Taken from "Who's Afraid of Borderline Personality Disorder."
Yes, that's me. Or was me. I'm never sure. Six months of intensive group and individual therapy, and I was deemed fit to be released in to the wild. Two more months of individual, and my therapist metaphorically slapped me on the forehead and declared me healed. I guess I consider myself "in remission" or "recovering" or something. The short version is that I'm perfectly fine regulating my emotions most of the time, and I no longer display any Borderline symptoms consistently enough to be classified as BPD again.
The treatment program I did was different than anything I've ever run across in 10 years of therapy. I'll spend the rest of my life living with acronyms. GIVE, PLEASE MASTER, ACCEPT, IMPROVE, DEAR MAN... If you want to know, you can go look them up. They're mnemonics to help me remember how to keep my emotions in check. Because despite the fact that I'm "better" if I don't keep up with my skills, I'll stop being "better." It's unfair on so many levels. I can't just take meds when things get messy, because meds alone don't make BPD livable. I liken it to being in a room with a radio on full volume, playing your least favorite song, that just won't turn off. For me, medication was like earplugs. Oh, sure, it was much quieter, but you could still hear that song so very quietly playing in the background...just loud enough to let you know that it was still there waiting for you.
It's getting late, and really, this video does better justice to my attempts to explain than I can right now.
