It Took 10 Years for Doctors to Diagnose Me with Borderline Personality Disorder

Name: Amanda Wang

Age: 37

Occupation: Documentary filmmaker

Diagnosis: Borderline personality disorder (BPD)

I saw psychiatrists and therapists when I was a teen, but no one mentioned BPD until a good 10 years later, in 2007, when I found myself in a crisis and was hospitalized. That’s when I got my diagnosis. I had never heard of BPD before. Doctors had played around with different diagnoses, like bipolar, ADHD, PTSD, and depression.

After being in the hospital for 10 days, I met with my social worker, and she pulled out this big binder of disorders and read the criteria. She said, ‘Does this sound like you? Do you identify with this?’ It was like she was reading my autobiography.

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Honestly, I was so afraid of people thinking I was crazy. My biggest fear was being locked up in the hospital. But now that I had this label, I was able to say to myself, ‘This is something that other people have. It’s not that I’m crazy.’

I tried Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) when I left the hospital. I ended up going through it for two years. I continue to do it, with a different DBT therapist, today. I still struggle with thoughts of self-injury, though. I don’t act upon them, but sometimes when I’m scared or when I’m under stress, the images and the thoughts and the urges come back. It’s hard to refrain from acting upon it when it’s constantly barraging my mind all the time. Besides that, I still deal with black and white thinking and abandonment issues—I’m scared that my therapist doesn’t really care for me and that I’ll lose her. I’ll blow things out of proportion that way.

I also have trouble with my anger—not so much that I overtly express anger, but I actually under-express my anger and I turn it inwards. That’s when the self-injury comes into play.

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I come from a family of doctors, and when I told them about my diagnosis, my mom said, ‘BPD? But you’re so nice, how can you have this disorder?’ I didn’t know what she meant. I had to look it up and see that people with BPD were known to be difficult to treat and difficult people in general. I was surprised. The people I’ve met in group therapy were not the stereotypical type of people. That’s why I’ve been working on the Rethink BPD project for a while. It’s like a grassroots movement where I really want to galvanize the community together. I’ve been pretty lucky when it comes to my treatment providers…I haven’t been affected too much by the stigma.

Pick up the May 2016 issue of Women’s Health, on newsstands now, for tips on how to help a friend who has a mental illness, advice on how to disclose a diagnosis at work, and more. Plus, go to our Mental Health Awareness center for more stories like Amanda’s and to find out how you can help break the stigma surrounding mental illness.