Borderline Personality Disorder,  Suicide

Borderline personality disorder: Study shows stigma a barrier to those seeking treatment

She struggled to regulate her emotions and often found herself getting very upset and angry over small issues

Borderline personality disorder: Study shows stigma a barrier to those seeking treatment

By Tegan Osborne

Kylie Travers was just 16 years old when she first tried to kill herself.

Afterwards she was treated for depression and ADHD.

But it was not until many years later, when she was finally diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD), that she finally began to understand why she felt the way she did.

“In 2010, my stepmother was reading a book called Stop Walking on Eggshells (a book about BPD) and she recommended that I read it, just in general for dealing with people,” she said.

“As I read it, I realised that a lot of the attributes in this were very similar to what I’d been told that I was like, and issues that I had. And so then I went and got tested.”

Before Ms Travers began treatment, she struggled to regulate her emotions and often found herself getting very upset and angry over small issues.

“There was significant anger issues … it was like a light switch,” she said.

“I was classed as very high-functioning BPD, so I could put on the face for public and do everything really well and it didn’t seem like there was anything wrong with me at all.

It’s being really aware of my environment around me … knowing what are the sort of things that do upset me, and then having methods in place to help calm myself down, or know how to talk to myself.

“But I often had suicidal thoughts, even though I didn’t express them, going from extremely depressed to extremely happy.”

After years of weekly visits to a psychologist, Ms Travers has now recovered.

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One Comment

  • Randi

    I have seen many many many of these stories both here and on my own Google Alert. What I want to know is, when are they going to be telling the story of a family member who is not a parent?

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