Nadia Bokody reveals Borderline Personality Disorder diagnosis

When Nadia Bokody’s partner left her text messages unanswered, it sparked an “emotional meltdown” she now knows was a telling sign.

Nadia Bokody

@nadiabokody

6 min read

November 26, 2022 - 5:04PM

Everything has gone pitch black.

I don’t have any depth perception.

There’s not even a snatch of colour or a faint outline to guide me. It’s just terrifying, suffocating nothingness.

With every second that passes, I can feel myself slipping further into the darkness.

I’m starting to forget what is real …

This isn’t a nightmare or a bad drug trip, though it feels like both.

It’s a well-worn pathway in my brain firing up for the umpteenth time this week in reaction to what would be a pretty inconsequential event for most people – being apart from a partner.

Sex columnist Nadia Bokody gives insight into her mental health. Picture: Instagram/Nadia Bokody

The ability to hold onto other people’s feelings when I can’t see them has always been elusive to me.

Any warmth, love, or connection I share with those closest to me evaporates into a kind of metaphorical black void when I’m unable to physically verify it; like a magician snapping his fingers and disappearing into a plume of smoke.

A part of my brain knows, of course, what I’m witnessing is visual trickery – that the magician is still somewhere on stage, carefully concealed from the audience.

But while I’m in the moment, riveted to the show, what’s happening feels completely real: if I can’t witness an emotion, my brain believes it no longer exists.

Among mental health professionals, this cognitive distortion is often referred to as Emotional Impermanence, and it’s one of the lesser acknowledged parts of living with Borderline Personality Disorder (also known as BPD).

Though there’s contentious debate about the use of the BPD label – given we have no science to substantiate the idea someone’s personality can be disordered, and its disproportionate diagnosis among women is steeped in sexism (research shows men presenting with the same symptoms are more likely to be labelled as having PTSD) – my own Borderline diagnosis five years ago was largely validating.

It bought clarity to why things which always appeared trivial to friends were fraught with pain and difficulty for me.

Things like enjoying the early stages of romantic relationships, being able to sit with the discomfort of an unanswered text message, and holding opposing truths during arguments with loved ones (ie: “My partner is hurting my feelings right now AND I also know they still love me”).

It’s estimated 1.4 per cent of the population live with BPD; a condition characterised by a pervasive pattern of instability in self-image, moods, and behaviour with marked hypersensitivity to abandonment, which manifests in relationship difficulties.

It’s that last part – “relationship difficulties” – that separates it from any other mental illness, because at its heart, BPD is a relational disorder.

Unlike other conditions such as depression, anxiety, and even bipolar disorder (which is often confused with BPD as it also features mood disturbance), if you put someone with Borderline Personality Disorder on a desert island, their symptoms would appear to go away.

When I’m not in a committed romantic relationship, my BPD essentially pauses. Even dating doesn’t trigger it. I’ve carried on casual relationships and situationship-type arrangements for months with the same carefree ease of a proverbial f-boy.

It’s only when I’m emotionally invested in someone, it spontaneously comes flooding back – like a tidal wave plunging me underwater so I can no longer tell which way is up and which way will take me down, deeper into the abyss.

There is no “cure” for BPD, because it’s rooted in complex trauma, rather than a chemical imbalance.

The intense emotions many people with BPD feel in response to events in relationships, including extreme reactions to subtle or imagined signs of abandonment (such as being left on ‘Read’ by a significant other) and challenges with emotional recall in the absence of loved ones, aren’t pathological. They’re learned responses.

Responses which, though once logical and protective (given many BPD sufferers experienced childhood abuse or neglect), no longer serve us, and consequently make our adult relationships unnecessarily painful, leading to repeated emotional breakdowns and incessant requests for reassurance that can burn loved ones out and ironically cause the very thing we fear most: abandonment.

And while these behaviours are often written off as being oversensitive or dramatic, for people with BPD, negative emotions are experienced as genuinely excruciating.

“People with BPD are like people with third degree burns over 90 per cent of their bodies. Lacking emotional skin, they feel agony at the slightest touch or movement,” author and psychologist Marsha Linehan says.

This is in part thought to be due to the role of the amygdala (the brain’s emotional processing centre) in Borderline Personality Disorder.

Research published in the Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience found that, compared with controls, patients with BPD and PTSD had significantly smaller amygdales, making them more likely to struggle with impaired emotional regulation, intense moods, and have issues forming emotional memories.

And because the amygdala is also responsible for processing fear and scanning for threats, this reduction in functionality means people with BPD are additionally prone to hypervigilance and excessive paranoia (one study even found people with BPD misread neutral facial expressions as negative or aggressive). Which is why it’s not uncommon for someone with Borderline symptomology to interpret a lapse in communication with a partner as a signal they’ve done something wrong, or the relationship is over.

It’s this very real internal torment that drives 80 per cent of people living with the disorder to self-harm, and up to 10 per cent to ultimately take their own lives (according to recent data published on PubMed).

Unfortunately, this more humanised picture of BPD isn’t the portrayal we see in media. Instead, so-called “Borderlines”, are routinely depicted as villains and abusers. Think: Glenn Close’s infamous role as “bunny boiler” Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction; an archetypal “crazy Borderline” who terrorised her lover when he ended their affair.

Frequently asked questions that appear under Google searches for the term include, “Do people with BPD have empathy?”, “Can someone with Borderline ever love you?” and “Are borderlines psychopaths?”.

“BPDs are not meant to be in relationships. RUN!” simply reads the title of one Reddit thread.

But despite swirling misinformation perpetuating the stigmatisation and demonisation of those living with it, people with BPD can and do have thriving relationships, and the recovery rate is hearteningly high.

A study published in The American Journal of Psychiatry found remission (defined as no longer meeting the diagnostic criteria for BPD for a period of two years or longer) occurred within two to eight years of diagnosis and initial treatment. Additionally, it showed symptom relapses waned over time.

After my own diagnosis, I checked into a year-long outpatient program, where I learned Dialectical Behaviour Therapy skills (the leading treatment protocol for people with BPD), which I continue to use to this day.

Living with Borderline Personality Disorder can make relationships difficult says Nadia. Picture: Instagram/Nadia Bokody

I’m currently two years self-harm free, and better able to manage my emotions in relationships. But I won’t lie, I don’t always get it right.

The work required to override that well-worn pathway in my mind is incredibly gruelling, and frequently exhausting. Sometimes I falter and find myself back in the darkness, grasping for an outline of reality.

I might have an embarrassingly unprovoked emotional meltdown or shoot off an overly needy series of texts because my overreactive amygdala has sensed a threat (being abandoned) in the absence of a loved one.

I grapple daily with the shame of these responses, largely because I grew up believing the pain and difficulty I faced navigating relationships – something which always seemed so effortless for everyone else – meant I was broken.

But people with Borderline Personality Disorder are not broken, and we’re not monsters.

Conversely, the intensity at which we feel, and our hyper-attunement to the emotional states of those around us make us capable of deep, profound love and empathy – qualities we should see as assets, not defects.

While my memory of other people’s feelings for me will always vanish in a puff of smoke when I can’t hear, touch, or read written evidence of it, my brain is slowly forging a new route that recognises what I’m witnessing is nothing more than a mental magic trick.