Bpd depersonalization5/7/2023 ![]() Historically, there’s been an intense fascination with mentally ill women. Tory Eisenlohr-Moul, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago, tells Healthline that many of the behaviors women with borderline display “get rewarded by society in the short term, but in the long term, get really harshly punished.” The reality of mental health struggles left no room for his Manic Pixie Dream Girl fantasy to thrive, so we broke up shortly thereafter.Īs much as I feel our society clings to the myth that women with borderline are unlovable and downright toxic in relationships, women with BPD and other mental illnesses are also objectified.ĭr. Yet, the moment my symptoms shifted from “quirky” to “crazy” from his perspective - mood swings, uncontrollable crying, cutting - I became disposable. I was a girlfriend who was sometimes risky, impulsive, sexual, and empathetic to a fault. I wanted to be accepted.Īs our relationship progressed, he became enamored with certain aspects of my disorder. I wanted my mental illness to be accepted. So, I felt desperate to normalize the way he exploited my BPD. It felt impossible to navigate the unrealistic standards I felt I had to live up to as a young woman - a mentally ill woman, to boot. Because of this Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope, I believe there was certain allure for him in having a mentally ill girlfriend. We grew up when movies like “The Virgin Suicides” and “Garden State,” where the main characters became infatuated with one-dimensional versions of mentally ill women, were at the height of their popularity. When I confided in him that I had BPD, his face beamed with excitement. I kept my diagnosis a secret, until I met my first serious boyfriend a couple months later. Yearning for the freedom I sorely lacked throughout my teenage years, I left my treatment center a month after my 18th birthday. BPD felt like a scarlet letter, and I wanted to keep it as distant from my life as I could. I learned quickly to conceal my diagnosis, even from close friends and family. ![]() ![]() Self-help books for people with BPD had titles like “Five Types of People Who Can Ruin Your Life.” Was I a bad person? ![]() “Borderlines are evil,” read the first autocomplete search on Google. Growing up institutionalized with other teenagers living with mental illness, I wasn’t exposed often to mental health stigma.īut I didn’t have to scour the dark corners of the internet to discover what many people thought of women with BPD.
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