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Memoirs About BPD: “Pay Attention to Me” by Kelly South (Q+A and Excerpt)
Author Provided Photo Trigger Warning: interpersonal conflict, bpd episode, patient notes from therapist
Memoirs about BPD: Kelly South’s Story
Living with BPD, or borderline personality disorder, can be a difficult journey—but remission is possible. You can learn to manage BPD symptoms with the right tools, support system, perseverance and patience for both yourself and the recovery process. This post is proof that there’s hope. Today, we’ll hear from Kelly South who has just recently published a memoir about BPD called Pay Attention to Me: A fairly accurate story.
Kelly has been through the process of treating BPD (she’s currently in remission!) and understands first-hand how challenging it can be. In this Q+A, she shares advice for those in the beginning stages of BPD treatment as well as what she’s learned about herself throughout her journey. And of course, we’ll hear about her new book PLUS you’ll get to read an excerpt at the end!
(BTW — if you’re looking for books about BPD, consider getting a copy of Pay Attention to Me: A fairly accurate story on Amazon. It’s a great read and you won’t regret it!)
Before we dive in, here’s a quick summary.
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Books About BPD: “Book of Thoughts” by Adrianna Rangel (Q+A)
Photo by Marcos Paulo Prado on Unsplash Trigger Warning: BPD stigma, stigma by mental health clinicians
Living with BPD Stigma
Here’s the real truth about living with borderline personality disorder: you are going to be stigmatized. By people online. By film or TV producers. By mental health clinicians. By strangers. Maybe even by your own family and friends. There’s no way around it.
However, as someone who lives with BPD, one group in particular stands out to me: mental health clinicians. Why is it that almost every single person I know with BPD (& I know lots) has a story like our featured guest, Adrianna Rangel?
Why is it that mental health professionals—people we should be able to get treatment from, are refusing to call us back, abruptly ending their services with us or are otherwise brushing us off when we only just admit out loud, ‘I think I have borderline personality disorder’ or are up front about our BPD diagnosis?
As hard of a condition as borderline personality disorder is to both live & deal with, it’s treatable. Contrary to old beliefs in the medical world, recent studies of BPD have confirmed that not only is treatment is possible but BPD also has a high recovery success rate.