Borderline what?
"How long do you think you'll be here?" The psych ward doctor asked me just the morning after I was discharged from a medical hospital because of a suicide attempt. I'd been coming to this hospital for many years, many times a year sometimes kept for months at a time, my symptoms were so severe. But I had never had this doctor on this particular unit. Clearly though he knew about me. " Hospitals aren't always helpful for people like you," he said. He went on to describe me as "chronic" and said, "There's nothing we can really do to help." How could he know these things right off the bat, before even meeting with me? That is the stigma of a borderline personality disorder diagnosis. My reputation preceded me. I had just almost lost my life at my own hands but every day this doctor would spend just a few minutes with me, not offering any options to help, just asking how long I thought I would be there. I had never ...