUzof_4bCvVepjHq2RxJmvDKHP-s3b_UIJ8lc-Zs6Xjy7gmHYxhywSEhSy29eS8rw5tx4_L0ZZ0BdeV948de637XnO-DUPFq2nLZe/s1600/fuckpity.gif" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">I did a brief internet search and turned up one tumblr post on <a href="http://fuckyeahmadpride.tumblr.com/post/14368579607/living-with-borderline-personality-is-the-most">fuck yeah mad pride</a> that sounded promising, but here's how it begins: "living with borderline personality is the most awful thing I have to deal with." Hmm. Truly, there must be more to the story of borderline personality disorder. It can't all be reduced to the genre of horror. </span><br />
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</div>borderlinePhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08681276079795586997noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339764994253890828.post-33295730575832470222011-04-03T21:03:00.002-04:002011-04-04T09:01:21.044-04:00Jane Sutures It Up; or, Can You Have a Personality Disorder and Be a Feminist Too?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
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<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHv8aS72JVaaxAsiMiEg0iOixTQkmVeMmsxyxquQUNXqze79XTYWtefr_xgLkNPwnLTWfZdKnDhOMgD653ZF6jjw7pESLRhfx1fy59koBZNkiBemVerU7mkGWckiBp2QJKVmJC3_huB4x1/s1600/JaneCover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHv8aS72JVaaxAsiMiEg0iOixTQkmVeMmsxyxquQUNXqze79XTYWtefr_xgLkNPwnLTWfZdKnDhOMgD653ZF6jjw7pESLRhfx1fy59koBZNkiBemVerU7mkGWckiBp2QJKVmJC3_huB4x1/s1600/JaneCover.jpg" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">A reader recently wrote to me in a mixture of admiration and distress over her experience of relating strongly to my first book, </span></span><i><a href="http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?isbn=1568581807"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Jane Sexes It Up: True Confessions of Feminist Desire</span></span></a></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">, and again to my most recent one, </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Girl in Need of a Tourniquet</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">. She loved the bold feminist protest of </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Jane</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"> and the raw psychological wounds of </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Girl</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">. In a voice not unlike my own as I sorted through the conflicting and confusing evidence of my relationship history in the memoir, she wrote to ask, </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><i>What does this mean? Which one is true? Who was good?</i> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Because I found her inquiry so challenging, I wrote back to ask if I could take some time to think it over and answer her on the blog. </span></span></div><div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"> </span></div><div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">She said yes, so here goes.</span></span></div><div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"></span></span><br />
<div style="display: inline ! important; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><br />
</span></span> </span></div><blockquote><div class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline ! important;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Merri Lisa,</span></span></span></div><div style="color: #783f04; display: inline ! important; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Congratulations on your great new book! I finished it a few days ago, and I wanted to write and say how much it moved me. The huge life changes that you’ve gone through were obviously shattering, yet they gave you such amazing insights. The suffering you describe was tough to experience vicariously, but your strength and bravery that were ultimately conveyed were inspiring.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"></span></span></span></div></blockquote><br />
<blockquote><div style="color: #783f04; display: inline ! important; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">You have no idea how many people I convinced to read </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">JSIU</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"> after I discovered it in 2003. It sparked many intense and fruitful dialogues with my feminist- and non-feminist-identifying girlfriends, and even my boyfriend.</span></span></span></div><blockquote style="display: inline ! important;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline ! important;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"></span></span></div></blockquote></blockquote><div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"> </span></span></div><blockquote><div class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline ! important;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">As I just said, I absolutely loved </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Girl</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">, but <b><span style="color: red;">it seemed like it was written by a totally different person</span></b>. My friends and I responded deeply to </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Jane</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"> (all the essays, but especially the ones you wrote) because its ambivalence about men, gender roles, and feminism reflected our inner tensions and doubts. We identified completely with your searching for a different kind of heterosexuality. Your book embraced both the dangerous, unruly rawness of desire and the essential truths of feminism.</span></span></span></div></blockquote><blockquote><div class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline ! important;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">So I guess I’m left with the question of what you see when you look back at your earlier work. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Is there something other than pathology to be salvaged in </span></span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Jane</span></span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">?</span></span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"> When you think back on how you captured contemporary girls’ dissatisfaction so poignantly, do you see anything more than just symptoms of borderline personality disorder and/or repressed lesbianism?</span></span></span></div></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">[Then I wrote to ask for more details on the comparison . . . ]</span></span> <br />
<blockquote><div class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline ! important;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">The differences I see in the two books have everything to do (I assume) with the changes that have happened in your life in the past five or so years. Three big ones: the BPD diagnosis, coming to terms with lesbianism/coming out, and getting married. </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Girl</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"> is about these circumstances, the revelations they brought, and how you still struggle with those revelations. To me, it reads like a chronicle of your 30s, while </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">JSIU</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"> was a chronicle of your 20s.</span></span></span></div></blockquote><blockquote><div class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline ! important;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">I'm wondering about how you connect these two chronicles. Is the sole connection a therapeutic narrative that finds in </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Jane</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"> a repository of symptoms of BPD? </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Should young women who see themselves in your </span></span></b></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Jane</span></span></b></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"> essays get therapy, stat? :)</span></span></b></span></span></div></blockquote><blockquote><blockquote style="display: inline ! important;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline ! important;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Again, thank you for ALL of your beautiful books. Thank you for struggling through the trauma to reach healing expression.</span></span></span></div></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote><div class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline ! important;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Love,</span></span></span></div></blockquote><blockquote><div class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline ! important;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Amanda</span></span></span></div></blockquote><div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Amanda's questions zero in on precisely the most complex philosophical work in front of me these days as a self-identified </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">queer crip academic feminist person-with-borderline-personality-disorder</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"> </span></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"> </span></div><div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"> </span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"></span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><i><ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc"><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-top: 0.1pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">How to write about female psychosocial disorders without reinforcing sexist stereotypes of women as inherently crazy, irrational, excessive, and generally off our rockers.</span></span></span></li>
</ul><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span><ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc"><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-top: 0.1pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">How to make nuanced distinctions between the <b><span style="color: red;">feminist protest</span></b> of asymmetrical and otherwise unsatisfying hetero-relationships and <b><span style="color: red;">borderline styles of reaction</span></b> to distress, which are markedly disproportionate and self-defeating. </span></span></span></li>
</ul></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">One might say of the borderline personality what Melanie Klein (<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=rNzhRNe5NHkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=joan+lachkar+narcissistic+borderline+couple&source=bl&ots=CvilIRAAEH&sig=yTrJImsE6i8XD4pc5X6768zX-cQ&hl=en&ei=C7qZTeePCIXItweLrdXyCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=bizarre&f=false">via Joan Lachkar</a>) says of the patient in a paranoid-schizoid position: </span></span></span></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">She stands up for herself in bizarre and inappropriate ways.</span></span></span></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Such concerns will be at the center of the scholarly monograph I have begun to imagine, where I will theorize in more detail the movement between shoring up identity categories while simultaneously calling them into question, staging an encounter with stigma in order to loosen its hold on the category of borderline personality, and negotiating between the perspectives of feminist critique and those of 'crip' critique to expose a gap between them that resembles the gap <a href="http://www.betterworldbooks.com/feminism-the-family-and-the-politics-of-the-closet-id-0199257663.aspx">Cheshire Calhoun</a> reveals between 'feminist' and 'lesbian' viewpoints on matters of sexuality.</span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span></span></span></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/DzoAjqTVLRM" title="YouTube video player" width="640"></iframe></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">The decision to write </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Girl in Need of a Tourniquet</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> was prompted, in a way, by my realization that the bad feelings described in "Fuck You and Your Untouchable Face: Third Wave Feminism and the Problem of Romance" (chapter 1 in </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Jane Sexes It Up</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">) were coming up in similar ways in my lesbian affair, a realization that definitely made me question my insights in </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">JSIU</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> for a while. (</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Maybe the problem wasn't the guy. Maybe it was me. Why did I always take the faucet end of the tub after all? My capacity for self-subordination outstretched the influence of male-dominant couplehood dynamics.</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">) Gender roles were no longer the obvious culprit, so I <a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15228">dove into the wreck</a> of my personal psychology, family history, and ungrieved losses, leaving feminism behind for the time being. </span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><br />
</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Yet I always conceived of this memoir as a form of feminist social commentary. </span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><br />
</span></span></span><br />
<div style="display: inline ! important;"><div style="display: inline ! important;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">In preparation for writing the book, I took a course taught by <a href="http://www.deborahsiegel.net/">Deborah Siegel</a> and sponsored by the <a href="http://www.nwsa.org/">National Women's Studies Association</a> on how to write book proposals for trade publishers called <a href="http://girlwithpen.blogspot.com/2008/05/making-it-pop-workshops-now-booking-for.html">Making It Pop</a>, a course with the explicit aim of educating academic feminists on the practical skills of reaching a wider audience rather than restricting our conversations to the smallish world of academic journals. In short, the feminist cultural work of the book as I imagined it had to do with countering misogynistic and mentally ableist portrayals of the borderline personality woman as 'psycho girlfriend,' a la <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093010/">Fatal Attraction</a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067588/">Play Misty for Me</a>, and, for a more lighthearted demonization, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0465624/">My Super Ex-Girlfriend</a>. I even shopped the book to agents and publishers under the title </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Psycho Girlfriend Apologia</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> for a few months. I hoped to contribute a humanizing portrait of borderline personality disorder as a mishmash of trauma reenactment, attachment disorder, and emotional dysregulation, and to suggest that what appears irrational in her behavior has a persuasive logic to it, the <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/24795883/Our-Inner-Conflicts-Karen-Horney">flawless logic of the neurotic</a> to borrow a phrase from Karen Horney, which is perfectly pieced together but rooted in paranoid delusions and ego fragmentation. </span></span></span></div></div></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><br />
</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">After spending the requisite period of time worrying that the new book reveals the old book as precisely such a delusion, the fog of self-doubt lifted, and I saw a very different relationship between the two. </span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><br />
</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Far from undermining the feminist analysis of hetero-patriarchal romantic narratives, power dynamics, and gender roles that appears in </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Jane Sexes It Up</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">, I believe </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Girl in Need of a Tourniquet</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> excavates the psychological dynamics that produced in me a hypersensitivity to the insults and injuries that come with the work of <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=f842YFos8UwC&pg=PA4&lpg=PA4&dq=feeding+egos+tending+wounds+sandra+bartky&source=bl&ots=sKLWQr4KBF&sig=WhVLrVxH4suy74ilaS_w8mCCUWc&hl=en&ei=Ub6ZTYX4OJG6tgfq6KXcCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CDsQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q&f=false">feeding egos and tending wounds</a>, the emotional labor, that is, of hetero-romance. </span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><br />
</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span></span></div></i><i><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">(Whenever I write or teach about hetero-romance, I find it necessary to pause and explain that I don't mean to suggest that same-sex relationships are blissful or free of conflict. The point I'm making by identifying the subject of hetero-romance is not about drawing a contrast between straight and gay relationships, but rather it is a way to emphasize the social constructions of heterosexuality as a form of desire structured by the eroticization of gender inequalities. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.)</span></span></span></div></i><i><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><br />
</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">It is my borderline personality that made me feel the discomfort so acutely that I was moved to produce a critical anthology on sexual politics and third wave feminism.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><br />
</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq6hyphenhyphenXv_PCkvGr2IwSG45r2KseKDLkQIWPI-y7ift8cuP2Qzu2bZJVmwEFVPgWc9Fgx9MS9IJPAyNTjrAQCju2TN8fI55P8ZFR5FEOxRDPtSADjRs4_656_h3iUtR0mTamnjzPvGZs5I0x/s1600/dowser.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq6hyphenhyphenXv_PCkvGr2IwSG45r2KseKDLkQIWPI-y7ift8cuP2Qzu2bZJVmwEFVPgWc9Fgx9MS9IJPAyNTjrAQCju2TN8fI55P8ZFR5FEOxRDPtSADjRs4_656_h3iUtR0mTamnjzPvGZs5I0x/s1600/dowser.gif" /></span></span></span></a></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">It is my borderline personality that works like a forked branch vibrating over buried springs of fresh mountain water, leading me to wells of emotional intensity and, at times, emotional inequalities running beneath the surface of a relationship. </span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><br />
</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">This view of borderline personality as emotional giftedness works in important ways to balance the usual understanding of borderline personality as emotional dyslexia. My therapist said many times that borderline personality comes with gifts as well as challenges, but the public sphere has rarely made space to address borderline gifts of creativity, perceptiveness, empathy, and expressiveness.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"> </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">So, should fans of </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Jane Sexes It Up</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> seek help immediately for borderline personality disorder? Is there something besides pathology and closeted lesbian desire to be salvaged from </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Jane</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">? </span> </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"> </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">To the first question, I guess it depends on what parts resonated with you. If it was the longing for a more equitable sex life, then no. If it was breaking your favorite wine glass in the sink during a fight, then maybe therapy would be worth a try. (What needs fixing is not the anger but the management of anger.)</span> </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"> </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">To the second question, I have to admit that when I reread my chapters in </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">JSIU</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> now with almost a decade since its publication, I draw little smiley faces in the margins next to the previously unrecognized traces of lesbian sexuality and borderline psychology in that narrative. Those things are definitely there. But I consider them the queercrip excess of </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Jane Sexes It Up</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">, a bit of subject matter spilling over the top of its main ideas about queer feminist heterosexualities, not the 'true' or 'real' story beneath the false consciousness of feminist critique. </span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><br />
</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Towards the end of chapter 1 in</span> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">JSIU</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">, I asked the question on so many undergraduate Women's Studies students' minds: Can I have a boyfriend and be a feminist too? And I offered a tentative 'yes' to acknowledge the difficulty of reconciling feminist politics with hetero-desire while encouraging women to try to do so anyway.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><br />
</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Now a parallel concern is unfolding in reader and audience responses to </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Girl in Need of a Tourniquet</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">:</span></span></span></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><div style="display: inline ! important;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Can I have a personality disorder and be a feminist too?</span></span></div></span></i></li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><div style="display: inline ! important;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Can I admit to psychosocial disability and interrogate misogyny, able-ism, and medical authority at the same time?</span></span></div></span></i></li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><div style="display: inline ! important;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Can I claim the label of borderline without signing away my rights to a feminist perspective on relationships that drive a girl crazy?</span></span></div></span></i></li>
</ul></div></i></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Again, I'm gonna say yes. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Tentatively. Critically. Self-reflexively. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">The path is unclear, but I think I can get there from here.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"> </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Thanks for the great questions, Amanda! </span></span></div></div>borderlinePhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08681276079795586997noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339764994253890828.post-80020144348445803982011-03-01T14:51:00.004-05:002011-03-01T15:03:49.019-05:00March Madness<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinDJ9QjvmOnP8qVnzJdgLousB5O4ApcOHAt2MxmIWiVgKuV_pVFpsgwMLud0yVpN98u8QlJ25Z1iAM0XUV9RVcdP6n4RCIzEKU1qhtNmvo0DftofjsJ30LPG_WD-o8DHBQlawEq5rznqbr/s1600/womenslib.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinDJ9QjvmOnP8qVnzJdgLousB5O4ApcOHAt2MxmIWiVgKuV_pVFpsgwMLud0yVpN98u8QlJ25Z1iAM0XUV9RVcdP6n4RCIzEKU1qhtNmvo0DftofjsJ30LPG_WD-o8DHBQlawEq5rznqbr/s320/womenslib.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;">A lot of questions have been coming my way about the problem of gender bias in borderline personality disorder diagnoses, and in honor of today's kick-off to Women's History Month, I offer this blog post not as a response but as an invitation to begin a collaborative inquiry. Let's figure it out together. Two components of gender bias stand out immediately: (1) the disproportionate diagnosis of women as borderlines, and (2) the overlap between borderline personality traits and traditionally 'feminine' traits. A number of important feminists have worked on the question of how psychiatric labels have been used to subjugate women (Phyllis Chesler, Jane Ussher, Jean Baker Miller, to name three out of a throng of feminist scholars). A smaller group of feminist disability theorists have pushed back against this feminist renunciation of psychiatric labels, advocating for the labels as 'enabling fictions' that provide us with a useful way of understanding and describing psychological distress, not to mention an avenue of access to social and medical support (mainly I'm thinking here of Andrea Nicki's article, "The Abused Mind," but there are others working along similar lines). </span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinrdziIDsNcYlDx4wgS2qTC3cihxg-VU0iggjSagyebO8jTmtuLbC7tOcee24k039Qh668rXfRcxase6vhDdRO1sjesMxAbYKzZcXWmqHHIqrY3ugcqO8VPyIA2SrDvPfah78eod6W_gIp/s1600/March+is+womens+history+month.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinrdziIDsNcYlDx4wgS2qTC3cihxg-VU0iggjSagyebO8jTmtuLbC7tOcee24k039Qh668rXfRcxase6vhDdRO1sjesMxAbYKzZcXWmqHHIqrY3ugcqO8VPyIA2SrDvPfah78eod6W_gIp/s1600/March+is+womens+history+month.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;">In the specific context of borderline personality disorder, Dana Becker has advanced a strong feminist critique of BPD, a condition she says is "</span><span style="font-size: large;">arguably the most pejorative diagnosis of our time,"</span><span style="font-size: large;"> so I'm pasting a segment of her work below (pulled from the website for the <a href="http://www.awpsych.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=109&catid=74&Itemid=126">Association for Women in Psychology</a>).</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Let the conversation begin! </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">Is borderline personality disorder a big ol' sexist ruse? Does it have any liberatory dimensions worth celebrating? </span> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguDCOQGRpGiYhardYXAva5xfqvwQ6-BcgQ5Yl9gwffjnQ_kAHSOvHmfpo5kQk8nl91O_MUfH3V2lTVWW5XNsRNHwqiq8Kq4setoNdw5WPwPHMRnICshihjAn9eYoFfNNRp8NK5OpSAfYhd/s1600/woman+power+symbol.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguDCOQGRpGiYhardYXAva5xfqvwQ6-BcgQ5Yl9gwffjnQ_kAHSOvHmfpo5kQk8nl91O_MUfH3V2lTVWW5XNsRNHwqiq8Kq4setoNdw5WPwPHMRnICshihjAn9eYoFfNNRp8NK5OpSAfYhd/s1600/woman+power+symbol.jpg" /></a></div><div style="color: purple; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Borderline Personality Disorder: The Disparagement of Women through Diagnosis </b><br />
<br />
Dana Becker, Ph.D. Professor, Bryn Mawr Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research </span> <span style="font-size: large;"><br />
<br />
Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is currently defined in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as a persistent pattern of instability (both personal and interpersonal) and impulsivity. Its symptoms range from self-damaging and suicidal behavior to intense mood reactivity, feelings of emptiness, and problems controlling anger. It entered the DSM in the 1980 edition and is currently the most frequently diagnosed personality disorder. </span> <span style="font-size: large;"><br />
<br />
The primary characteristic of any personality disorder is said to be its stability over time, but as described in the current DSM-IV-TR, BPD is characterized by instability—of identity, of mood, of behavior — and there are well over 100 ways to combine its symptoms that qualify a person for the BPD diagnosis. Given the diversity of its symptomatic picture, many, even in the psychiatric profession, have had difficulty conceiving of BPD as a single disorder. According to the DSM-IV-TR, about 75% of people diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder are women. This was not always the case. BPD criteria have been altered appreciably over the past fifty years to include more and more symptoms related to emotion, accounting at least in part for the sex bias inherent in the diagnosis. Many researchers have challenged the validity of BPD, some concluding that BPD has become a catch-all label given to people, especially women, who experience acute sadness, emptiness, and emotional reactivity (particularly in the form of rage). The BPD diagnosis overlaps with other diagnoses such as Histrionic and Dependent Personality Disorders, which have been assailed for pathologizing behavior (e.g., dependency, seductiveness) that many women have been socialized to exhibit. </span> <span style="font-size: large;"><br />
<br />
Some women who have been diagnosed with BPD have histories of psychological maltreatment, neglect, and/or childhood sexual or physical abuse, and they may have difficulty expressing anger “appropriately.” The ways in which “borderline” women express their pain has occasioned a vast clinical literature on how to treat “borderlines” and how to manage the strong emotions they may arouse in their therapists. So-called borderline women are often described as angry and manipulative, when in fact they often act out because they do not trust that others will meet their needs if they express them straightforwardly. </span> <span style="font-size: large;"><br />
<br />
The BPD diagnosis has been used in court to institutionalize and/or medicate women involuntarily, deny them custody of their children, and have their parental rights terminated. Women diagnosed as having BPD have also frequently been discredited as witnesses in court cases involving rape or sexual abuse. </span> <span style="font-size: large;"><br />
<br />
Categorizing a particular set of disparate symptoms we now call “borderline” as a personality disorder encourages clinicians to focus on a particular style of coping learned under adverse circumstances rather than on the forms of abuse and emotional invalidation that originally made that style of coping necessary. The association between women and what is arguably the most pejorative diagnosis of our time can create fear and avoidance, if not frank hostility, on the part of students of psychotherapy and practicing professionals toward a population of extremely vulnerable women. </span> <span style="font-size: large;"><br />
<br />
SOURCES</span> </div></blockquote><blockquote style="color: purple;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">Becker, D. (1997). Through the looking glass: Women and borderline personality </span> <span style="font-size: large;"><br />
disorder. Boulder: Westview Press.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
________. (2000). When she was bad: Borderline personality disorder in a <br />
posttraumatic age. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 70 (4), 422-432. <br />
<br />
________. (2001). Diagnosis of psychological disorders: DSM and gender. </span> <span style="font-size: large;"><br />
In J. Worrell (Ed.), The encyclopedia of gender, Vol. 1 (pp. 333-343). San Diego: <br />
Academic Press. <br />
<br />
Becker, D., & Lamb, S. (1994). Sex bias in the diagnosis of borderline personality </span> <span style="font-size: large;"><br />
disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder. Professional Psychology: Research and <br />
Practice, 25, 55-61. <br />
<br />
Brown, L. S. & Ballou, M. (1994). Personality and psychopathology. New York: Guilford. </span> <span style="font-size: large;"><br />
<br />
Herman, J. L., Perry, J. C., van der Kolk, B. A. (1989). Childhood trauma in borderline personality disorder. American Journal of Psychiatry, 146 (4), 460-465. </span> <span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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Nurnberg, H. G., Raskin, M., Levine, P. E., Pollack, S., Siegel, O., & Prince, R. (1991). The comorbidity of borderline personality disorder and other DSM-III-R Axis II personality disorders. American Journal of Psychiatry, 148 (10), 1371-1377. </span> <span style="font-size: large;"><br />
<br />
Ogata, S. N., Silk, K. R., Goodrich, S., Lohr, N. E., Westen, D., & Hill, E. M. (1990). Childhood sexual and physical abuse in adult patients with borderline personality disorder. American Journal of Psychiatry, 147 (8), 1008-1013. </span> <span style="font-size: large;"><br />
<br />
Shaw, C., & Proctor, G. (2005). Women at the margins: A critique of the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. Feminism & Psychology, 15 (4), 483-490.</span> </div></blockquote> <span class="article_separator"><br />
</span><span style="font-size: large;"></span></div>borderlinePhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08681276079795586997noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339764994253890828.post-61203049730777708632011-02-19T21:53:00.004-05:002011-02-22T14:46:07.444-05:005 Things Not to Do When Someone Is Angry With You<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcH0TDPo1MDoFiQAxuPWk-YqB14i00joWU7x0RK3NMpEUqcXlV7n_wDXHZ9ixgV-sI8k6Ol97BznThRoS3LpvA8mRHl-1rDny3vkH2cnGtfXsX6CHmU_KQgUQDpEv8FHvWZvpHlp7Iyk_q/s1600/HowToTakeTheGrrrrOutOfAnger.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcH0TDPo1MDoFiQAxuPWk-YqB14i00joWU7x0RK3NMpEUqcXlV7n_wDXHZ9ixgV-sI8k6Ol97BznThRoS3LpvA8mRHl-1rDny3vkH2cnGtfXsX6CHmU_KQgUQDpEv8FHvWZvpHlp7Iyk_q/s320/HowToTakeTheGrrrrOutOfAnger.jpg" width="234" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Anger is scary. I react to it like I'm a little kid and the world is ending. It says 'grrr' and I turn to run away. I want to learn to react like a grown up, with some grace and stability. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Some segments below have been tailored from the <a href="http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/869503/5_things_you_should_not_do_when_someone.html?cat=72">original source</a> to directly address PWBs (people with borderline personalities).</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">FIVE THINGS <b><span style="color: red;">NOT</span></b> TO DO WHEN SOMEONE IS ANGRY WITH YOU</span><br />
<ol style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">Do not keep pushing and prodding for explanations or for conversation in general. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Do not overcompensate. Going to desperate lengths to fix the problem comes across as phony and makes the person more angry.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Do not beat yourself up. Tearing yourself apart will not improve the situation. Resolve to yourself to make a change.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Do not turn the situation around and get angry at them. Resist the urge to make them the problem.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Do not try to get revenge. [I find this one confusing, like, what on earth kind of revenge would one take on someone for being angry, but 4 out of 5 helpful tips is not bad.]</span></li>
</ol><br />
<div><span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1d0zH8I1aBTopkweEl6fDTefTlugrfHHSEiHeCgcyNZl-XMBBxDptfSDrqkSip_mlz9Un1lImCWV68EI1AkJC68QNKryADrQ-82WYrNyYDt5uKGPeWtQgiDsA-mpPexNC9D4mDeZqXCFF/s1600/girl+walking+dog+valentine.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br />
</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1d0zH8I1aBTopkweEl6fDTefTlugrfHHSEiHeCgcyNZl-XMBBxDptfSDrqkSip_mlz9Un1lImCWV68EI1AkJC68QNKryADrQ-82WYrNyYDt5uKGPeWtQgiDsA-mpPexNC9D4mDeZqXCFF/s1600/girl+walking+dog+valentine.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNjVvaRxcltpFuhKsZeM3Jg00MOzovPeOff3aIn6PekgPVj0XjZIZK5a62x39DtkP9pg_E3oWZHHKmLzoOyMeZEY1uP0J-eq7YMZ79jVyCmRsAbgj3pLyBp-D94Ao6q7MozD6Cs9YusiPX/s1600/leftyoga.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNjVvaRxcltpFuhKsZeM3Jg00MOzovPeOff3aIn6PekgPVj0XjZIZK5a62x39DtkP9pg_E3oWZHHKmLzoOyMeZEY1uP0J-eq7YMZ79jVyCmRsAbgj3pLyBp-D94Ao6q7MozD6Cs9YusiPX/s1600/leftyoga.jpg" /></a><span style="font-size: large;">SO, WHAT SHOULD YOU DO?</span><br />
<ol style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">make a sincere apology</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">give them space</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">assure them you will be there when they are ready to work things out</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">maintain emotional balance because falling apart is a flawed and unfair defense (see <a href="http://borderlinephd.blogspot.com/2011/02/pretty-little-defense-machine.html">previous post</a>)</span></li>
</ol><span style="font-size: large;">Specifically, this last one means you still have to eat, sleep, exercise, hydrate, go to work, and take care of any children or pets in your care, and, if possible, do extra little things to nurture yourself like bake cookies or go for a long walk and smell the warm spring air and accept a world where someone being mad at you can coincide with an unseasonably sunny Saturday in <a href="http://kalman.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/02/06/the-impossibility-of-february/">the impossible month of February</a>. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The world hasn't ended.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Watch <a href="http://abc.go.com/shows/greys-anatomy">Grey's</a>. Go to sleep. Wake up tomorrow. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Try again.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span> <span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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</span></div></div></div>borderlinePhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08681276079795586997noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339764994253890828.post-34973765644337389362011-02-19T14:48:00.002-05:002011-02-20T12:52:12.008-05:00Pretty Little Defense Machine<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigqAe0Ise6_4J-zo7Nnamc0ppGF0XHdeDyC79vUcMB6dGEv_blehq0J-74yhq-lIMz0XHoo5_PFl3898-X_m9u5drNuP9zBGMH67rlmleogWYFBIWkkqj6YxP_9vpCxz0NRQRpfH5Z35P6/s1600/idiotsavant-tshirt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigqAe0Ise6_4J-zo7Nnamc0ppGF0XHdeDyC79vUcMB6dGEv_blehq0J-74yhq-lIMz0XHoo5_PFl3898-X_m9u5drNuP9zBGMH67rlmleogWYFBIWkkqj6YxP_9vpCxz0NRQRpfH5Z35P6/s400/idiotsavant-tshirt.jpg" width="400" /></a><span style="font-size: large;">One question that comes up repeatedly at public readings from <i>Girl in Need of a Tourniquet</i> goes something along the lines of 'how did you gain perspective on your own symptoms?' They want to know how I am able to see through the haze of borderline cognition to see and accept my own complicity in the painful experiences I describe. Most of the time the question makes me feel special, like I am a <a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/medical/idiot%20savant">borderline savant</a> who is gifted with insight into her own flawed perceptions, but the truth is that the insight comes from other people. I see the emotions I'm experiencing as authentic reflected in their faces as false and strategic. It has often been the case that I ran the other way when I saw this distorted reflection because I believed the person was seeing me <i>the wrong way</i>, and I wanted to hide to protect myself from the unfair picture. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Occasionally I can admit that what they are seeing is accurate. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIhhRKSDP20a56f4PKL-rZ502M2ZBfmr960rL95mQai_e2L0fJstdyF6sip6FivResIH5CNyhBy4KforDoUmN3OcaB229GRQm1r2LutVcWXxHitcq8iB1e87-6rL4ArNoIFjhayLU0Zfom/s1600/Verbal_Abuse-1.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIhhRKSDP20a56f4PKL-rZ502M2ZBfmr960rL95mQai_e2L0fJstdyF6sip6FivResIH5CNyhBy4KforDoUmN3OcaB229GRQm1r2LutVcWXxHitcq8iB1e87-6rL4ArNoIFjhayLU0Zfom/s320/Verbal_Abuse-1.gif" width="205" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Sadistic verbal attacks? Yes, I've made a number of them. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Wild swings from idealization to devaluation? Definitely, over and over again. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Paranoid misinterpretations of other people as hostile and out to get me? Again, yes. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Sudden frightening bursts of anger? In the words of Natalie Portman, 'Don't test me when I'm crazy.'</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ28QmD-YJh2V1YH4ZQNFxoHJrt3v7R7l6D371dGunBWVQ-XWVw5bagN3GPK11zo9KTzYNU_TEE4jFWyKhHab35DrDiCGc9ddj5UgkDaVCJqESsYwJ1suRvm21xRO0GDMhyphenhyphenl60CZfxukiH/s1600/heist.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><span style="font-size: large;">The one saving grace in this awful picture is that once I see the behavior for what it is, I am generally able to change it. I am holding on to this glimmer of hope today because I just saw a whole new set of personality disorder symptoms in myself, and they are <i>not attractive</i> and, more importantly, <i>not functional</i>. Sometimes I wonder if maybe I made this whole </span><span style="font-size: large;"><i>being borderline </i></span><span style="font-size: large;">thing up. Like maybe there's nothing wrong and I just went all Lauren Slater metaphorical on borderline personality disorder and used it as a narrative device to capture the <i>feeling</i> of being in extreme emotional pain, or worse, maybe I made it up as an excuse for bad behavior like one of my Feminist Disability Studies students said on Thursday about how people abuse diagnoses by using them to get away with things. I said her comment was ableist. I said those defenses are symptoms, too. She looked frustrated. I think maybe she wished I would hear what she was saying about the importance of accountability despite the diagnosis.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ28QmD-YJh2V1YH4ZQNFxoHJrt3v7R7l6D371dGunBWVQ-XWVw5bagN3GPK11zo9KTzYNU_TEE4jFWyKhHab35DrDiCGc9ddj5UgkDaVCJqESsYwJ1suRvm21xRO0GDMhyphenhyphenl60CZfxukiH/s1600/heist.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ28QmD-YJh2V1YH4ZQNFxoHJrt3v7R7l6D371dGunBWVQ-XWVw5bagN3GPK11zo9KTzYNU_TEE4jFWyKhHab35DrDiCGc9ddj5UgkDaVCJqESsYwJ1suRvm21xRO0GDMhyphenhyphenl60CZfxukiH/s320/heist.gif" width="304" /></a><span style="font-size: large;">Just as I begin to wonder about whether my diagnosis is real (and just as I block a student from addressing crip accountability), the psychoanalytic karma fairy drops a whole new load of 'behaviors' in front of me, and I realize something. You can call it <i>being borderline</i> or <i>having a personality disorder</i> or just <i>being a bad person</i> - who cares what anyone calls it, who cares where the line being normal bad person and abnormal bad person is when you hurt someone you love and then watch yourself like a character in a bad movie trying to get off scot-free instead of sticking around to deal with the pain and anger directed legitimately at you (at me) - it is not okay to hide out inside a false reality where you are always seen as right and good, or, at worst, wrong but impaired. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">So anyway, long story short, I'm a defense machine, and I am pretty grossed out by my defenses right now, so in the interest of seeing them for what they are, and towards the end goal of us PWBs (people with borderline personalities) and people in general, really, being honest and accountable for our hurtful behaviors, here is the list I made today of my tactics for avoiding responsibility when I do something wrong:</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">crying when someone is mad at me so that they switch from anger to compassion</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">positioning myself as a martyr, encouraging them to take their best shot, like I am <i>jesus savior good</i> when I am really <i>judas traitor bad</i>, like I am somehow generously giving something up by facing my responsibility for their pain</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">describing myself as <i>all bad</i> (see above) so that others will rush in to say I'm not <i>all</i> bad </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">depriving myself of basic self-care (<i>the long goodbye of the hunger strike</i>, in Aimee Mann's words) as a kind of emotional threat so that my partner becomes afraid for my well-being and doesn't feel free to express anger<i> </i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">making it all about me, apologizing so that I can be forgiven, offering to do whatever they say so that I will be seen as c<i>ompliant easy docile</i> when I am really <i>stubborn difficult recalcitrant</i>, treating guilt like a hot potato I don't want to hold</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">lying (I won't pretty this one up with imagery)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">writing a book or a blog post because I don't know how to be sorry in person</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">referencing a cool band or song in the title to cover up my emotional deficits with a veneer of hipness </span></li>
</ul><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN7lCWjBXSFxfZmRQIT41liDqOfL4vyDIrsMmjZMdiG1w8pIxwJEDMH2w5XUAIHSdgNDJb2Q0NJrn9SuxXEBTRMwx13-_8nCm_OgzuTE-6ZU4YYE6mZH_r_lzwdshwW3aC1SoD8qy47unj/s1600/Crying-Baby.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN7lCWjBXSFxfZmRQIT41liDqOfL4vyDIrsMmjZMdiG1w8pIxwJEDMH2w5XUAIHSdgNDJb2Q0NJrn9SuxXEBTRMwx13-_8nCm_OgzuTE-6ZU4YYE6mZH_r_lzwdshwW3aC1SoD8qy47unj/s320/Crying-Baby.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">I kept my one-year-old niece last weekend, and I noticed she cried really intensely every time I told her no (like, <i>no don't pull that drawer out</i>, or <i>no don't grab the dog's tail</i>), and I sort of identified with her, thinking <i>hey I don't like to be criticized either</i>. Crying is not simply the expression of pain and sadness. Crying is a defense. The thing is, she's <i>one</i> and I'm <i>thirty-eight</i> and acting like a baby. Self-pity does not wear well at this age. I'm still groping around for a model of what mature regret looks like, though. </span></div><div></div><div><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I'm hoping the people who follow this blog will explain it to me like I'm five. </span></div><div></div><div><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Draw me a picture. I want to do better. </span><br />
<div><br />
<div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div></div></div></div></div></div>borderlinePhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08681276079795586997noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339764994253890828.post-61259482082135355482010-11-02T11:13:00.000-04:002010-11-02T11:13:36.905-04:00Does DBT Work?<span style="font-size: large;"><b></b></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF936lwgqsGVzDFCsLOMaE39_6RRkoIpgQsu7yQIkQIkEUcsUAtvZ7pALoNx_55s22sPnjv3DgnnPUGdlwr6TDktiqR8jNRRCTwBAFVqkhzALKnmwSLS9gFVbhP-9wCXFTO-90XmvlJsUN/s1600/DBT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF936lwgqsGVzDFCsLOMaE39_6RRkoIpgQsu7yQIkQIkEUcsUAtvZ7pALoNx_55s22sPnjv3DgnnPUGdlwr6TDktiqR8jNRRCTwBAFVqkhzALKnmwSLS9gFVbhP-9wCXFTO-90XmvlJsUN/s320/DBT.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>In the previous post, the question came up of whether DBT works. I have not undergone this therapy, so I invite responses from anyone who has. </b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>In the meantime, here is a bit of unexpected skepticism towards DBT from an article in a British journal on psychiatric treatment:</b></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
</b></span><br />
<blockquote><div style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT; Linehan, 1993) is based on the principle that BPD is essentially the result of deficits in interpersonal and self-regulatory skills and that these skills can be taught in therapy. Defective affect regulation is seen as particularly important. Treatment consists of weekly individual and group therapy sessions based on a skills-training model, together with out-of-hours telephone contact with the therapist.</b></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
</b></span><br />
<div style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Dialectical behaviour therapy has been shown, in a single study, to be superior to 'treatment as usual' in reducing self-harm and time spent in hospital, but not subjective experiences such as depression and hopelessness (Linehan<i> et al</i>, 1991). There were also significant improvements in social and global functioning and anger (Linehan <i>et al</i>, 1994). However by one year after the end of treatment, rates of self-harm were no different in the DBT group and treatment-as-usual groups, although both had improved (Linehan <i>et al</i>, 1993).</b></span></div><div style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
</b></span></div><div style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Despite this essentially negative finding, DBT has attracted considerable interest; however, Linehan's study is open to a number of methodological criticisms. Only 39 patients were studied, all of them female, and of these only 20 were fully assessed. The level of self-harm required for entry into the study (two episodes in the last five years and one in the last eight weeks) may have led to the inclusion of patients who were less severely disturbed than those commonly seen in clinical practice. Furthermore, DBT involves a high level of input from professionals and it is not yet clear whether it is the skills training itself or simply the high level of support which leads to the reduction in self-harm.</b></span></div><div style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
</b></span></div><div style="color: orange; text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>-Anthony P. Winston, "Recent Developments in Borderline Personality Disorder" (2000)</b></span></div></blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">This assessment of DBT surprised me. I had never heard negative remarks about this therapeutic approach before. </span> <span style="font-size: x-large;">Reading Linehan's dense tome on CBT for borderlines helped me a lot in reconfiguring my attitudes. The idea of radical acceptance was at first a big frustrating puzzle to me - another opaque window - but gradually it settled inside me as something useful that I can draw on, especially regarding family relationships. </span></b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Anybody else have thoughts on DBT, CBT, Linehan, or this methodological critique from Winston?</span></b></span>borderlinePhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08681276079795586997noreply@blogger.com35tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339764994253890828.post-53865361679787761762010-11-01T21:02:00.005-04:002010-11-01T21:14:48.217-04:00Ask a Borderline<span style="font-size: large;"></span><span style="font-size: large;">A reader of <i>Girl in Need of a Tourniquet</i> emailed me this week with some follow up questions, and with her permission I am sharing our correspondence with readers of this blog. Thanks, Joanna, for collaborating with me on this post!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 9:32 PM, joanna george</span> wrote:<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Hi Lisa,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I realise you're probably extremely busy with all your responsibilities as an author and professor but I just wondered if you'd have time to answer a few quick questions regarding your book/BPD. If not, I completely understand.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I thought your book was amazing, by the way, very real and unique to other autobiographies I've read by people with Borderline. It certainly helped me in my obstacled journey as a Borderline, although I'm now reflecting more on my own thoughts, feelings and behaviours, especially of the past. Hopefully, this will be some form of self-therapy for me. It is certainly comforting to know I'm not the only one who has offbeat thoughts and emotions.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">So my questions - I was wondering if you have done DBT which is thought to be groundbreaking therapy for Borderlines, and if so, was it helpful? I have done two modules of DBT and to be honest, while it has helped with some of my behaviour where interpersonal relationships are concerned, it hasn't helped greatly with making me 'feel' better. As you mentioned in your book, (from another author) when one is pathologically anxious or in distress, methods such as meditation and physical exercise don't work too well. I find when I am in what I call 'one of my rages' or need for self-harm, there is nothing stopping me, and meditation and mindfulness are the last things on my mind.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">My other question - I believe you were diagnosed quite late, in your early thirties, as I was too (just a year ago actually). Did you experience similar emotions, feelings, thoughts and behaviours when you were much younger and just went undiagnosed, or do you believe it is something that appeared later for you? I always knew I was different (different in the sexuality as well as mental sense) and went through my twenties just thinking it was depression/dysthymia. I didn't even start self-harming until I was in my early thirties, although I always went for some very fast and out of control drives when the tension and anger rose.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">And one last very tiny question - even though you're now married, do you still feel like there is perhaps a 'hole' or something missing (I am actually not sure if you spoke of this in your book anyway)? I have a wonderful girlfriend but still feel as though something is missing in my core, my soul. It is something now that I'm older I realise will always be there.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Anyway, thank you for reading my email, and thank you so much for writing your book. I just wish it went on for longer!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Take care,</span><br />
<span style="color: #888888; font-size: large;">Joanna</span></blockquote><br />
<blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">Hi Joanna,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> Thanks for writing. I am happy to answer your questions. Would you be comfortable with me using your email and my responses on my blog? </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> I have not gone through DBT, but I have listened to Pema Chodron for many years now, and I read a book called <i>Feeling Good</i> which is a CBT-based book, and both of these sources provided the kind of cognitive reconditioning I needed in order to improve my overall mental well-being. I have been lucky to find that I could implement ideas from books and audiobooks in my life with minimal therapeutic supervision. From what I understand, most people need more structured guidance, but if the choice is between books/audiobooks and nothing, then I say try the books :-) The best tactic for me is to read and listen during periods of low-grade anxiety as a way to manage my emotions and keep them from getting too big and uncomfortable. I also reduced my alcohol intake significantly because I finally understood and accepted that alcohol amplifies my negative feelings to a level where I cannot manage them, so it is like a "gateway drug" into emotional chaos. I was diagnosed around age 31, about six years ago, but I did always know something was off for me. Like you, I thought it was depression, and I thought it was basically what I learned in my undergraduate literature courses to call the "human condition." </span></blockquote><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">It is not the human condition, I now know.</span> </blockquote><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">And in fact I was fascinated to read that some of the authors and artists of the so-called human condition (e.g., Sartre, Munch) were suffering from severe abandonment depression related to childhood loss of attachment figures. I am married now, but as I say in the book, marriage is no cure for an attachment disorder (I prefer "attachment disorder" to "personality disorder," because of the way the term shifts focus to the dynamic of pain rather than the person herself). I still experience loneliness, frustration, abandonment feelings, engulfment feelings, and a basic restlessness, but I don't look to my partner to correct those feelings. It is my responsibility to explore, manage, ventilate, and refuse to be at the mercy of these emotions. I have made enormous progress towards what psychologists call "integration" as a result of writing the book and doing the cognitive reconditioning that accompanied my writing process. Old painful memories have taken on a less frightening dimension. My working models of self, other, and world have all shifted in a positive direction. </span></blockquote><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0MRayWg_WSzmSOjRdVYtFsC9IP6euuKO3s3GiH18VzNHxcvHLjkmYTNyi6OBTiZoH6BGHyiULiyUsnowaj7mhU0h_soPDEpu5mwjl8EAUGfnZZcdLwnDwE_IjXO4HspkDT-CZTJri4MDq/s1600/goatgirl2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0MRayWg_WSzmSOjRdVYtFsC9IP6euuKO3s3GiH18VzNHxcvHLjkmYTNyi6OBTiZoH6BGHyiULiyUsnowaj7mhU0h_soPDEpu5mwjl8EAUGfnZZcdLwnDwE_IjXO4HspkDT-CZTJri4MDq/s200/goatgirl2.jpg" width="184" /></a> <span style="font-size: large;">I am working to shed <b>the "goat girl" narrative</b> of myself as monstrous and unwanted, and to replace it with a more friendly view of myself as valuable, interesting, pleasant, and so on. My view of others is shifting from the other as disapproving judge to the other as simply someone living their own life with their own hangups and gifts just like me. And the world looks less hostile now, more neutral and interesting. Those changes (as opposed to my marital status) are helping me feel full instead of empty and to feel whole instead of like a "hole." The work really has to do with what's going on inside us, but I am lucky to have a partner who will engage in ongoing conversations about such things, who pushes me to keep reconditioning myself to be less easily thrown off my mood, and who listens earnestly when I say I feel unheard or invalidated and who is open to making changes in our interpersonal dynamics to improve the space of our marriage for both of us. <br />
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I hope these responses are helpful to you. Again, thanks for writing me and for supporting the book.<br />
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All best,</span> <span style="color: #888888; font-size: large;">Lisa Johnson</span>borderlinePhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08681276079795586997noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339764994253890828.post-62140576830348692982010-10-15T22:57:00.001-04:002010-10-15T23:05:59.806-04:00An angst-filled mix-tape of a story<span style="font-size: large;"></span><span style="font-size: large;"><b>This is the best review of the book so far. Thank you Kathy Wise! You are so right - the book IS a mix tape, a prose poem, and a big open question about the line between sane and insane. I am honored to be a staff pick at <a href="http://www.shelfmediagroup.com/staff_picks.php"><i>Shelf Unbound</i></a>.</b></span><br />
<div class="staff_pick_content"><blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIcNgpowhZw3w1xV4OGoN3-_Rq2dzwcqJWP5KQRxu9CzRaUg8nQxOge96YYhK3h_4H2fbZoxLnPeSYoTNL5GPmHaj466OXFraSQ90tpMf0-QqeWkHJMoZ0VJoHQ3-g_WlYqkoQ8slWTh_Q/s1600/LeftEye.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIcNgpowhZw3w1xV4OGoN3-_Rq2dzwcqJWP5KQRxu9CzRaUg8nQxOge96YYhK3h_4H2fbZoxLnPeSYoTNL5GPmHaj466OXFraSQ90tpMf0-QqeWkHJMoZ0VJoHQ3-g_WlYqkoQ8slWTh_Q/s1600/LeftEye.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: #783f04;">The cited soundtrack to <i>Girl in Need of a Tourniquet</i> is the soundtrack to my own coming out in the early '90s, minus the borderline personality disorder. It is the shaved-headed power of Sinead O'Connor, the burning passion of Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, the bi-ambiguity of Ani DiFranco, and the Juliette-Lewis-in-a-mental-hospital video drama of Melissa Etheridge. An angst-filled mix-tape of a story, Johnson's memoir serves as a beautifully crafted prose poem about an absent mother, unrequited love, sexual identity before the L Word, and mental illness, begging the question of where sane (or youth and a lack of consequential thinking) ends and crazy begins. </span></b></span></div></blockquote><div style="color: #783f04; text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>-Kathy Wise</b></span></div></div>borderlinePhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08681276079795586997noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339764994253890828.post-30149762118643936812010-08-29T19:09:00.001-04:002010-08-30T15:23:08.937-04:00Girl in Need of a Tourniquet - Video Short - thanks to AJ Mahari for providing an audiofile of this reading!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzM_iJUG6vvW27pe8OxpOLXVKzF8iwV1qHPIbQizAH3ba72Xe5p4O347gKeLFPLONp1WVZE1DkZhOMhoOEsVg' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe>borderlinePhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08681276079795586997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339764994253890828.post-17849550942151493112010-08-25T15:23:00.005-04:002010-08-26T09:39:55.906-04:00Interview w/Merri Lisa Johnson by Amanda Smith, Exec. Dir., Florida Borderline Personality DIsorder AssociationThis was my first interview about <a href="http://www.merrilisajohnson.com/"><i>Girl in Need of a Tourniquet</i></a>. It took place the very week of the book's release. Go to: <a href="http://www.fbpda.org/">Florida Borderline Personality Disorder Association</a> and scroll down to the link to an mp3 of the interview.<br />
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(Hopefully it's working now . . .)borderlinePhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08681276079795586997noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339764994253890828.post-2664047188661160522010-08-25T14:58:00.000-04:002010-08-25T14:58:48.524-04:00Interview w/Merri Lisa Johnson by AJ Mahari, Psyche Whisperer (June 29, 2010)<img border="0" height="0" src="http://counters.gigya.com/wildfire/IMP/CXNID=2000002.0NXC/bT*xJmx*PTEyODI3NjI1NTQyMDEmcHQ9MTI4Mjc2MjU2MDk1NyZwPTQ1MDk3MiZkPUhvc3RJRCUzYSUyMDI5MDY*Jmc9MiZvPTI5/OTdjNTY5ZDVjOTQ1NGFiNmMyMGFiNGQ*OWFkNzE5Jm9mPTA=.gif" style="height: 0px; visibility: hidden; width: 0px;" width="0" /><object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.adobe.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,0,0" height="108" id="btr" name="btr" width="210"><param name="movie" value="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/btrplayer.swf?file=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eblogtalkradio%2Ecom%2Fplaylist%2Easpx%3Fshow%5Fid%3D1129364&autostart=false&bufferlength=5&volume=80&borderweight=1&bordercolor=#999999&backgroundcolor=#FFFFFF&dashboardcolor=#0098CB&textcolor=#F0F0F0&detailscolor=#FFFFFF&playlistcolor=#999999&playlisthovercolor=#333333&cornerradius=10&callback=http://www.blogtalkradio.com/FlashPlayerCallback.aspx?referrer_url=/show.aspx&C1=7&C2=6042973&C3=31&C4=&C5=&C6=&hostname=Psyche Whisperer AJ&hosturl=http://www.blogtalkradio.com/ajmaharipsychewhisperer" /><param name="quality" value="high" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><param name="menu" value="false" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><embed src="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/btrplayer.swf?file=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eblogtalkradio%2Ecom%2Fplaylist%2Easpx%3Fshow%5Fid%3D1129364&autostart=false&bufferlength=5&volume=80&borderweight=1&bordercolor=#999999&backgroundcolor=#FFFFFF&dashboardcolor=#0098CB&textcolor=#F0F0F0&detailscolor=#FFFFFF&playlistcolor=#999999&playlisthovercolor=#333333&cornerradius=10&callback=http://www.blogtalkradio.com/FlashPlayerCallback.aspx?referrer_url=/show.aspx&C1=7&C2=6042973&C3=31&C4=&C5=&C6=&hostname=Psyche Whisperer AJ&hosturl=http://www.blogtalkradio.com/ajmaharipsychewhisperer" width="210" height="108" quality="high" pluginspage="http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" menu="false" allowScriptAccess="always" name="btr" FlashVars="gig_lt=1282762554201&gig_pt=1282762560957&gig_g=2"></embed> <param name="FlashVars" value="gig_lt=1282762554201&gig_pt=1282762560957&gig_g=2" /></object><br />
<div style="font-size: 10px; text-align: center; width: 210px;">Listen to <a href="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/">internet radio</a> with <a href="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/ajmaharipsychewhisperer">Psyche Whisperer AJ</a> on Blog Talk Radio</div>borderlinePhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08681276079795586997noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339764994253890828.post-5918447140947119962010-08-23T19:21:00.004-04:002010-08-23T19:29:46.700-04:00Whose Eggshells?<div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">I've written so many different descriptions of <i>Girl in Need of a Tourniquet</i> as I prepared the manuscript and worked on publicity for the book. I just ran across one that might be useful in sparking conversation about the dynamics between borderlines and our partners or familial attachment figures:</span></div><blockquote style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>My mission in this memoir is to convey the strangeness and intensity of borderline personality while at the same time retracing the flawless - if dysfunctional - logic of borderline cognition. The borderline doesn't like </i><i>walking on eggshells</i> <i>any more than her partner or family members do. She would never have intentionally strewn them on the floor. She often thinks </i><i><b>you</b> (her partner, her mother) put them there! You may both be putting sharp broken things in the path of your relationship without meaning to, without knowing you're doing it. </i> </span></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: inherit; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZgzd_razZjfVRLhyphenhyphenfkWsDiT_HtVNjlq5x6MsAd5kd9PA7AqD0dmHP015Hy3E_3F1MLoL_S_DlgBXtT1ZdRkuJLgkgTV_GzHFrkfi5_xAwJMEnIVS_aqfUQerdKtCB3EwVOqZAUeYwJ8W0/s1600/eggshells-broken.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZgzd_razZjfVRLhyphenhyphenfkWsDiT_HtVNjlq5x6MsAd5kd9PA7AqD0dmHP015Hy3E_3F1MLoL_S_DlgBXtT1ZdRkuJLgkgTV_GzHFrkfi5_xAwJMEnIVS_aqfUQerdKtCB3EwVOqZAUeYwJ8W0/s200/eggshells-broken.jpg" width="168" /></a></span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">This description isn't meant to shift blame from the borderline to the partner, but rather to foreground the fact that the touchiness captured so well by the image of walking on eggshells is produced by an interpersonal dynamic, not from the borderline in a vacuum, and, most importantly, that this interpersonal dynamic can be reconfigured through the acquisition of improved skills in communication and emotion regulation. This is a commonplace view in imago therapy and family systems therapy, but it rarely comes up in conversations about borderlines. </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Within two months of weekly therapy sessions with a couples counselor who uses imago therapy strategies, my partner and I saw dramatic improvement in our relationship, and we still use the concepts, language, and tactics we learned there on a daily basis. </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Plus we listen to a lot of <a href="http://www.shambhala.org/teachers/pema/">Pema Chodron</a>. </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Just sayin' . . . </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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</span></div>borderlinePhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08681276079795586997noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339764994253890828.post-32670343102904980632010-08-05T15:28:00.005-04:002010-08-10T16:55:28.732-04:00Strengths and Resilience, Not Flaws and Damage<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><span style="font-size: large;">The label "borderline personality," like all personality disorder diagnoses, can be powerfully disheartening when you are on the receiving end. It seems like an all-encompassing marker for a deeply flawed person. I felt embarrassed by the term at first and was so relieved when a colleague of mine at another school suggested I research the <a href="http://www.cunninghamtherapy.com/Resiliency.en.html">"strengths and resilience"</a> school of thought in Psychology (in place of the focus on assessing damage) and urged me to reframe borderline personality in terms of the gifts of empathy and other emotional strengths that come along with this personality organization.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5_xMZ2lI4QhihYnK4__YHeW_ZAj55ukg9-RS4DHCYl9JCJMQixDrYnjyKG4D-pE7miaRVGZWGeWpbRciL4oVy80Y7xAJ5kRNEXuGtgCbK2uwRk-7us6ULrE92hR1FYvB6H-xUZj1ivZgM/s1600/Resilience-6domains.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5_xMZ2lI4QhihYnK4__YHeW_ZAj55ukg9-RS4DHCYl9JCJMQixDrYnjyKG4D-pE7miaRVGZWGeWpbRciL4oVy80Y7xAJ5kRNEXuGtgCbK2uwRk-7us6ULrE92hR1FYvB6H-xUZj1ivZgM/s320/Resilience-6domains.jpg" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;">In Jenne' Andrews' recent blog post on <a href="http://loquaciouslyyours.com/"><i>Loquaciously Yours</i></a> - <a href="http://loquaciouslyyours.com/2010/08/01/dont-call-me-borderline/">"Don't Call Me Borderline"</a> - she writes about the destructive power of the term borderline personality disorder in her mother's life and in her own, and about the ways she and her mother both experienced a kind of eclipse of their creative strengths in the face of heavy pressure from the world of psychiatry to accept a view of themselves as terribly sick.</span><br />
<blockquote style="color: #b45f06;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I’ve never worked with people whose inner systems fit the criteria for the <i>DSM</i> categories of Borderline, Narcissism, and others. The difference is that I don’t use the categorical and shaming word “Personality Disorder” to describe a person’s experience and I don’t view people as fundamentally flawed. Deeply wounded, yes, powerfully protected, yes, but fundamentally and irreparably flawed, no.</b></span></blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I am especially drawn to the implication in her statement above that the "ugly" or "difficult" parts of borderline personality disorder are indicators of a very powerful and, I would add, often self-defeating system of defense mechanisms. I think of borderline personality disorder (or its less intense form, borderline personality organization) as a set of defense mechanisms gone haywire. Little bombs and tripwires and short fiery fuses set up in a circle around us and inside us. I definitely agree with the move to foreground trauma survival, trauma reenactment, and post-traumatic stress syndrome as the emotional musculoskeletal structure of borderline personality disorder. The idea of borderline personality as, also, a set of emotional strengths, resilience, and gifts is the very important other half of the new-and-improved story so many of us are now trying to tell about life with borderline personality organization.</span>borderlinePhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08681276079795586997noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339764994253890828.post-90507427890038243092010-07-30T10:19:00.001-04:002010-07-30T10:27:39.787-04:00The Accidental Sociopath<span style="font-size: large;"></span><span style="font-size: large;">My <a href="http://transgenderworrier.blogspot.com/">partner</a> and I often discuss the film, <i>Girl, Interrupted</i>, as a blurred portrait of the borderline/sociopath. In the film, the borderline personality is the main character, Susannah, played by Winona Ryder, but the character we both think most people see as borderline in the film is Lisa, played by Angelina Jolie. Lisa, however, is a sociopath. (For Angelina's critique of the film, click <a href="http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,84918,00.html">here</a>.) Part of the reason we imagine this blurred portrait happens is that the general public misconceives of borderline personality as a standard sociopath. Someone who will, as a therapist once described to me, <i>cut your throat and laugh while you bleed out on the floor</i>. This is partly a problem of misinformation, partly a problem of cultural and professional bias against borderline personalities as difficult, scary, or overwhelming, and partly a problem of there being something a little bit true in the blurring of these two types. There are moments when borderlines skid sideways into sociopathy: </span><br />
<blockquote style="color: #b45f06;"><span style="font-size: large;">Clearly there are fundamental differences between borderline personalities and sociopaths, differences which I appreciate. At the same time, when the borderline personality’s rage or desperation is evoked, one sees (and not rarely) responses that can closely correspond to the sociopath’s calculating, destructive mentality. </span></blockquote><blockquote><div style="color: #b45f06;"><span style="font-size: large;">Once <i>inside</i> this mentality, I’m suggesting that borderline personality-disordered individuals can lapse into a kind of <i>transient sociopathy</i>. Commonly, victims of the “borderline’s” aberrant, vicious behaviors will sometimes react along the lines of, “What is <i>wrong</i> with you? Are you some freaking <i>psychopath</i>?” They will say this from the experience of someone who really has just been exploited as if by a psychopath.</span></div><div style="color: #b45f06;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: #b45f06;"><span style="font-size: large;">Because this <i>isn’t</i> the borderline personality’s default mentality (it <i>is</i> the sociopath’s), several psychological phenomena must occur, I think, to enable his temporary descent into sociopathy. He or she must <i>regress</i> in some way; <i>dissociate</i> in some fashion; and experience a form of <i>self-fragmentation</i>, for instance in response to a perceived threat—say, of abandonment.</span></div><div style="color: #b45f06;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #b45f06;">These preconditions, I suggest, seed the borderline personality’s collapse into the primitive, altered states of self that can explain, among other phenomena, his or her chilling (and necessary) </span><i style="color: #b45f06;">suspension of empathy.</i><span style="color: #b45f06;"> This gross suspension of empathy supports his or her “</span><i style="color: #b45f06;">evening the score”</i><span style="color: #b45f06;"> against the </span><i style="color: #b45f06;">“victimizer” </i><span style="color: #b45f06;">with the sociopath’s remorseless sense of entitlement.</span></span></blockquote><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: large;">-Steve Becker, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.lovefraud.com/blog/2008/03/27/the-borderline-personality-as-transient-sociopath/">"The Borderline Personality as Transient Sociopath"</a></span> </div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">For the most part, this article by Steve Becker trips my internal Borderline Bias Alarm System. Lights flash. Sirens set my teeth on edge. For one thing, it's posted on a blog called LoveFraud. Ick. </span><span style="font-size: large;">The article is part of the dense cyberforest of anti-borderline treatises, rants, warnings, and notes of regret posted to the web by non-borderlines about borderlines. So I take what Steve Becker says with a grain of salt.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">However.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">I'm intrigued by the idea of the transient sociopath. It rolls off the tongue like the <i>accidental tourist </i>or <i>armchair psychologist</i> or <i>incidental charges</i>.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">If you read the chapters, "Rocket Girl" and "Tantrum Artist," in <a href="http://www.merrilisajohnson.com/"><i>Girl in Need of a Tourniquet</i></a>, you will see that I descended into near-psychosis as a result of remaining suspended for too long in an affair with an unavailable lover. I didn't have thoughts of "evening the score," as Becker says, but I definitely regressed, dissociated, and experienced temporary self-fragmentation. I lingered on the psychotic end of the neurotic-psychotic borderline spectrum. I collapsed, on occasion, into primitive, altered states of consciousness.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">So. What do you think of Becker's ideas about borderline personality and transient sociopathy? </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Do admissions (like my own) of a borderline breakdown that blurs lines between crazy-borderline and crazy-sociopathic risk further misidentifications of and biases towards the borderline personality?</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Has your borderline personality ever threatened to trade hats with its sociopathic best friend?</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">What are we to make of this intersection of diagnoses? </span></div>borderlinePhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08681276079795586997noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339764994253890828.post-35078407773129868212010-07-25T14:53:00.002-04:002010-07-25T20:31:33.676-04:00Beyond Remission, Beyond StigmaCheck out Kiera Van Gelder's intelligent discourse on the challenges facing individuals with borderline personality disorder as they reduce symptoms but continue to experience baseline affective dysphoria, longings for intimacy and community, and the stigma attached to the diagnosis. Kiera is the author of the newly released memoir, <a href="http://www.buddhaandborderline.com/1.html"><i>The Buddha and the Borderline</i></a>, and her work as an advocate for BPD individuals and as an educator of the general public and the professional psychoanalytic community is pathbreaking, passionate, and highly admirable. I count her among my friends, colleagues, and best writerly compadres. <br />
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<a href="http://vimeo.com/13606126">Beyond Remission: Mapping BPD Recovery by Kiera Van Gelder</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user4341947">Kiera Van Gelder</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
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I plan to write a series of articles in the upcoming academic year about the question of calling someone A BORDERLINE or self-identifying as A BORDERLINE. In this lecture at Yale University's annual BPD conference (in 2008), Kiera states a strong dislike for the rhetorical pattern of calling someone A BORDERLINE because it holds a person in the stigmatized and static space of a diagnosis and identity that is widely maligned. She is totally right, but I want to complicate the picture a bit by using this idea as a point of respectful departure in order to begin thinking about what a queer feminist crip theory of borderline personality disorder would look or sound like. I'm interested in borrowing Rosemarie Garland-Thomson's description of feminist disability theory -- embracing the supposedly flawed body of disability -- to make a similar proposal for mental illness in general and personality disorders in particular.<br />
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By embracing the term BORDERLINE as an identity, I am working to destigmatize the label and to throw light on the biased norms that shape the stigma, to demystify the illusions of normalcy that make us believe most people are mentally balanced and physically whole and symmetrical, while a few of us freaks or gimps or borderlines are tearing our hair out and muttering to ourselves about paperclips and conspiracies on the subway.<br />
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I'd like to begin thinking about ways of reclaiming and revalancing BORDERLINE like others before me have reclaimed and revalanced QUEER and CRIP, drawing on the work of Nancy Mairs, who wrote the oft-cited essay, <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:g3hgJT_kwj8J:www.smartercarter.com/Essays/Essay%2520Documents/On%2520Being%2520a%2520Cripple.doc+nancy+mairs+on+being+a+cripple&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a">"On Being a Cripple,"</a> and the more recent follow-up piece, <a href="http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/river_teeth/v010/10.1-2.mairs.html">"Sex and the Gimpy Girl,"</a> as well as on Robert McRuer's powerful philosophical treatise, <a href="http://www.nyupress.org/product_info.php?products_id=4784"><i>Crip Theory</i></a>, and on the examples being set by figures like Bethany Stevens on <a href="http://cripconfessions.com/"><i>Crip Confessions</i></a> and another up and comer blogging under the name <a href="http://blog.cripchick.com/"><i>CripChick</i></a>.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYVXa9H_hIe0In9uFy48dptGan7xd_POlbqIGrthqYswI5DDXJIvLO7eUtfD_BcDmWN8QdpbPUdcvGg-IQHlwSU28-0Z1qTw8GeWyjmzu6cL9oTfUjvj061IJ9XYgVureF9YlAoHDtIqSh/s1600/HereQueerFabulous.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYVXa9H_hIe0In9uFy48dptGan7xd_POlbqIGrthqYswI5DDXJIvLO7eUtfD_BcDmWN8QdpbPUdcvGg-IQHlwSU28-0Z1qTw8GeWyjmzu6cL9oTfUjvj061IJ9XYgVureF9YlAoHDtIqSh/s320/HereQueerFabulous.gif" /></a></div>"We're here, we're borderline, we're fabulous!"<br />
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It has a certain ring to it.<br />
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<br />
This approach would be less about educating the public on <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=6Z2bwTp6-dkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=neurodiversity+a+mind+apart&source=bl&ots=SSylsw5yxP&sig=r0zuXVrzPAaKG-N6bGGHxbpcLdI&hl=en&ei=Q4ZMTKvIKMP98Aat44kz&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=neurodiversity%20a%20mind%20apart&f=false">neurodiversity</a> and more about taking an anti-bias approach to borderline personality advocacy. (For more information about anti-bias education, look <a href="http://www.adl.org/tools_teachers/tip_antibias_ed.asp">here</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-bias_curriculum">here</a> and <a href="http://www.familydiv.org/nothingtohide.php">here</a>.) What I like about the anti-bias approach to education is the way it replaces the so-called politeness of ignoring difference with attention to the social production and maintenance of difference through the internalization of bias, the reproduction of stigma, the manufacturing of consent to norms that are unhealthy and unjust, and the inequitable distribution of resources.<br />
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I'm curious to hear everyone's thoughts on this preliminary sketch of an idea to use crip theory (a kind of in-your-face self-naming that refuses the usual hierarchies of normal/abnormal, able/disabled, sane/insane) in order to get past the mistaken notion that personality disorders, attachment disorders, and mood or affective disorders are unusual or rare,or signs of weakness or marks of moral failure. They are actually, as I say in <a href="http://www.merrilisajohnson.com/"><i>Girl in Need of a Tourniquet</i></a>, as common as dirt, and it would be nice if the world around us stopped pretending otherwise :-)<br />
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Of course, just like the word <i>queer</i>, it's one thing to self-identify as queer and quite another for someone else to call you a queer, so perhaps a queer feminist crip stance towards reclaiming borderline personality may need to remain a first-person kind of thing, something you call yourself in specific contexts to make specific interventions in cultural narratives of mental illness or misogynist bias, not something other people (your doctor, your ex, your boss, your lover) should ever call you.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijr2WcBtKY-79Qmw51ovUiHp30X-0sUauATA23rL7SIsQylJfZOaSRNk9aymvKUL7srX323b8IYGNFv31u8xfbc-hLOr5Eo098mrlE86ZfP18lPgo-a9Gi-24IzCXWwoYxeh8eoddKGBLJ/s1600/Mad+Pride.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijr2WcBtKY-79Qmw51ovUiHp30X-0sUauATA23rL7SIsQylJfZOaSRNk9aymvKUL7srX323b8IYGNFv31u8xfbc-hLOr5Eo098mrlE86ZfP18lPgo-a9Gi-24IzCXWwoYxeh8eoddKGBLJ/s200/Mad+Pride.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>What do you think?<br />
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Can BORDERLINE be reclaimed and revalanced in an analogous way to QUEER and CRIP?<br />
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And what do you think about using crip theory to talk about mental illness and personality disorders in addition to the usual topic of physical impairments?<br />
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Should CRIP be reserved for radical disability activism devoted to physical/visible impairments?<br />
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Is "borderline pride" a useful strategy for acknowledging borderline personality as a "type" rather than a terrible illness or untreatable condition? Or does it undermine potentially life-saving changes in behavior among borderline personalities? Can one have borderline pride and a deep commitment to improving quality of life (a.k.a., recovery) for borderlines?<br />
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Let me hear from you.borderlinePhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08681276079795586997noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339764994253890828.post-90512409394744177442010-07-22T14:21:00.001-04:002010-07-25T13:13:58.369-04:00Borderline Personality at WorkThis blog post is a follow-up to comments made on my previous post, "Waiting to Exhale: A Question of Borderline Personality Stigma." I tried to post it as a comment, but it was too long, so here it is as a blog post of its very own :-)<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkwCnFs-o5WavaHEy4tOzypO5a2TnvY4wC7egEuT-B8bpd0eUIQvN9XFmGYjEQ_hB68ptuoDAgRvTTPW2uq0c9XZ7g0G9nFaDqmkmHbuTnJStgvJ7XqZZxatH7KPoBl98PSLguzE5KmlDY/s1600/BPDAwareness.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkwCnFs-o5WavaHEy4tOzypO5a2TnvY4wC7egEuT-B8bpd0eUIQvN9XFmGYjEQ_hB68ptuoDAgRvTTPW2uq0c9XZ7g0G9nFaDqmkmHbuTnJStgvJ7XqZZxatH7KPoBl98PSLguzE5KmlDY/s200/BPDAwareness.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><br />
I am touched and reinvigorated by these stories of coming out or staying in the BPD closet. I really appreciate everyone sharing your own evolving experience of being borderline and your decisions on how to navigate this condition in specific contexts (e.g., education, the work place). <br />
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I especially connected with Cheri's post above:<br />
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"Before I came out at work, people didn't understand why I sometimes reacted strangely - in one meeting they thought that I was angry and glaring at everyone, when in reality I was trapped in my own head flogging myself, riddled with anxiety and unable to speak.<br />
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I much prefer putting myself out there a bit and explaining why I sometimes have difficulties than people thinking that I'm being a bitch."<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0hE2uajS6K73Nxu5b6Fhj0gA6oZkwg0mMw_17K6kqjjFufASLQ4n525PblTAX7y5E_sBklX1b2uSSlim3x_Q-9JXwrAZZIWr32oKaB7jW1uA0T0JfadtkHxr6Tp3napcOj4VQnKdoWeif/s1600/Bitch_kitsch.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="134" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0hE2uajS6K73Nxu5b6Fhj0gA6oZkwg0mMw_17K6kqjjFufASLQ4n525PblTAX7y5E_sBklX1b2uSSlim3x_Q-9JXwrAZZIWr32oKaB7jW1uA0T0JfadtkHxr6Tp3napcOj4VQnKdoWeif/s200/Bitch_kitsch.gif" width="200" /></a></div>Being out as a borderline personality at work is something I am just now experiencing -- barely -- because of course my book came out and my colleagues are congratulating me on the publication. No one has addressed the subject matter of BPD specifically, which is kind of nice for now, since it remains such a controversial and stigmatizing diagnosis.<br />
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I am fascinated by the idea of having colleagues who know enough about BPD to recognize silence as a sign of anxiety instead of disengagement, anger, contempt, or a disgruntled attitude. I've been thinking a lot in the past few months about how I come across in meetings with other faculty, and about how I come across in the university classroom. Students have remarked in the past that I looked angry, or that I seemed angry when they didn't understand something, when of course my memory of such days are of feeling overwhelming anxiety at the prospect of being unclear or unsuccessful in my attempt to teach them something. When I'm upset with myself, when I feel my veneer of apparent competence is cracking - the look of anger visible to other people is really a look of anger directed toward myself.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I hate the idea of being misunderstood, of having my good intentions and collaborative energy lost in the whirl of my uneasiness when my ideas are questioned. I want to be seen as industrious and insightful, but my Rosie the Riveter impersonation tends at times towards the abrupt. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
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</div><div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Or I suddenly feel like the little girl out of place, dressed up in a business suit that swallows her whole, and I want to run from the room and cry. I have cried over work with the same tormented hurricane tears usually associated with the borderline personality in love. I have sat in my car and screamed into my hands while my face streaked red and wet. </div><div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">I don't know that I would expect students or colleagues to translate my facial expressions differently based on knowledge of my diagnosis, but the process of thinking through how I am perceived could maybe help me adjust my demeanor so I don't broadcast anxiety/frustration/disappointment/self-loathing to my audience in the skewed images of rigidity/standoffishness/arrogance/my-way-or-the-highway-ness.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAITorjZ_tUPoKL9T4lA9Ue6uwFJYvemnx84KjGRd3k0I474Z-wg5jgeNxCr99DZ9fZEdocHL_6ggwEKM4JnKqBfVgXXEtXbMm0X09eTnl1TVaskWsAEl5Gq43LMriQ1nmY-GHyRdWI3EV/s1600/little-miss-bossy1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAITorjZ_tUPoKL9T4lA9Ue6uwFJYvemnx84KjGRd3k0I474Z-wg5jgeNxCr99DZ9fZEdocHL_6ggwEKM4JnKqBfVgXXEtXbMm0X09eTnl1TVaskWsAEl5Gq43LMriQ1nmY-GHyRdWI3EV/s200/little-miss-bossy1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Not that I have full control over my emotional demeanor. Sadly, I still experience a kind of "frozen" affect that feels like insecurity but looks like impatience.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div>Amanda Smith also made a great comment on the question of stigma and being out as borderline at work: "And don't forget self-stigma. Even with lots of current information about the disorder, I sometimes think, 'Gosh, I should have a handle on this behavior or that behavior by now. Why can't I be more like him or her?'"<br />
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Why can't I be more secure. Why can't I be more patient. Why can't I be more confident. Why can't I respond in a lighthearted way, without my voice quavering or my mouth going dry. <br />
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The questions irritate like saddle sores beneath the yoke of the workplace.<br />
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Ben writes, "Too often, sensitive people take their disenfranchisement and run with it, advancing into the margins instead of facing their society squarely, bravely."<br />
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This is definitely the challenge facing all of us. Some days I get it right. Some days I still want to close the blinds and hide :-)<br />
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I am looking forward to starting a new academic year -- new classes, new meetings, new colleagues -- and knowing that my at times strangely intense feelings of rejection at work are just as disproportionate and internally generated as the feelings of rejection I experience in romantic love. I may not be able to change the feelings just yet, but I am eager to find out the difference it will make to say to myself, "These feelings are too big to be about this meeting, or this colleague, or this student," and to take a step back while the intensity storms through my body and leaves and, in the big picture, means much less than I once thought.<br />
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The feelings, in fact, may not <i>mean</i> anything.<br />
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They may simply be there. And then not be there.<br />
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I picture myself returning to my office after a difficult meeting or class period and smiling upon my discovery that the world has not gone up in a ball of fire, that the sky is not falling, that my job is secure, and that I am just fine.borderlinePhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08681276079795586997noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339764994253890828.post-18209979034874668832010-07-15T00:27:00.000-04:002010-07-15T00:27:49.954-04:00Waiting to Exhale: A Question about Borderline Personality StigmaIn the lesbian, gay, bi, trans, and queer community, people often remark on the fact that "coming out" is a strange and misleading image of what it means and what it feels like to reveal one's sexual orientation. The usual image of coming out looks like this: a person walking through a door, stepping out of a closet, standing up in a gesture of pride once and for all to say I am gay and I am glad for everyone to know about it! But of course coming out doesn't work that way. As a lesbian, and now as spouse to a transguy, I come out, stay in, walk through the grocery store in an oblivious haze, take the microphone at a rally, correct (or do not correct) pronouns over dinner or in a hallway conversation at work every single day to some degree or another. It is a constant flow of outness and in-ness and in-betweenness.<br />
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There is no single coming out moment.<br />
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The same is true of coming out as a borderline personality.<br />
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I can come out or not as borderline personality depending on my comfort level, my audience, my mood, the stakes, and so on. As with my late-blooming lesbian-ness, I rarely expect people around me to react in a positive way to my coming out as borderline personality. Mainly, this is because I am paranoid as shit. Turns out, the people around me are pretty cool about the borderline thing (and about the lesbian thing and the transguy spouse thing). <br />
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My campus publicity office has put my new book on blast as a <a href="http://www.uscupstate.edu/">top headline</a> on the university's website. I feel all melty and in love with my campus for doing this. Usually I feel like they hate me. Obviously, my borderline personality patterns extend beyond my loved ones to work acquaintances I rarely even see in person who probably do not hate me or love me or think about me very much at all.<br />
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I came out again on <a href="http://www.thefrisky.com/post/246-i-have-borderline-personality-disorder/">The Frisky</a>. I held my breath and waited for the mean comments. But the comments weren't mean. They were engaged, enthusiastic, uplifting, personal, earnest, vulnerable, and real. Authentic. My absolute favorite emotional demeanor.<br />
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My new friend Kiera wrote a book called <a href="http://www.buddhaandborderline.com/"><i>The Buddha and the Borderline</i></a>. It's coming out on August 1, 2010. As part of the pre-release publicity, <a href="http://www.newharbinger.com/Blog/tabid/36/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/258/coming-out-of-the-psycho-closet.aspx">Kiera came out of the psycho closet</a>. I like her bold language. She sounds fearless.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjBD_lNUS5dXA1ZYz7yO6p68vGWoOtLV2WOgs2baRyCHTLOGU9WufWPpKAlydl6gh8bpziEvjzrfYVTYyLp2Gx1oMXVXXU-oveO5Tvxg8yQahbVkwFk1xVVRKYHsnDK4xg7xzNo4Iv1Kea/s1600/borderlinephd-nothings_shocking2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjBD_lNUS5dXA1ZYz7yO6p68vGWoOtLV2WOgs2baRyCHTLOGU9WufWPpKAlydl6gh8bpziEvjzrfYVTYyLp2Gx1oMXVXXU-oveO5Tvxg8yQahbVkwFk1xVVRKYHsnDK4xg7xzNo4Iv1Kea/s320/borderlinephd-nothings_shocking2.jpg" width="222" /></a></div>We are in the age of coming out. We may actually be in a post-coming-out era. Coming out is so nineties, you know? I kissed a girl and I like it. I have borderline personality and I'm kind of okay with that, too. Or, I want to be okay with it but I'm still kind of nervous. The general public is playing it cool, though, standing with one hip cocked to the side and singing along with Perry Farrell that nothing's shocking. <br />
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Has borderline personality rocketed from psycho closet to cause celebre? I'm relieved but also really surprised. <br />
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Tell me what you think. Is the stigma not as bad as I thought? borderlinePhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08681276079795586997noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339764994253890828.post-80500731336129958572010-06-02T07:53:00.003-04:002010-06-02T11:50:04.849-04:00BPD, NPD, Glee, & the Lock-and-Key of Romance on TV<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi58Ej92D4pr6z4rJk9Xx_OKuEOFyCpV4go6aB6Lpf8cPFMutmO2QGzoctUwsLDwEp1PSOT356xrdjk-RLUOhZ3cM8GIXfMRzEN3YPkLXWJqal7PSILwERUe6oNqwL-muiusKLAE2zI51wQ/s1600/glee-madonna_n_rachel.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi58Ej92D4pr6z4rJk9Xx_OKuEOFyCpV4go6aB6Lpf8cPFMutmO2QGzoctUwsLDwEp1PSOT356xrdjk-RLUOhZ3cM8GIXfMRzEN3YPkLXWJqal7PSILwERUe6oNqwL-muiusKLAE2zI51wQ/s320/glee-madonna_n_rachel.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Here's my Glist of <a href="http://ezinearticles.com/?Relationships:-The-Narcissist-Borderline-Relationship&id=142501">BP/NP</a> appearances on on <a href="http://www.fox.com/glee/"><i>Glee</i></a>:</div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><b>Borderlines</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.feministing.com/archives/020413.html">Rachel</a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.cliqueclack.com/tv/2009/10/07/glees-terri-actually-has-a-point-to-be-pissed-with-emma/">Terry</a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.thebudgetbabe.com/archives/1885-Fashion-Secrets-to-Steal-from-Glees-Emma-Pillsbury.html">Emma</a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Narcissists</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://community.livejournal.com/gleefic/2492.html">Finn</a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://tvdramas.about.com/od/glee/a/marksallinginter.htm">Puck</a> </div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/blogs/popwrap/jonathan_groff_ZCsO1zhbFRlYvCL1ohWSZK">Jesse</a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://poptimal.com/2009/09/glee-all-you-fly-mothers-get-on-out-there-and-dance/">Mr. Schu</a></div><br />
Click on the linked names for media critiques, fan-fiction, interviews, and other material about each character. So far, these analyses have not ventured into the characters' psychology, but <a href="http://www.indavideo.hu/video/Glee_-_BorderlineOpen_Your_Heart/">I am seeing BPD/NPD couplings everywhere on <i>Glee</i></a>.<br />
<br />
Post a comment if you disagree or want to make additions, revisions, or web-links to this list. For more information on this relationship structure, see <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=rNzhRNe5NHkC&dq=borderline+narcissism&printsec=frontcover&source=in&hl=en&ei=8kQGTKyCEcK88gb_3amHDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=12&ved=0CEwQ6AEwCw#v=onepage&q=borderline%20narcissism&f=false">Joan Lachkar's book on the subject</a>.borderlinePhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08681276079795586997noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339764994253890828.post-80452476491695552332010-06-02T07:22:00.000-04:002010-06-02T07:22:26.391-04:00Personality Disorder Test - Still Scoring High in Several Areas<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" style="width: 300px;"><tbody>
<tr><td width="180"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Disorder</b></span></td><td width="120"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Rating</b></span></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="http://www.4degreez.com/disorder/paranoid.html">Paranoid</a>:</span></td><td><span style="color: #cc0033; font-family: arial;">High</span></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="http://www.4degreez.com/disorder/schizoid.html">Schizoid</a>:</span></td><td><span style="color: #cc0033; font-family: arial;">High</span></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="http://www.4degreez.com/disorder/schizotypal.html">Schizotypal</a>:</span></td><td><span style="color: #cc0033; font-family: arial;">High</span></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="http://www.4degreez.com/disorder/antisocial.html">Antisocial</a>:</span></td><td><span style="color: #990099; font-family: arial;">Moderate</span></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="http://www.4degreez.com/disorder/borderline.html">Borderline</a>:</span></td><td><span style="color: red; font-family: arial;">Very High</span></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="http://www.4degreez.com/disorder/histrionic.html">Histrionic</a>:</span></td><td><span style="color: #cc0033; font-family: arial;">High</span></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="http://www.4degreez.com/disorder/narcissistic.html">Narcissistic</a>:</span></td><td><span style="color: red; font-family: arial;">Very High</span></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="http://www.4degreez.com/disorder/avoidant.html">Avoidant</a>:</span></td><td><span style="color: #cc0033; font-family: arial;">High</span></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="http://www.4degreez.com/disorder/dependent.html">Dependent</a>:</span></td><td><span style="color: #990099; font-family: arial;">Moderate</span></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="http://www.4degreez.com/disorder/ocd.html">Obsessive-Compulsive</a>:</span></td><td><span style="color: #cc0033; font-family: arial;">High</span></td></tr>
<tr><td align="center" colspan="2"><span style="color: black; font-family: arial;"><br />
-- <a href="http://www.4degreez.com/misc/personality_disorder_test.mv">Personality Disorder Test</a> --<br />
-- <a href="http://www.4degreez.com/disorder/index.html">Personality Disorder Information</a> --</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<br />
I have become fascinated by the way borderline and narcissist traits fluctuate and intermingle not only between two partners but within a single personality. borderlinePhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08681276079795586997noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339764994253890828.post-41556313341300902192010-05-27T21:31:00.009-04:002010-05-29T10:26:41.356-04:00Sick EnoughReposted in <b style="color: #bf9000;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">newly edited</span> <span style="font-size: large;">and hypertexted form</span></i></b><span style="color: #bf9000;"> </span>from my Facebook note (original date: Jan. 21, 2010) <br />
<br />
The recent <i>NYTimes</i> article by Abby Ellin on <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/19/health/19eat.html">women with eating disorders "not otherwise specified" </a>interests me in particular because of the theme of not thinking they are "sick enough" to get help. <br />
<br />
That theme has come up for me in several areas of life: am I depressed enough for anti-depressants? am I food-depriving enough to be anorexic? am I dependent enough on alcohol or substances to enter AA or NA and claim the ominous titles of alcoholic or addict. am I self-injurious enough to be considered a cutter? am I psychotic enough to need hospitalization?<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCTF0XhVTNNcjl1nd4dvnvYu_ubTzd_s6rcFFjBYGCNBN_lFRvixh6nh2NnGXOgVPIAROVy3K_4cyk9rbD3IOHuetfc7FFOMw-07_lFOxJgEg2zVfGZRHNHfl0qK8JXyZWcBXtk9LDRZjv/s1600/sickenough-chickenfluids.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCTF0XhVTNNcjl1nd4dvnvYu_ubTzd_s6rcFFjBYGCNBN_lFRvixh6nh2NnGXOgVPIAROVy3K_4cyk9rbD3IOHuetfc7FFOMw-07_lFOxJgEg2zVfGZRHNHfl0qK8JXyZWcBXtk9LDRZjv/s200/sickenough-chickenfluids.jpg" width="199" /></a>Am I <i>crazy</i> enough? Am I lesbian <i>enough</i>? <br />
<br />
The labels work as obstacles. The barrier for me of pursuing therapeutic support for my chaotic romantic relationships, and my painful or confusing family relationships, and my neurotic or conflict-riddled work relationships was precisely this question of labels, categories, or what constitutes “enough pain,” “enough dysfunction,” “enough self-defeating behaviors” to need therapy, or to see myself as in any way mentally ill. Am I sick enough to be borderline? Am I borderline enough to write a memoir about it? <br />
<br />
Clarity comes and goes, but it seems to boil down to two things: the degree to which the pattern affects your everyday life, and the degree to which professional support or support groups or medication or whatever would lead to positive improvements in basic feelings of security, self-love, and comfortable being-in-the-world. <br />
<br />
Ultimately the decision is a matter of assessing the benefits and disadvantages of claiming the label, the diagnosis, or the medical intervention. <br />
<br />
What felt like a question of entitlement (not wanting to wrongly assume a painful identity that belongs more rightfully to others who suffer more than me) has fallen away and in its place I grapple instead with questions of use-value, borrowing an idea of “strategic essentialism” from the academic fields of <a href="http://www.jstor.org/pss/1347908">feminist postcolonial studies</a> and <a href="http://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/0172.htm">critical autobiography studies of life-writing by women with disabilities as postcolonial texts about medically colonized bodies</a>. <br />
<br />
I title one of my memoir chapters “Becoming Borderline” as a reference to the idea of "borderline" as a complex identity that simultaneously provides ground on which to stand (there is something liberating about finally understanding oneself in terms of a given narrative or category or diagnosis) and at the same time colonizes the body standing on that ground (in adopting the label I become subject to the stigma, media misrepresentations, psychiatric counter-transference, and <a href="http://searchwarp.com/swa328248.htm">catastrophizing attitudes among the general population about what a borderline </a><a href="http://searchwarp.com/swa328248.htm"><i>is</i></a> - my story gets overwritten, in a sense, by the <a href="http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000935.htm">pre-existing story of borderline-ness</a>. <br />
<br />
So, as I inhabit this amorphous terrain of identity, subjectivity, imperialist medical and patriarchal narratives, and psycho-social geography, I begin to see that there is no definite answer to the question am I borderline enough to be entitled to the word, label, diagnosis, treatment, or memoir. I would not want to consider myself at the mercy of the label so that my every thought, word, action, or feeling are necessarily determined by my essential borderline-ness. <br />
<br />
However, I claim the term to the degree that “becoming borderline” enables me to reflect on, get perspective on, undergo treatment for, talk about, and redirect my psycho-socio-neuro-physiological patterns of reaction and the attachment style (disorder, malfunction) that result from these reactions. In this way, I am <a href="http://www.womenwriters.net/may2003/Intro.htm">writing borderline in an autotheoretical tone</a> in order to consider the intersecting line within the self between the personal and cultural texts of this diagnosis.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbMFULpFZpoljUOdbFyJM4nk6edUZmi27mkrPzbU8qvhzebPW5k1oX73X7S4T5X3Ekeb8OpzzOma8z1MQDom7Hq6VIXgkPDmJf5DBWJ7P04dC6lSVCFAYVDHGZZseQXHUgL5oVXexhJ7Wq/s1600/sickenough-bananas.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbMFULpFZpoljUOdbFyJM4nk6edUZmi27mkrPzbU8qvhzebPW5k1oX73X7S4T5X3Ekeb8OpzzOma8z1MQDom7Hq6VIXgkPDmJf5DBWJ7P04dC6lSVCFAYVDHGZZseQXHUgL5oVXexhJ7Wq/s200/sickenough-bananas.gif" width="200" /></a></div>At this point, I advocate moving away from the question of entitlement – of being sick enough – and thinking instead about the gains or losses involved in claiming any particular identity. I am crafting a concept that borrows “strategic essentialism” from <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=4xz9OqthGW0C&pg=PA32&lpg=PA32&dq=diana+fuss+strategic+essentialism&source=bl&ots=mBYAZz_XV0&sig=ynD1cIYvH5-a97GHQnbZjXypEMc&hl=en&ei=lyEBTNSXM8L68Aaw-IzVDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CBwQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false">debates about identity politics</a> and applies it to borderline personality to adopt “strategic borderline-ness” as a way of moving through or around the problem of <i>being</i> borderline and refocusing on borderline personality as a <i>cognitive and affective structure</i>, a spectrum of behaviors and cognitive patterns that deplete me and drain my capacity for joy or intimacy.<br />
<br />
Maybe the intervention I want to make in the "sick enough" or "not sick enough" structure of thought could be seen as a parallel to bell hooks' intervention in debates over the label of "feminist." So many scholars and students get hung up in the back and forth questions of what constitutes a feminist. Can I be a feminist and have a boyfriend? Can I be a feminist and wear lipstick? Can I be a feminist and shop at Abercrombie and Fitch? The Feminist Majority Foundation has a t-shirt campaign that says "This is what a feminist looks like," a smart effort to make the wide range of kinds of people who claim the identity of "feminist" visible to the world.<br />
<br />
I can imagine wearing a "This is what a Borderline Personality looks like" t-shirt for the same reason.<br />
<br />
Or, more simply, "This IS crazy." <br />
<div><br />
But ultimately I prefer to follow bell hooks in refraining from thoughts about what a feminist is or who is entitled to the label to the more pressing and thrilling concern with <i>advocating feminist movement</i>. I do not want to <i>be</i> borderline at this point so much as I want to understand borderline as <i>something I do</i> (and something I can stop doing), not a predetermined essential innate quality but a learned set of behaviors, a psychological predisposition, a cognitive and affective structure available for deliberate redesign in my personal life, and, ideally, a platform for borderline advocacy.</div><div><div class="photo photo_none"><div class="photo_img"></div><div class="photo_img"></div></div></div>borderlinePhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08681276079795586997noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339764994253890828.post-49753974461343785762010-05-27T11:38:00.001-04:002010-05-27T12:04:44.452-04:00Bluebird Theory: Borderlines and the Quest for HappinessI want to return to the idea of borderline personality in the key of blue from a different angle that still has to do with moods but also has to do with the cultural politics and diagnostic pathologization of emotions. <br />
<br />
I am a diehard <i>Six Feet Under</i> fan.<br />
<br />
The cold blue tones of its opening sequence and the music with its weird minor chords and music like bottles clinking together hypnotized me. Even its Christmas episodes were ironic and angry and rude. Think Billy, post-mental-hospital-inpatient-stay on "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" (2002): "Happy's a concept I try not to buy into. It gets me into trouble." Billy's bipolar expeditions took place years before my diagnosis as borderline, but the pain he felt and the anti-social behaviors felt and sounded familiar. If I were Claire, I would have dated him too. Several years later, with my diagnosis and three therapists behind me, I would know better and walk away from Billy. He is the siren song of the abyss. Plus, I'm gay.<br />
<br />
Anyhoo, his words about not chasing happiness still strike me as right on. Pursuing happiness has translated in my life into a series of addictions of the opiate and amphetamine variety, as well as the headlong dive into various illicit affairs, a structure of desire I think of as the crack cocaine of romance. That's not happiness's fault, but it was borderline personality hedonism which I mistook for happiness for a long time, even though it hurt and made me miserable and sick.<br />
<br />
Fact: My grandma gave me a glass bluebird when I was a teenager to remind me to look for happiness.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_X4Xu_YHnBKbYpougEnlzc8hD5d4YuhUezNYJpmfxobO9DyEale-bcy0FrFtX0gxoImWO9via1fykRTWNZFqUNGIC15XqPQUYMgSSD8-_evn-vPlhW-_Vz5Zje2TgRlHqcFNMPWHQcNNF/s1600/glassbluebird.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="155" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_X4Xu_YHnBKbYpougEnlzc8hD5d4YuhUezNYJpmfxobO9DyEale-bcy0FrFtX0gxoImWO9via1fykRTWNZFqUNGIC15XqPQUYMgSSD8-_evn-vPlhW-_Vz5Zje2TgRlHqcFNMPWHQcNNF/s200/glassbluebird.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Fact: When I moved away to graduate school, after an early marriage, divorce, and major episode of depression, I put the glass bluebird in a drawer as a gesture of protest. <i>There is no bluebird</i>, I wanted to say. <i>There is no happiness.</i><br />
<br />
Fact: After I ended an affair with a woman who dated me for about 18 months while choosing not to leave her long-term partner, I got a big fat bluebird inked into my shoulder and told people it was the bluebird of happiness which eludes me.<br />
<br />
Now we have entered a moment of <a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/women-and-happiness/201001/the-generosity-happiness">bluebird of happiness</a><a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/women-and-happiness/201001/the-generosity-happiness"> critique</a> both in the mainstream publishing industry and in the world of academic theory. Ariel Gore's book, <i>Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness</i>, has garnered many positive reviews for "filleting the bluebird" (pardon the gruesome meat-eater imagery):<br />
<ul><li>“Everybody, it seems, wants to know why women aren’t happy. But <i>Bluebird</i> suggests that maybe that’s the wrong question to ask. In reframing the age-old, exasperated query of what women really want—from themselves, their partners, their jobs, and their families—Gore’s exploration of happiness offers a probing, inspiring, and deeply humane alternative to the powerful positive-thinking industry. <i>Bluebird</i> is radical in the truest sense—and as a recovering pessimist, I'll be keeping it handy.” —Andi Zeisler, cofounder and editorial director, <i>Bitch</i> magazine</li>
</ul><ul><li>“Ariel Gore expertly fillets the plastic bluebird of happiness to reveal its faintly beating heart. Eloquent and sensitive, Gore is one of the best feminist writers of our times.” —Susie Bright</li>
</ul>In an interview on <a href="http://feministreview.blogspot.com/2010/01/ariel-gore-on-women-happiness-and-self.html">Feminist Review</a>, Gore responds to a question about whether smart and happy can go together in women's lives:<span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br />
<ul><li>In American culture there has been a <a href="http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/143187/barbara_ehrenreich:_the_relentless_promotion_of_positive_thinking_has_undermined_america">massive campaign to sell us all on cheerfulness</a>. It has been an important part of capitalism and has been part of the oppression of women. Women have been endlessly told by others what we need in order to be happy. Maybe they say we need a husband or children or a fantastic career or a spotless kitchen or multiple orgasms. In any case, we are being told what is good for us. Of course we rebel against false cheerfulness and being told what to do when it's wrapped in the nonsense of it being “for our own good.”</li>
</ul><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuELMZ9aUWT0a65-gB1S5fEoHpb-uEK1ya37bslXoSMdLkmXFt_5ew3vNUBYWjC-hAGqhiDgvG-yW6mlBbrxFRVzrmI50KuKPlkYV1Yuz26juy-7K3pNp-wmozslRv2M6Y0-dYmkQFqfRt/s1600/glassbluebirdcollection.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuELMZ9aUWT0a65-gB1S5fEoHpb-uEK1ya37bslXoSMdLkmXFt_5ew3vNUBYWjC-hAGqhiDgvG-yW6mlBbrxFRVzrmI50KuKPlkYV1Yuz26juy-7K3pNp-wmozslRv2M6Y0-dYmkQFqfRt/s400/glassbluebirdcollection.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>I picked up my campus mail yesterday and to my delight, my copy of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Ahmed">Sara Ahmed</a>'s new book, <a href="http://www.dukeupress.edu/Catalog/ViewProduct.php?productid=17446"><i>The Promise of Happiness</i></a> (2010), had arrived. I am cuckoo for cultural theory, so this is the bluebird critique I am frothing to read. She completely thrilled me with her last book, <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=sQY1RWdUW0AC&dq=queer+phenomenology&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=Lnz-S8PCKYOC8gb3g4jTDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false"><i>Queer Phenomenology</i></a>, so I am already on Team Sara Ahmed before cracking this new book. Feminist theorist Rita Felski sings its praises in an endorsement of Ahmed's "bold critique of the consensus that happiness is an unconditional good" and celebrates the intervention not only into "happiness studies" but also into the wrongheaded assumption that feminism "destroy[s] women's happiness." So, yay. These are great lines of inquiry and I can't wait to read more.<br />
<br />
Still.<br />
<br />
Billy Chenowith lingers.<br />
<br />
And this is not really a book review.<br />
<br />
The queer, feminist, and queer feminist critiques of happiness overlap with borderline personality concerns, but they are not exactly the same, so I am moving towards something like a queer feminist cripistemology of borderline personality and the bluebird of happiness phenomenon. (Note to self: finish reading Robert McRuer's <a href="http://www.nyupress.org/product_info.php?products_id=4784"><i>Crip Theory</i></a>.)<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTPinPDv9yRpqXyQdxXbFs3I3ooukQqhhoHxQyE9yEoHr_9jq60YFSvi6YeuShyal3B98n2EAXznugB3gw6aZST9wAwHAjo_TJuEqTck3y4jzj6UfbIVKmNQGfEkEZo8GgO8IUr74qDZ_i/s1600/MillieProfile2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTPinPDv9yRpqXyQdxXbFs3I3ooukQqhhoHxQyE9yEoHr_9jq60YFSvi6YeuShyal3B98n2EAXznugB3gw6aZST9wAwHAjo_TJuEqTck3y4jzj6UfbIVKmNQGfEkEZo8GgO8IUr74qDZ_i/s200/MillieProfile2.JPG" width="200" /></a>I don't want to suggest that I am anti-happiness, or that my next book will be the borderline personality version of Dostoevsky's <i>Notes from Underground</i>, or that I will write a memoir that reads like the long groan of the toothache, to borrow an image from the Underground Man himself. Yet the story of borderline personality is, for me, very much the story of pursuing the bluebird of happiness and then shouting angrily when it flies away instead of sitting companionably in one's lap like my true spirit animal and dog of my heart, the shih tzu.<br />
<br />
When I got the bluebird tattoo, I meant for the ink to function as a sort of totem, a commitment to searching out happiness and refusing the lures and pleasures of despair. I went out to a bar (no place for bluebirds or recently broken up borderlines) and kissed a strange girl who did not celebrate my bluebird tattoo but offered me this rejoinder: "But you must also wrestle with the raven." Of course I immediately thought I loved her, or could love her, and I longed for a more thorough conversation about bluebirds and ravens and the meaning of life, punctuated by more kissing. Alas, she was straight and did not take my calls, so I had to figure out the answers for myself. Four years later I still don't really know what she meant, but I think it had to do with balance, and maybe with the dangers of fearing the loss of happiness. <br />
<br />
Here is my contribution to the field of Bluebird Theory.<br />
<br />
For the borderline personality, the problem is not happiness or sorrow (or dating married lesbians or kissing straight girls, although neither of these activities helps). The problem has to do with peripheral or secondary emotions.<br />
<br />
Fear of happiness, fear of sorrow, fear of heartbreak, fear of loss.<br />
<br />
Borderlines are emotion-phobic.<br />
<br />
Scared of feeling something good and then losing that feeling. Scared of expecting a particular feeling and ending up with another. Scared bad feelings will never end. The glass bluebird and the one inked into my shoulder are not celebrations of happiness for me, they are totems against ever feeling bad, and that's crazy. Or, in more professional terms, that's schizotypal, avoidant, and emotionally self-injurious.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU1rGsEhN9PHcIKVwn15t5CA-LvNBlCti8MvF3vVE-F4E4G3ONl1NoNO-vAiv91ReAIHm4F0yx8CxWcX1s3nUl5-2Jmf3n1x5suTVO0v6noqoHf8g0P99o969nggHvFApmlZlBeQRC_-wU/s1600/hermitcrab-in-humanhand.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="121" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU1rGsEhN9PHcIKVwn15t5CA-LvNBlCti8MvF3vVE-F4E4G3ONl1NoNO-vAiv91ReAIHm4F0yx8CxWcX1s3nUl5-2Jmf3n1x5suTVO0v6noqoHf8g0P99o969nggHvFApmlZlBeQRC_-wU/s200/hermitcrab-in-humanhand.jpg" width="200" /></a><br />
Picture me scuttling away from the light like a spider, scuttling away from the human hand like a hermit crab, or walking sideways towards my attachment figure with the odd gait of a woman with disorganized attachment disorder. I don't want to wrestle with the raven anymore than I want to worship the bluebird, actually, but I don't want to fear the flight of dark and light in and out of my life anymore. Maybe my first stop on the summer pleasure reading train should be Miriam Greenspan's <a href="http://www.miriamgreenspan.com/excerpts/chapterThreeEx.html"><i>Healing through the </i></a><a href="http://www.miriamgreenspan.com/excerpts/chapterThreeEx.html"><i>Dark Emotions: The Wisdom of Grief, Fear, and Despair</i></a>. Not exactly a beach-lite title, but if it lightens the load of emotion phobia I carry inside my hermit crab shell, I will gladly make room for it in my straw tote underneath a brightly striped towel and take my mood/identity/attachment disorder on a mental vacation.borderlinePhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08681276079795586997noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339764994253890828.post-13012366109365935752010-05-26T21:52:00.003-04:002010-05-26T22:59:33.321-04:00Precocious Succubi: The Psycho Ex-Wife ProblemI will be developing my thoughts at more length soon on the subject of gender bias and borderline personality disorder for a guest post on Randi Kreger's <a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/stop-walking-eggshells"><i>Stop Walking on Eggshells</i></a> blog on <i>Psychology Today Online</i>, so let me just note for the moment that the blog I discovered this afternoon on a (maybe) borderline ex-wife is sort of sickening. As the daughter of divorce (three marriages for both my parents), I know ex-wives can seem, be, act, and/or go crazy. However, the vitriol being directed at this person or the population she supposedly represents makes me somewhere between uneasy and queasy. There is something truly crude about comments like the following:<br />
<br />
"All Psycho Ex-Wives Are Precocious Succubi Sent From The Depths Of Hell To Gnaw On The Souls Of Men!"<br />
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Or this:<br />
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"My godson just divorced the 'tart without a heart' last week." <br />
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Tart? Succubus? <i>Grr. </i>Frustration makes sense. Packaging it in age-old anti-female chestnuts, well, that could surely be avoided. People can be scary and invasive when they are losing a relationship or attachment figure. I get that. I just don't think being mean (or perpetuating stigma/stereotype/misogyny) is the best response to the problem.<br />
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There are 173 responses to the post on the main page of The Psycho Ex-Wife Blog.<br />
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So much ranting. So little insight.<br />
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If you are curious for more details, or are just generally drawn to blogospheric trainwrecks, click on the title of this post to be redirected to the artless undignified spectacular display of sexist psychobabble passing for a blog.<br />
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Or you could just go watch <a href="http://bpd.about.com/b/2007/04/05/75.htm"><i>Fatal Attraction</i></a> again, followed by its lesser known predecessor, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067588/plotsummary"><i>Play Misty for Me</i></a>.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhagmSdGWFxJvOiLCfFNVscBD54eC0stJGYM0BBml5AJHO8peCn8ZNdpiKCHqsh6vLR-uz9Vjk5HCF6ffmEYsgi9p5j4uWAbUo_E3upJaZHGkOjQoviuJv0zHaMf1LVBU2xCUNjKqPxbRMn/s1600/playmisty.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhagmSdGWFxJvOiLCfFNVscBD54eC0stJGYM0BBml5AJHO8peCn8ZNdpiKCHqsh6vLR-uz9Vjk5HCF6ffmEYsgi9p5j4uWAbUo_E3upJaZHGkOjQoviuJv0zHaMf1LVBU2xCUNjKqPxbRMn/s200/playmisty.jpg" width="141" /></a></div><br />
Splatter flicks with a vengeance against my so-called personality disorder.<br />
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And yes, ranting is contagious :-)<br />
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And no, I don't always sound this psycho ;-)borderlinePhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08681276079795586997noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8339764994253890828.post-66079827764362391292010-05-26T16:43:00.003-04:002010-05-26T22:02:30.901-04:00Grief Impacted; or, Borderline in the Key of Blue<div class="post-header"></div><h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span class="UIStory_Message">"Unacknowledged grief will keep you stuck in the active throes of Borderline Personality Disorder." -<a href="http://www.borderlinepersonality.ca/bpdletter.htm" style="color: red;">A.J. Mahari</a> </span></i></span></h3><h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="UIStory_Message" style="font-size: small;">I started a new thread on the discussion board of my Facebook fan page for my new book, <a href="http://www.sealpress.com/book.php?isbn=9781580053051" style="color: red;"><i>Girl in Need of a Tourniquet: Memoir of a Borderline Personality</i></a>, to share thoughts on impacted grief as a root cause and persistent symptom of borderline personality disorder. In hoping to hear thoughts from lots of people, I decided to revisit my initial efforts in January towards blogging on the lived experience and diagnostic politics of borderline personality.<span class="text_exposed_show"> </span></span></h3><h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="UIStory_Message" style="font-size: small;"><span class="text_exposed_show">Here, reposted, is my discussion prompt (apologies for <i>profspeak</i>):</span></span></h3><h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">What I figured out for myself during the long process of writing the book was that my series of borderline personality symptoms (affairs, substance abuse, chronic depression and feelings of emptiness, a general nonbelongingness, deep-rooted bad-person feelings) come from what I've learned to call "impacted grief," long ungrieved losses from childhood. Even though I knew writing the book would help me grieve but would not represent The End of Grieving for me, I'm still disappointed to be sitting under such a heavy load of grief this week over how things unfolded in my family of origin. </span></h3><h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">I saw a book once called <a href="http://www.janebernstein.net/npr.htm"><i>Bereft</i></a> by a woman who lost a sister to a violent death, and I never read it, but it has been in my head for days now. The word captures my sister-grief feelings so well, and sometimes I wonder if I will ever stop feeling these sister-grief feelings. </span></h3><h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">When on earth does grieving end? </span></h3><h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">The loss cannot be recuperated, events of history cannot be reversed, and I want to be over it, but my sister-grief feelings persist like lost limb trauma. The neural pathways keep snapping inside me and I feel like I forgot something or missed a step or overlooked a clue or left someone behind or arrived as the bus was pulling out of the station. </span></h3><h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: blue;">My sisters are alive. </span> <i><span style="color: blue;">I know them. </span></i></span></h3><h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">But I am haunted by memories of them as little girls and can't stop working at the unsolvable puzzle of what might have been, how things might have gone differently, what would have happened if we had grown up together instead of apart. </span></h3><h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">The neurotic loop is exhausting. </span></h3><h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">I wonder if anyone has stories of grief, grieving, moving past grief, or if it is more about living with grief without being capsized by it. </span></h3><h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Fill me in . . .</span></h3><h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Oh, and because I am a compulsive researcher, here's a smidge more from the secondary resources: </span></h3><h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="UIStory_Message"><span class="text_exposed_show"></span></span></span></h3><h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="UIStory_Message"><span class="text_exposed_show">"In his classic article, Engel (1961) posed the question, 'Is grief a disease?' Grief is not generally considered a disorder but rather is viewed as an adaptation to a loss. In this respect, the process of grieving is similar to the process of healing. It involves working through the stages of grief. The tasks of grieving include experiencing the pain of grief, accepting the reality of the loss, adjusting to an environment in which the loved one is missing, and withdrawing one’s emotional energy and reinvesting it in another relationship. Failure to complete these tasks can result in impacted grief, which is a prolonged type of grief associated with depression. Impacted grief can block further growth and development." -<a href="http://www.gapsychology.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=305" style="color: red;">William F. Doverspike, "Grief: The Journey From Suffering to Resilience"</a></span></span></span></h3>borderlinePhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08681276079795586997noreply@blogger.com1