Living with borderline personality disorder – Leanne’s story

Leanne shares her experience with borderline personality disorder (BPD), reflecting on symptoms, treatment and how it impacts her daily life.

I was formally diagnosed in 2021, during a chapter of life that looked happy and solid on paper. I’d just got married, had my second child, bought a house, started a new job. Then my dad attempted suicide.

That event triggered intense anger, self-harm, suicidal thoughts and long periods of dissociation, where I felt barely present in my own life. Following a temporary separation from my husband a few years ago, I experienced something very similar. At the time, I wasn’t offered a psychiatric assessment, only antidepressants and six sessions of CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy). 

By 2021, though, I was referred to a wonderful mental health nurse who did something profoundly simple and rare: she listened. She patiently explored my history of trauma and referred me to a psychiatrist, who finally diagnosed me with BPD. It felt validating.

My experience of emotional dysregulation

Living with BPD feels like I’m running Windows 95 on a nervous system that requires NASA-grade software.

People think I’m being “dramatic” or “too much”, but it’s just that my emotions arrive pre‑loaded and in high‑definition. Sometimes, I can feel everything at once. A minor stressor can trigger the physiological response of an incoming asteroid.

My feelings behave like facts. If I feel rejected, rejection must have taken place. If I feel ashamed, I must be guilty of something.

The certainty I feel in those moments isn’t dramatic or theatrical. This certainty actually feels rational and logical at the time. The feeling speaks so loud that I rarely consider alternative explanations to events or situations.                                                                                                                            

Managing my condition

While anxiety and depression are increasingly understood, personality disorders can still be misinterpreted as character flaws rather than what they are - complex trauma‑rooted conditions involving emotional regulation and relational safety. That misunderstanding can lead to assumptions about instability.

You might be surprised to hear that I’m married, employed and responsible for two entire small people. I mention this because BPD tends to conjure up images of chaos, volatility and someone shouting in a carpark.

In reality, I’ve been with my husband for eighteen years, hold down a respectable job, attend school events and make packed lunches, whilst quietly negotiating with my own nervous system before 8am.

Navigating relationships

For me, falling in love is immediate and all‑consuming. Rejection doesn’t just feel disappointing to me; it feels existential.

A delayed reply to a text, a distracted tone, an unreturned look - any of these can trigger my internal alarm system or feelings of abandonment. A lot of this can be traced back to when I was in an unsafe environment, where vigilance felt necessary to survive.

I’ve been in a relationship with my husband for eighteen years. This is not because the intensity went away, but because we learned about my condition and how to navigate it. He knows that my fear of abandonment is not a referendum on his behaviour, but a reflex that sometimes fires without warning. He also knows that it passes; especially when it’s met with clarity rather than confusion, patience rather than panic.

Navigating work

I'm a civil servant and work at the Department for Education. I work well and people rely on me. I'm extremely lucky that my work is very flexible; I choose my own hours, often work from home and have additional adjustments in place.

However, I still wouldn't be able to fully function without the skills learned through dialectical behavioural therapy (DBT). DBT taught me how to work with an intense emotional system without burning out, imploding or taking everything personally.

When I'm having a bad mental health day at work, tools like cold water or temperature changes, paced breathing and grounding through the senses help calm my nervous system. These skills have also been crucial during moments of crisis and strong urges to self‑harm.

I’ve learnt that healing from BPD is not about becoming less emotional. It’s about becoming more emotionally regulated and more compassionate towards myself.

As I’m learning to ground, soothe and trust myself, I’ve seen my emotional intensity turn into insight, creativity, empathy and loyalty.