So she began hitting her ankles with the hammer, just enough to hurt. This time she had underestimated the force of the blows. Sara, we will learn, has Borderline Personality Disorder, which afflicts as many as one in ten adult women and a smaller number of men. Imagine floating randomly through space without any sense of up or down and without a map to show you either your origin or your destination. To be borderline means to lack grounding emotionally and to exist from moment to moment without any sense of continuity, predictability, or meaning.
Life is experienced in fragments, more like a series of snapshots than a moving picture.
And feelings are similarly fragmented, varying drastically from moment to moment in quality and intensity. Whatever feeling predominates at the moment seems to last forever without any awareness of ever feeling differently. If you have BPD, it is a guide to better understanding the origins of your suffering. For others, it is an opportunity to walk in the shoes of someone who suffers from this painful and intriguing condition.