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I’ve had conversations with several BPD “experts” about borderline behavior. There seems to be an assumption that many people with BPD are “silent” or “high-functioning” and do not engage in dangerous and/or ineffective behavior often attributed to the “typical” borderline.
In my group recently, a non-BPD was questioning his own “sanity” (I put it in quotes because I don’t believe that people with BPD are insane) and speculating that he was the one with BPD. One of our longer-time posters replied:
If you’re not throwing full-blown temper tantrums, freaking out because EVERYONE is out to get you, threatening to hurt or kill yourself, running away from those who love you because you’re afraid they’re going to leave you first, complaining that NOBODY loves or respects you AND popping pills and guzzling alcohol all at the same time… then, I think, you can go ahead and disqualify yourself.
Based on the polls that I have conducted over the past few months, I believe that she is right on the money. Here are the poll results from the last few polls about borderline behavior:
 Borderline Behavior Poll Results As you can see by these polls results, more than 73% responded that their borderlines (or themselves if they have the disorder) indicated that they have engaged in self-injury, suicide attempts and/or substance abuse. While these polls are certainly not scientific and it’s pretty much impossible for me to understand the profile of a person that responded, they results are, for me, striking. If 7 out of 10 (or more) individuals engage in these “low functioning” or ineffective borderline behaviors at some point in their lives, what should that tell us?
I believe that it tells us that the “typical” profile of someone with BPD is the “low functioning” or “classic” borderline. While I am sure there are others out there that operate in pretend mode (and pretend everything is ok while they “white-knuckle” their way through life), the vast majority of people with BPD seem to be caught in a spiral of ineffective and often dangerous behavior. They seem to me to be sending the message that they are in a great deal of emotional pain and are suffering greatly – that they will do anything to stop the pain that they feel. It also indicates to me that it is vital for parents of child with borderline-like traits and feelings do their best to get the child into appropriate treatment before their teenage years.
Today is the 5th anniversary of the Anything to Stop the Pain support list. After over 50,000 messages and 600+ members, it is still going strong. The ATSTP list is offered for free to non-BPDs. In honor of this momentous occasion, I will clip a response from me to a list member. Any personal details have been removed. The only thing blog readers need to know is that this man’s wife has been diagnosed with BPD and is asking him for a divorce. We also have a couple of recovered borderlines on this list and they are a valuable resource (as is noted here):
I believe that there is no right or wrong way to approach human emotions – there’s an effective way and an ineffective way and there are shades of grey in between those “polar” opposites. The effective way gets a positive outcome. That positive outcome is typically the return to baseline of the borderline and the establishment of a modicum of trust with others. One of the most important issues with borderlines seems to be the idea that they believe no one understands them (they feel “strange” – I said “broken” in WHINE, but I think that it was [a recovered borderline on the list] who clarified that it’s more like a “not feeling ‘normal’ and ‘fitting in’ feeling”), they can’t trust anyone with their emotions because many people have invalidated their feelings throughout their life and this leads to “silent desperation” and the inability to communicate effectively how they feel. If, through the use of my tools, you are able to gradually establish an environment in which your wife feels that she can safely express her emotions, which will go a long way toward establishing trust.
Secondly, you posted that you feel as through your feelings do not have a forum for airing and validation. Unfortunately for you, your wife sounds like a typical borderline. She is impulsive, she cuts, she abuses substances – especially painkillers. The divorce talk is probably born of either shame (“I will leave you before you leave me”) or of a feeling that she is being judged and/or disrespected (or not appreciated and accepted for whom she feels that she is). That leads to a certain mind-set that essentially makes her believe that, since no one has ever listened to her feelings before, she must dig in and hold on to her feelings as if she is the only person in the world. That is, “if I don’t fight for myself no one will”. This situation makes it difficult for you to express how you feel because she gets the message (even if it is not true): “YOU MADE me feel this way” because she thoroughly believes that about you. The reason she believes that you (and others, not just you) make her feel like she feels is that she is unable to self-regulate and looks to others to regulate her own emotionally states. When [a recovered borderline on the list] said something about her being more worried about what you think of her, she hit the nail on the head, because a borderline (and possibly for biological reasons) has a great deal of internal chaos and the usual strategy (also possibly biological) is to internalize other’s feelings and opinions about her self. It’s odd, yet I think that this dynamic is the one in which all the talk of not respecting boundaries arises. She feels at some level that you are actually a “part” of her, because she requires external validation. When that external validation turns to judgment, she has to cut you out of her mind. Sadly, she will continue to seek others (particularly men) to self-regulate until she can self-regulate.
As for IAAHF (“It’s all about his/her feelings”), one thing that many people read into that is that EVERY interpersonal situation is about her feelings and that she will not EVER be able to empathize with yours. This is neither the intent of IAAHF or the case. Borderlines are really empathetic (really no kidding they can be) but only when they are not on fire internally and emotionally. The intent of IAAHF is to EXPLAIN the “crazy” behavior, not to make a blanket statement about the relationship. When asked “why would she cut herself?” (for example) the answer is IAAHF. She’s in pain and the cutting helps alleviate that pain. Or asked “why is she raging at me over nothing?” (which happened to me the other night, presumably out of the blue). The answer is IAAHF.
A report from CNN about self-harm/self-injury in teens:
Websites may encourage self-injury in teens, young adults
Young adults and teens may believe that hurting themselves is normal and acceptable after watching videos and other media on Web-sharing sites like YouTube, new research indicates.
The findings, published in the journal Pediatrics, warn professionals and parents to be aware of the availability and dangers of such material for at-risk teens and young adults.
Deliberate self-injury without the intent of committing suicide is called “nonsuicidal self-injury” or NSSI. An estimated 14% to 24% of youth and young adults engage in this destructive behavior, according to the study. NSSI can also include relationship challenges, mental health symptoms, and risk for suicide and death, the study noted. Common forms of self-injury include cutting, burning, picking and embedding objects to cause pain or harm.
While other studies have looked at the availability of online information about self-injury, the authors focused on the scope of self-injury in videos uploaded on YouTube and watched by youth. They described their work as the first such study and noted that their findings could be relevant in risk, prevention and managing self-injury.
The authors focused on YouTube because, according to the site, since its inception in 2005 “YouTube is the world’s most popular online video community, allowing millions of people to discover, watch and share originally-created videos.”
Using the site’s search function the researchers looked for the terms “self-harm” and “self-injury,” identifying the site’s top 50 viewed videos containing a live person, and the top 50 viewed videos with words and photos or visual elements. The top 100 items that the study focused on were viewed over 2 million times, according to the analysis, and most – 80% – were available to a general audience.
The analysis of the self-injury content found that 53% was delivered in a factual or educational tone, while 51% was delivered in a melancholic tone. Pictures and videos commonly showed explicit demonstrations of the self-harming behavior.
Cutting was the most common type of behavior; more than half of the videos did not contain warnings about the graphic nature of the behavior. The average age of uploaders of the self-injury material was 25.39 years, according to the findings, and 95% were female. The authors surmise that the actual average age is probably younger because many YouTube users say they are older in order to access more content.
The study concludes that the findings about the volume and nature of self-injury content on YouTube show “an alarming new trend among youth and young adults and a significant issue for researchers and mental health workers.”
The videos may be a focus for communities of youth in which self-injury is encouraged and viewed as normal and exciting, which could potentially increase the risk for self-injury.
The study warns that health professionals need to be aware of this type and source of content, and to inquire about it when working with youth who practice self-injury because sites like YouTube can reach youth who may not openly discuss their behavior.
Self-harming is not typical behavior for otherwise untroubled teens and young adults, explained Dr. Charles Raison, an Emory University psychiatrist and CNNHealth.com’s mental health expert. It’s an action that kids with psychiatric problems may try.
“NSSI is a young person’s affliction…one in ten will kill themselves,” he said. “A lot of people will outgrow the behavior.”
Raison said that it’s common for troubled young people to share information about hurting themselves. Treatments can include antidepressants, antipsychotic drugs and psychotherapy.
When I saw this article come through the Google news alerts I thought: “Oh no, an article that’s going to say ‘she did it for attention’ because she has BPD and they are attention-seeking.” I was mightily surprised when I read the article and realized that here’s someone that actually knows what she’s talking about.
Why would Bethany Storro douse herself in acid? Experts try to explain
When news broke Thursday that a Vancouver woman admitted dousing herself with powerful acid, causing severe facial burns, one question reverberated:
Why would anyone do such a thing?
Friday, a leading researcher in the field of self-harm discounted theories that Bethany Storro, 28, was crying for attention, trying to manipulate others or attempting suicide.
“The biggest reason people do this,” said Kim L. Gratz, “is because it makes them feel better in the moment … It can really distract people from all the emotional pain that they’re feeling.”
Gratz, director of personality disorders research at University of Mississippi, is co-author of books on self-harm and borderline personality disorder. Before she was contacted by The Oregonian, Gratz hadn’t heard about Storro, 28, who told police an assailant threw acid in her face near Vancouver’sEsther Short Park on Aug. 30. Storro described the attack in detail, sending police searching for an African American woman in her 20s or 30s. A couple days later, before a crowd of reporters at Legacy Emanuel’s Oregon Burn Center, Storro said, “I have no enemies … I don’t get it.”
No one is sure how many people mutilate themselves each year; those who do typically hide it.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put the number of emergency room visits for self-inflicted injury at 594,000 in 2006, the most recent data available. But the vast majority of people who intentionally hurt themselves don’t seek treatment, Gratz said, either because they don’t need medical attention or because they’ve become good at treating themselves.
“Our best estimate in adult populations,” she said, “is probably 4 percent … with much higher rates among adolescents and young adults.” Large-scale studies of college students around the world put rates of self-harm at 17 percent to 40 percent, she said. Incidence among females and males appears comparable.
The most common form of self-harm, or self-mutilation, as it’s also called, is by cutting; those who engage in the behavior frequently slice their arms, then wear long sleeves to hide the injuries.
Dr. Thomas Dodson said such patients describe a state in which they don’t feel any emotions. “They cut on themselves,” he said, “because they can’t tolerate a state of not feeling anything. It becomes habitual and relieves tension that they have.”
Dodson, a Southwest Portland psychiatrist, chairs the public information and education committee for the Oregon Psychiatric Association.
Beyond cutting, the list of self-harm behaviors is as long as it is gruesome, from burning to sticking the skin with needles, punching one’s self to banging the head or another body part repeatedly against hard surfaces. Use of acid, apparently, is rare.
The most typical diagnosis among self-harmers is borderline personality disorder, Gratz said. But the behavior also is associated with eating disorders, substance-use disorders, depression and anxiety.
If Storro has a diagnosed illness, it has not been publicly disclosed.
Self-harm is not a suicide try. Yet those who mutilate themselves are fragile, Gratz said, and are at higher risk of suicide than the general population.
Gratz has no idea what might have triggered Storro to hurt herself, but life transitions, always increase stress, she said. Storro recently divorced and moved from Idaho to Vancouver to live with her parents. She had just started a new job at Safeway.
The best treatment for self-harm, Gratz said, was developed by University of Washington’s Marsha M. Linehan, a psychology professor. Called dialectical behavior therapy, it involves a year of intensive psychotherapy, plus weekly group sessions in which patients learn to regulate emotions, tolerate distress, be more mindful of and negotiate relationships better. DBT, for short, includes telephone coaching, so therapists can help patients whenever a problem arises, and a consultation team offering peer support for the therapists themselves.
The method is the treatment of choice for borderline personality disorder.
At Portland Dialectical Behavior Therapy Program on Southwest Macadam Avenue, Tracy Jendritza, a psychologist on staff, estimated that half the clinic’s patients have engaged in self harm.
“People get so dysregulated emotionally that there’s something about self harm that actually calms people down,” Jendritza said. “Initially they feel better but in the long term it makes things worse.”
Self harm, Gratz said, frequently goes hand in hand with shame and feeling alone. She figures that Storro has landed in that deep well.
“My guess is that she’s experiencing incredible shame” since police learned the truth about the attack. “It’s so public … I’m sure she’s in a much more intense state of distress” than she was before applying the acid that burned the skin off her beautiful face.
 Lindsay Lohan Breaks Down in Court Well, it’s been some time since I have written anything about celebrities with possible borderline personality disorder. Personally, I wish some celeb would just come out and admit that they have the disorder and help others by showing that there’s effective evidence-based treatments for BPD. I guess the stigma is too great and they feel that it would hurt their careers. Of course, for some, their behavior is what is hurting their careers. Today, I am turning again to Lindsay Lohan (click here to see all posts about LiLo). Lately I have been receiving a ton of alerts with news stories that contain LiLo’s name and reference BPD. These are usually in the user comments. I can’t find a single legit magazine or news article that has speculated on BPD and LiLo. Recently, her behavior has accelerated, even as she is facing jail. Here are some recent articles that could indicate that (in combo) LiLo has BPD (remember, this is just speculation at this point):
Lindsay Lohan goes Doctor Shopping
http://entertainment.oneindia.in/hollywood/top-stories/scoop/2010/lilodoes-doctor-shopping-for-prescriptionmeds.html
Washington, July 12 (ANI): Lindsay Lohan apparently obtains her dangerous combination of prescription drugs through “doctor shopping” across the country.
According to a source, Lohan goes to six different doctors for prescriptions.
“When one doctor says no to refilling a prescription, she will go to the next. It’s a whole process to get what she needed, ” TMZ quoted the source as saying.
Lindsay who has prescriptions for- Zoloft (antidepressant), Trazodone (antidepressant), Adderall (stimulant to control ADHD), Nexium (acid reflux) and the extremely powerful painkiller Dilaudid, have doctors both in Los Angeles and New York.
In fact, one of her past rehab facilities still prescribes her meds.
The source even added that, Lohan “would get a large supply every time” she visited a doctor.
Lindsay Lohan and Suicidal Ideation
http://www.hollywoodlife.com/2010/07/14/lindsay-lohan-suicide-watch-kill-herself-jail-90-days/
Lindsay Lohan would rather kill herself than be locked away in jail. The 24-year-old actress is reportedly so upset over the 90 day jail sentence looming over her since July 6, that she’s threatening to take her own life.
“She just kept repeating, ‘I can’t go to jail,’ and, ‘I’ll kill myself first,’” a source tells Star magazine. “She’s mentally unstable and getting worse.”
After Lindsay’s discovered she’d be serving time at the Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood, Calif., Star reports she went home and broke everything in sight.
“She ran around breaking mirrors, cutting herself and rambling like a lunatic. She tore her house apart before she finally just broke down,” reveals a source. “Lindsay’s on a 24/7 suicide watch, it’s so bad. She isn’t doing well with this.”
Not only is Lindsay going around saying she wants to kill herself but she’s taking a lethal dose of prescription drugs.
“She has been doctor shopping across the country,” she says. “She is utterly unable to control her use of any mind-altering substance.”
Lindsay Lohan and Self-Injury
http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2009/11/exclusive-self-harm-sign-%E2%80%9Cseverely-disturbed-behavior%E2%80%9D
In shocking phone conversations exclusively obtained by RadarOnline.com Lindsay Lohan’s mom, Dina, is heard expressing her concern over her daughter’s self mutilation. And with good reason, as experts in the field tell RadarOnline.com that self harm is often just one factor of greater, underlying emotional issues.
Renown psychotherapist, and author of Cutting: Understanding and Overcoming Self-Mutilation, Dr. Steven Levenkron tells RadarOnline.com that Lindsay’s behavior is a sign of disturbed psychiatric behavior and that it will take time and energy to help her heal. “Whether (a given patient’s) condition is termed being ‘out of touch with reality,’ ‘psychotic,’ or ‘in a diagnosed state,’ the scene constitutes severely disturbed psychiatric behavior,” Levenkron says. “ This is the element that must be present in order to meet the criteria for self-injury. ‘Severely disturbed behavior’ does not mean hopeless, but it does mean that it will take a long time, lots of focused attention, and an intense emotional bond between helper and sufferer in order to repair the damage.”
And Dr. Wendy Lader, PHD, President and Clinical Director of the S.A.F.E ALTERNATIVES program, a nationally recognized treatment approach, professional network and resource base, and an international speaker on self-injury elaborates, telling RadarOnline.com, “The main reason for self injury is to deal with emotional regulation. For whatever reason it helps them to calm down.
“People who self harm have the inability to communicate the depth of their feelings.
Continue reading Lindsay Lohan and possible BPD (more detail this time) →
I stumbled on this sad story of a woman with BPD…
Failure of system spirals into family tragedy
George and Alice Schellenberg took it as good news when their daughter Laura, just out of high school, coming off a nervous breakdown, was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.
Borderline. How bad could that be?
Over the next 17 years, the Saanich couple found out.
It was hell. Laura began doing things totally out of character — she shoplifted, got angry, shaved her head twice, began cutting herself, then tattooed the lacerations on her arms.
On and on. She worked as a hairdresser and had a doting partner, but the internal demons were always there to pull her down. Obsessive compulsive disorder and severe depression piled on. She wouldn’t open her mail. Wouldn’t pay bills. Wouldn’t answer the phone. She could be anxious, unresponsive, violent. Doctors just increased her medication.
Her parents desperately tried to get her help, but there was always a barrier, a box that couldn’t be ticked, to prevent her from getting into a program or facility. “There was always something that didn’t fit,” George says. Most of the time, the system would spit her back out, so it fell to her parents to pick up the pieces on their own.
Desperate for advice from the professionals, they got none. Indeed, privacy laws prevented mental-health workers from bringing George and Alice into the loop. “Nobody ever told us how we could help,” he says.
Laura’s disease would sometimes lead her to sabotage her own life when things were going too well. One day in February 2008, thinking it might get her admitted to a hospital where a “new doctor” would help her with her obsessive thoughts, she started a small fire in her living room. Instead, she got done for arson and was locked away. “That was the beginning of the spiral with the corrections system,” George says.
In November 2008, her obsessive compulsive disorder sent her to her now ex-partner’s home in Duncan, a breach of her probation. Charged with assault, she was incarcerated in the Surrey Pretrial Services Centre, even though everyone — cops, lawyers, health professionals — agreed that kind of confinement was the worst thing for her. Laura got depressed, wouldn’t eat or wash and ended up in solitary for much of the four months she spent awaiting trial. Her parents’ pleas that she needed to be in a psychiatric hospital with ongoing treatment fell on deaf ears. Laura lost 100 pounds.
On April 7, she went to court, where the court-appointed psychiatrist suggested federal time — two years plus — so that she could get better mental-health treatment not available at the provincial system. The judge agreed.
Laura’s lawyer and parents were aghast at the idea of her being locked up for that long. Fine, said the judge, your option is to take her yourself: 18 months of home arrest, with Laura not even allowed out for a walk around the block.
Stuck in their home, she sank further into depression. On Easter weekend, after she asked for a gun with which to kill herself, Laura’s parents took her to the Archie Courtnall Centre. Continue reading Sad story of a young woman with BPD →
Uh, duh… Of course it makes them feel better. That’s the point. It’s not effective or productive, but it’s about pain management.
Some kids hurt themselves to feel better
By Theodore Beauchaine, Special to CNN
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Theodore Beauchaine says he sees rise in youth self-injury, such as cutting, burning
- Syndrome crosses culture, class; it’s linked to suicide, yet research funding lags, he says
- Kids say they self-injure to help deal with negative emotions, he says, but studies are sparse
- Beauchaine: U.S. must boost funding for study of self-injury
Editor’s note: Theodore Beauchaine is the Robert Bolles and Yasuko Endo Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Washington, where he is also director of the Child and Adolescent Adjustment Project. He is editor of “Child and Adolescent Psychopathology,” associate editor of the journal “Psychophysiology” and a contributing author to the upcoming “Oxford Handbook of Suicide and Self-injury.”
Seattle, Washington (CNN) — They come from all walks of life. One teenage girl cuts her thighs after piano lessons to avoid the crushing pressure for perfection. She sees a therapist twice a week, but she never gets better.
Another young woman makes dangerous cuts to her arms and wrists when she is anxious. She is on her fourth foster placement because no one can handle her behavior. Another burns her fingers with a cigarette lighter when she hears her parents fight. She’s been hospitalized twice in the past year.
Stories such as these are heard daily by those of us who study and treat self-injury — that is, any activity resulting in intentional bodily damage to oneself. It is a syndrome found across cultures and socioeconomic classes (although it tends to be a bit more common among the more well-off), and it appears to be on the rise.
Though cutting the skin with sharp objects is the most common method used, especially by girls, other means of self-injury including head banging, overdosing, burning, hanging, drowning and shooting.
Given its potential for death and serious injury, this phenomenon has received increasing media attention, with a number of movies, such as “Secretary” in 2002, portraying the phenomenon.
From my perspective, this is an urgent public health issue, yet funding for research and treatment lags well behind funding for other behavioral disorders, such as autism.
Self-injury is troubling for several reasons.
First of all, almost 400,000 adolescents and young adults were treated medically for self-inflicted injuries in 2006, the most recent year for which these injuries were counted.
One recent study revealed that the number of children and adolescents in the U.S. who were hospitalized for depression, which is sometimes accompanied by self-injury among youth, increased by 27 percent between 1997 and 2007.
Second, self-injury is associated with crippling psychiatric distress. Girls who engage in such behaviors score lower than their peers on almost all measures of positive psychological adjustment, such as sociability, and higher than their peers on almost all measures of negative psychological adjustment, such as depression and delinquency.
Third, adolescent self-injury is linked to adult borderline personality disorder — a chronic and difficult to treat mental health condition characterized by impulsive behaviors, difficulties self-regulating emotions, mood instability and high rates of suicide.
Finally, self-injury is the single best predictor of suicide. Intentional self-injurers are about 75 times more likely to kill themselves than others in the population, an especially alarming statistic.
Scientists are not sure why rates of self-injury appear to be on the rise, or how to stop the trend.
When teens who self-injure are asked why they do it, most say the behaviors help them regulate overwhelming negative emotions, including anger, sadness and rejection. This emotion-regulating function may occur because injuries trigger the release of endogenous opioids, chemicals produced by the body that relieve pain. Over repeated episodes of self-harm, the endogenous opioid system may become more efficient at reducing physical and psychological pain.
Recent studies conducted at high schools and universities reveal that almost 20 percent of individuals self-injure at least once, and about 11 percent self-injure repeatedly.
Given how common the behavior is — and the alarmingly high risk of eventual suicide — one might expect self-injury to be a major public health priority. One might also expect considerable investment into basic science aimed at understanding the brain mechanisms involved and treatment-outcome research aimed at developing effective interventions.
Unfortunately, this has not been the case. Little is known about the brain mechanisms of self-injury, particularly in adolescence, and traditional approaches to treatment usually involve inpatient hospitalization, which is more cost-effective than individual care.
However, when treated in groups, as is often the case in hospitalization, self-injuring girls often become worse, not better, an effect known as contagion. (Note that this can also occur through access to Web sites and Web postings in which self-injurers share strategies.)
Nevertheless, there has been some progress toward understanding and treating adolescent self-injury.
On the basic research side, Christina Derbidge, a graduate student in my lab, is conducting a study in which the brains of adolescent girls who engage in self-injury are imaged as they cope with negative emotions.
On the treatment side, Dr. Marsha Linehan’s Dialectical Behavior Therapy at the University of Washington is signs of hope. The therapy is a variant of cognitive therapy and an effective treatment for adults with borderline personality disorder. It has been adapted to adolescent patients with encouraging results.
Despite these positive developments, a much greater investment is needed. For fiscal year 2010, the National Institutes of Health –far and away the primary source of funding for health research in the world — projects spending $41 million on suicide and suicide prevention (NIH does not report specific funding figures for self-injury).
In contrast, NIH expenditures for autism are expected to be $141 million in 2010. Corrected for the higher prevalence rate of suicide, this translates into a six-fold greater investment per person with autism.
Indeed, across the past five years, NIH has spent more than $700 million on autism research, with impressive results in terms of treatment effectiveness and our understanding of the genetic and neural underpinnings of the disorder. Given the urgency of preventing suicide among our youth, a similar investment is needed in self-injury research.
Woman Eats 78 Forks and Spoons
Updated: Saturday, 31 Oct 2009, 1:37 PM EDT
Published : Saturday, 31 Oct 2009, 1:35 PM EDT
By MIKE BRODY
(MYFOX NATIONAL) – A woman obsessed with eating cutlery had to have surgery to remove 78 forks and spoons from her stomach, the Daily Mail reports .
Margaret Daalman, 52, went to the hospital in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, complaining of stomach pains. Doctors were stunned when X-ray’s of Dallman’s stomach (see pictures of the X-rays) revealed several pieces of silverware.
Dallman was rushed into surgery where doctors intricately removed all of the cutlery.
“She seems to have been suffering from some sort of obsession and every time she sat down for a meal she would ignore the food and eat the cutlery,” said one of the doctors who treated Daalman.
The images were actually taken about 30 years ago, but they were published for the first time last week in a Dutch medical magazine. The magazine had asked for readers to send in examples of strange medical tales, and a doctor at the hospital sent in Daalman’s story.
Dallman was diagnosed with a borderline personality disorder that left her with an urge to eat forks and spoons. She never ate knives, however, and the doctors don’t know why.
She has reportedly made a full recovery and is said to be responding well to the therapy she was receiving for the disorder.
The ingestion of foreign objects, considered a form of self-harm, is a little-discussed type of disorder that is difficult for physicians to diagnose, according to Psychiatry Online .
Duh! Anyway, here is an article from Wired about celebrities and mental illness:
 Celebrities’ bad behavior is rooted in mental illness, according to “Dr. Drew” Pinsky, who is best known as the host of Celebrity Rehab and Loveline — a nationally syndicated radio show that invites listeners to call in with questions about sex and drugs.
In his latest book, The Mirror Effect (on bookstore shelves Tuesday), he spells out a theory that stars are predisposed to narcissistic personality disorder long before they become famous. Their dysfunctional behavior is rewarded by Hollywood and portrayed as normal by the press.
“As reporting on celebrity behavior becomes even more ruthless and mean-spirited, I am struck by this disconnect between how a
celebrity’s behavior is portrayed in the media, and the very real problems that underlie their actions,” wrote Pinsky.
He argues that the media fails to acknowledge that celebrities are mentally ill when holding them up as role models, so everyday people have begun to emulate their unhealthy behavior.
In 2006, Pinsky and his co-author Mark Young published the first systematic study of celebrity psychology in the Journal of Research in Personality. The new book explains that research and how it fits into the larger context of our culture, which they argue has been soiled by shameless producers, agents and paparazzi.
The first three chapters read like a history textbook, recapping famous celebrity mishaps and an era when those unfortunate episodes were carefully hidden from the public. It gives readers a glimpse of just how conservative Pinsky really is. He seems to prefer the good old days when movie studios were able to keep Rock Hudson in the closet.
The celebrity doctor is not a fan of MySpace or Facebook either, because they allow people to seek attention by acting out like celebrities — posting provocative pictures and personal stories about irresponsible behavior.
“Without appropriate monitoring, these social networking platforms are subject to abuse by those who are most vulnerable to the endless feedback loop they create,” wrote Pinsky. “This is known as an urge/compulsion/reinforcement cycle, and it’s very similar to what happens to those who crave drugs or other addictive substances.”
After that rather stiff introduction, the book becomes a psychology lesson with celebrities as examples.
Pinsky seems fond of interpreting behavior in the light of evolution, and gave this explanation for the asinine stunts performed by Johnny Knoxville and Steve-O on the show Jackass.
“Some have speculated that such acting out may be deeply rooted in our genes, as a way to display genetic prowess and adaptability,” wrote Pinsky. “In this theory, males (in particular) who survive dangerous stunts are displaying their biological capacity to survive in adversity.”
In their 2006 study, Pinsky and Young found that celebrities from reality television score the highest on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory. Pinsky is convinced that the producers of those shows carefully select contestants with psychological problems, because they will bring extra drama to each show.
“Having served as a consultant to several reality shows, I know what the producers are looking for in contestants,” wrote Pinsky. “The standards regarding mental health are extremely fluid.”
While this article is not specifically about BPD, there is some mutilation in it (not self, but of a boyfriend), so it may be triggering to some. Here is long article on it and here is a link to a shorter article with pictures (be warned!).
‘Blackburn woman tattooed lover with Stanley knife’
8:50am Saturday 31st January 2009
A WOMAN used a Stanley knife to carve her name on the shoulder of her lover while he was asleep, a court heard.
Dominique Fisher, 22, of Blackburn, has gone on trial accused of unlawfully wounding Wayne Robinson, with whom she had a drink-and-drug fueled four-day fling after meeting in a nightclub.
As well as her name on his right shoulder, Fisher carved a star on his back and ‘body art’ on his left arm.
Mr Robinson said he woke up covered in blood to find himself cut, with Fisher ‘snoring her head off’ next to him.
Fisher had told him: “I’m a tattooist. I thought you’d like it”, the court heard.
But Fisher denies the charge and has told the jury she carried out the carvings with Mr Fisher’s consent.
The court heard the two had met by chance in the Syndicate nightclub in Blackpool on June 12 then spent a night together in a room at the Cliffs hotel where cocaine was taken before going their separate ways in the morning.
The next day there was further contact between them and Mr Robinson travelled by taxi from his home in Fleetwood to her Blackburn flat.
Steven Wild, prosecuting, said the man stayed with her for two nights and the pair drunk alcohol and took valium, not prescribed to either of them.
He told the court: “What the Crown say happened is that around 2.30am on the Sunday morning Mr Robinson woke and found he was covered in blood.
“He found a design carved into his left arm and the name Dominique into his right shoulder and a star carved into his back.”
Mr Robinson, 24, told the jury at Preston Crown Court that they took around 30 valium tablets between them that weekend.
He said “I watched a bit of telly, laid on the bed, drinking vodka, chatting. That is basically all I can remember.”
He woke up the first morning and she said they had had sex.
Mr Robinson said he presumed that on the Saturday he took more valium.
His last recollection was being “laid on the bed”.
Mr Robinson discovered the tattoos in the early hours of Sunday.
“I had been cut up, there was blood and Dominique was snoring her head off. I had slashes, cuts on my arms and back.”
He refuted defence claims that he had consented to the tattoos, that he had asked her to do it and had mopped up the blood. “I was comatose”, he added.
Mr Robinson’s wounds went onto heal, but has been left with visible scarring, the court heard.
In her evidence, Fisher, who the court was told was a woman of good character, said they sat chatting about the seven tattoos she had then.
She said he asked her to put ‘a tribal one’ on him. She told the jury she had never done it before and did not have a clue how to go about it.
Fisher, of Roebuck Close, in the Galligreaves area, said: “He was asking me questions like had I got anything sterile.
“I said I had Stanley blades because I had been decorating.
“He wanted to put his name into me and I said no. We were both awake, knew what we were doing and talking about.
“He was sat on the end of the bed, baring his arm. Both of us wiped the blood away.
“I was asking him did it hurt. He said ‘no, carry on’.”
It took a few hours to write the name Dominique and then the tribal tattoo.
Fisher said she could not remember doing the star on his back.
She later added in evidence: “I’m sorry for what I have done”.
The trial continues on Monday.
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