In hopes of not being repetitive, I bring to you the following scenarios.  Most of us hang out with friends:  at dinner parties, in bars, in bookstores, poker games, bridge clubs, 'at the water cooler at work', at the gym, killing time in a waiting room...and the biggest confess-all, I'll never see them again...sitting next to someone on a 2-hour plane flight.  We hear snippets of bizarre scenes  recounted to us or others.  People doing hurtful things, rapidly vacillating moodiness, explosiveness, broken love affairs, unreasonable behaviors, unpredictability, and abounding addictions - are all painted to us in various ways. 

Not many of us have time or the knowledge to string all of these behavioral characteristics and see a trend.  A definite pattern. Most of us don't really care. ... Until it happens to us - our sister's 6-year old daughter, our babysitter, the incorrigible kid on the softball team we coach.  The automatic diagnosis of ADHD doesn't address what's really going on.  The 30-year old mother's alcoholism is not the only problem.  Most problems that are treated for the erratic behaviors mentioned above are merely symptoms of an underlying, emotional and mental problem.  A problem that is treatable, but must be identified first.

Borderline Personality Disorder is a slippery disorder - it's 9 to 13 characteristics could look like a more easily diagnosed problem.  But the bottom line is:  all Borderlines are linked together by a common mental/emotional problem, and demonstrate virtually identical distressing and destructive behaviors. 

Listen to others as they describe an out-of-control person in their lives, whom they love or like, but this unbalanced person is creating a hell for everyone around them.  It is the Non-Borderlines who need to educate themselves on this disorder, and lead their Borderlines to treatment.  To do this is not an easy task.  You may have no choice.  It will be a thankless task, to the one with the disorder.

Please, for the sake of someone's life, email this website to some key person in the life of an out-of-control person;  encourage them to learn about the disorder.  You will have done a heroic act of courage and kindness.

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