Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) Awareness

 

Australian clinical and not-for-profit and BPD organisations continue to work hard to raise awareness of the need for access to evidence-based treatment, expanding early diagnosis, and family education to promote resiliency and positive recovery for BPD. There is still much to be done in ensuring greater recognition of this complex mental health disorder, and appropriate investment to ensure people experiencing BPD can access treatment and services when they are needed.

While BPD can be debilitating, it is a treatable condition and has a good long-term prognosis with good rates of recovery. People living with BPD and their families need the right tools and level of support to be able to achieve that recovery.

 

Frank Quinlan, CEO Mental Health Australia

Thank you to our sponsors for recognising the importance of spreading the word during National BPD Awareness Week (1 – 7 October 2018) by providing the financial support to make our PR campaign possible.

Mind Museum

Art is a powerful way to convey messages. We would love you to help us promote the 2017 BPD Awareness theme “From Stigma to Strength” by posting positive images that you associate with this theme. The image can be art work in any form. Just upload your image onto Instagram tagged with #bpdawarenessaustralia

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What is BPD

Borderline Personality Disorder is a complex and serious mental illness.  With a range of evidence-based treatments, it now has good rates of recovery.

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Perspectives

People with the disorder, carers, and clinicians share their journeys and their messages of hope for recovery, in a personal video. Twelve beautiful videos are available for viewing.

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A New National Road Map for Australia

Written by one of Australia’s pre-eminent BPD Clinicians, this important paper outlines the current Australian BPD status, achievements and challenges moving forward.  We invite comment from our Australian BPD community.

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Spread the word - Take Action!

Please take one minute to send this ready made email to your Health Minister and Mental Health Commissioner. Together our voices can make a huge difference.

Simply click on a link here for your email and your contact.

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Mind Museum
“BPD can turn my life upside down at times. It doesn’t define who I am, but it helps explain it.”
More than a quarter of a million Australians are known to suffer from BPD.
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What is BPD
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Life’s a rollercoaster for everyone. For those with BPD, it’s a rocket to the moon.
What is Borderline Personality Disorder?

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a serious mental illness marked by unstable moods, behavior, and relationships.

Because some people with severe BPD have brief psychotic episodes, experts originally thought of this illness as atypical, or borderline, versions of other mental disorders. While mental health experts now generally agree that the name “borderline personality disorder” is misleading, a more accurate term does not exist yet.

‘When you understand, you cannot help but love. You cannot get angry. To develop understanding, you have to practice looking … with the eyes of compassion. When you understand, you love. And when you love, you naturally act in a way that can relieve the suffering of people.”  Thich Nhat Hanh

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Perspectives

Borderline Personality Disorder: Advocacy Brief

An Advocacy brief from the National Mental Health Consumer and Carer Forum. Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a recognised mental illness, recovery is possible, and treatment should never be denied, withheld or restricted. Click here to download    
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From stigma to strength… through art and lived experience

Weekly update by Frank Quinlan the CEO of Mental Health Australia

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Inside the Mind of a Specialist in BPD

Associate Prof Sathya Rao is interviewed by Psych Scene Hub and gives an insight into why he is a passionate advocate for BPD and professionally finds it rewarding to work with people experiencing BPD

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Implementing the Project Air Model

Implementing the Project Air Model. An informative video by Project Air: A Personality Disorders Strategy
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National Road Map
Senate Motion for BPD Awareness Week
Downloadable PDF
Towards developing a National Strategy for Borderline Personality disorder- a dollar a citizen per year will get us started in the right direction
Downloadable PDF
“There is no BPD stereotype. There are 256 different, possible presentations of BPD.”
With effective treatment people with BPD can make great progress and recover. Important gains and improvements can be made in one year with appropriate treatment.
Personal Blogs

James

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James, 21* Long before I was diagnosed with BPD I always had a lot of self-loathing and anxiety about not fitting in, partly due to my confusion at the time about my sexuality. Besides that, when I was 13 I was first diagnosed with depression and panic disorder and put on anti-depressants. Then, when I was 17, when the HSC [Higher School Certificate] started to get serious, I was diagnosed with OCD and medicated for that at quite a high dose. High school was really hard. I felt I had to make an impression on everybody. With my teachers I wanted to be more than just another student. I’ve al…
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Carer’s Corner – Lena

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Carer’s Corner – Lena* (Alexis’* mum) Support groups and self-care have helped Lena cope with her daughter, Alexis’, BPD. My daughter, Alexis [37], has BPD – but there was no sign of it when she was young. She was very intelligent, talented and did well at school. Then in her teens she started to become anxious and badly behaved – at least that’s what my husband and I thought then. She ended up with boyfriends who were bad for her, smoking cannabis, dropping out of school and drinking a lot. She was very much lashing out at us at the time. There was nothing we could do that was right. E…
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Patrick's story

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Patrick, 33, has taken back control of his life   I was diagnosed with depression in 2003 and then, in 2007, with BPD. It took a really bad relationship break-up, and being hospitalised in psych wards, for that diagnosis to come around. In a way it was a relief to find out that this is what I had, and how to manage it. And it helped explain a lot of my behaviour in relationships and with friends, which to this day I feel bad about and really regret. I had a lot of trouble with boundaries; saying things I shouldn’t have said, doing things I shouldn’t have done, getting ‘up close and…
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Bridget: A carer perspective

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My daughter, Emily* (18) — who I’ve been on my own with since she was six weeks old — started displaying symptoms of BPD when she was about 13 or 14. Over the course of many years, until we finally got a diagnosis, she got progressively worse. She is not at all aggressive but she is a significant self-harmer and has suicidal ideation. She’s had numerous admissions. I am a registered nurse and I work with adolescents in a school. As such I had high expectations of myself as a carer but there have been times through the years that I’ve been unable to cope. I would say I was close to a nervou…
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