My name is Stockton Lord. I am a student here at Trinity and a recovering alcoholic who has been clean and sober for about a year now. In that time, through the grace of God and the help of many, I was lucky enough to crawl out of the personal hell and darkness that had consumed my life for years.
September is recovery and suicide awareness month. In that spirit, I will attempt to share my own story and shed a light on Borderline personality disorder (BPD): One of the leading contributors to suicide and an all too unknown and underdiscussed condition.
Borderline personality disorder affects roughly 1.6% of the population at any given time. Of those diagnosed with the disorder, approximately 70% will attempt suicide and 10% will succeed in it. These are devastating statistics with real-world consequences on the families and loved ones impacted by this loss of life.
Understanding the condition is critical to understand what makes BPD so lethal. As defined by the DSM-5, borderline personality disorder is characterized by wide mood swings, intense and unstable relationships, a strong fear of abandonment, chronic feelings of emptiness and depression, impulsivity, persistent suicidal ideation, self-harming behaviors and an unstable sense of self-worth.
Put together, these problems make life an overwhelming, seemingly impossible-to-manage emotional roller coaster for those with BPD — especially given its high comorbidity with other issues like bipolar disorder and addiction. Even with knowledge of a diagnosis, you can feel like a helpless observer of your own madness — swinging from emotional outbursts to the shame-soaked self-awareness that follows.
Additionally, as John G. Gunderson — a pioneer of the condition — once put it, BPD is essentially a disorder of attachment. As such, many of these issues are triggered by and play out in the relationships of the individual with BPD, causing chaos and damage, not only to that individual but to those around them.
This was certainly my experience. I was twice diagnosed with BPD, once in January of 2024 and later that September. As is common with those diagnosed, my diagnosis was highly complicated by the years of alcoholism and addiction that had preceded it.
About halfway through high school I began drinking and fell in love with the feeling of liberation that came with it. Quickly, however, I would begin to be haunted by self-loathing and suicidal thinking as I drank. I would quickly become a genuine alcoholic my senior year — drinking heavier amounts on a daily basis — and would slowly unravel inside as my drinking and personal losses mounted.
Around November of my first-year here at Trinity, those feelings that I had fled in the months beforehand returned with a vengeance. I was overwhelmed by an intense depression marked by sharp physical pain and increasingly erratic emotions. I desperately turned to those around me for salvation from my pain. These feelings would peak that January with a dramatic breakdown that made it clear to me that what I was experiencing was, in fact, BPD. At the recommendation of my therapist, I began to take part in dialectical behavioral therapy, the most common and successful treatment for BPD.
I was not, however, able to stay sober. As a consequence, although I was actively seeking treatment for my issues, I would begin another spiral of suicidality and desperation that would once again end in a dramatic breakdown when I returned to school. Horrified by my own behavior and desperate for a way out, I made the decision to leave school, sober up and finally resolve my issues with alcoholism and BPD. That decision, and the treatment and recovery that followed, likely saved my life, and for that I am eternally grateful.
There’s much more I’d like to say, but in closing, I’d like to make clear that recovery from BPD is possible. Our understanding and ability to treat the condition have improved dramatically over the years and, although there is still a considerable stigma surrounding it, public understanding and awareness has grown. Like any problem, that understanding and awareness are the first steps towards progress, and I hope this column will help with that here at Trinity.
*Resources to learn more about borderline personality disorder are linked below
Websites
https://www.mcleanhospital.org/essential/bpd
McLean Hospital in Boston is one of the most highly recognized centers for the treatment and research of BPD. Unsurprisingly, their website contains an excellent overview of the condition and is a fantastic introduction to it.
Mind.org’s page on BPD provides a deeply human overview of the condition and is a very useful look into it. When I first read it, I was very impressed with it compared to the more impersonal, broad overviews that are found on most sites online. It is a welcome and humanizing educational source.
https://dialecticalbehaviortherapy.com/
This website gives a complete overview of dialectical behavioral therapy: the most common and effective treatment of BPD. A great read for those interested in how it is treated or looking for treatment themselves.
Videos
These clips featuring John Gunderson offer some of the best descriptions of BPD, the borderline individual and the relationships which are so crucial to the condition. It is an invaluable source of information, and Gunderson provides a deeply humanizing and compassionate analysis.
I would be remiss not to include some clips of Marsha Linehan. In these, she goes over the elements of DBT and the issues they are meant to treat. Highly informative and worth a watch.
Books
Building a Life Worth Living by Marsha Linehan
Marsha Linehan’s memoir was incredibly moving to me early in my recovery. I strongly identified with the story of her own collapse at the age of 18 and was greatly inspired by her recovery and drive to help others with similar experiences to her own.
One of the bestselling books about the condition, “I Hate You – Don’t Leave Me” provides a deep dive into the many causes of BPD, how it develops, the key symptoms associated with it and a variety of cases demonstrating the many different ways it plays out in people’s lives.
Stop Walking on Eggshells by Paul T. Mason and Randy Kreiger
Unlike the other sources, this book primarily focuses on how to identify and deal with a loved one suffering from BPD. Even before treatment, I had heard about it from other family members, and it is one of the most highly recommended books focusing on those on the receiving end of the borderline chaos.
