3 Ways to Educate People About Borderline Personality Disorder

I am an avid video game player. Recently I discovered Half the Sky Movement: The Game. Based on the book, it educates the player about poverty issues around the world. It's not all sweetness and light--one character is sold into prostitution at age 11, another character has an abusive husband--but it educates the player and offers solutions in the form of charitable gifts. It made me think about offbeat ways people with borderline personality disorder (BPD) can educate others about the disease.

Borderline Personality Disorder: The Facebook game?

When mental illness is featured in a video game, it's usually the villain who has it. Or it's a setting such as the classic "haunted asylum" (levels I tend to love, no idea why). But what if we made a video game that explores the ups and downs of living with mental illness?

It wouldn't be the first game along those lines. One indie game, Depression Quest, places you in the role of a person with depression. You must make choices regarding your treatment, such as whether to tell your mother you're depressed or whether to keep taking your medications in spite of feeling better. Along the way you learn facts about depression, and you'll see how, based on your choices, some options aren't an option. My favorite: you can't just snap out of it.

A game featuring a person with BPD could have, instead of a life bar, an emotions bar. Choices you make, such as whether to listen to the people who suggest you go off your medication, could affect the emotions bar. If it gets too high, you have a crisis. Additionally, you could have the option of making bad choices, and watch the consequences. Think "Choose Your Own Adventure" meets National Public Radio.

Borderline Personality Disorder: Lights! Camera! Action!

BPD is not often favorably portrayed in movies. Fatal Attraction is just one example. But some movies do a good job portraying the disorder. Girl, Interrupted features a character who is hospitalized for BPD and eventually recovers.

A movie about BPD could portray a fictional character who has the disorder. Examples include Anakin Skywalker and Tinkerbell, but my favorite is Mother Gothel, perhaps Disney's most loveable villain (Disney and the DSM-IV: Could New Villain Have BPD). As I wrote in that piece:

According to HealthyPlace, the criteria are:

1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or perceived abandonment (not including self-harm or suicidal behavior)
2. A pattern of intense, unstable relationships alternating between idealization and devaluation
3. Persistently unstable self-image
4. Impulsivity in two self-damaging areas (drinking heavily, spending too much money, driving too fast, etc.)
5. Recurring suicidal behavior or threats
6. Unstable mood
7. Chronic emptiness
8. Inappropriate, intense anger
9. Stress-related paranoia or dissociation

I believe Gothel would meet criteria 1, 2, 3, 6 and 8 were she a real human.

We can use movies to educate others about mental illness, especially the stigma behind it.

Borderline Personality Disorder: The Musical?

I like to write songs, especially songs about dealing with BPD. Music, which often deals with emotions, can be a powerful way of educating people about BPD (3 Songs That Aren't About BPD--But Could Be).

As I wrote about the Meredith Brooks song Bitch,

This song sums up BPD in a nutshell with the lyrics “I’m your hell,/I’m your dream/I’m nothing in between”. One of the symptoms of BPD is black-or-white thinking, which is best summed up as “I’m not good so I must be bad”, rather than the healthy “I have good and bad qualities.”

Another line is “So take me as I am/ This may mean/ You’ll have to be a stronger man/ Rest assured that/ When I start to make you nervous/ And I’m going to extremes/ Tomorrow I will change/ And today won’t mean a thing.” Translation: “Please accept me even at a great personal cost, and please understand my volatile mood swings.” Two more symptoms of BPD are uncertain identity and rapid cycling idealization and devaluation. In other words, a person with BPD might change between today and tomorrow, and might hold you in high regard one day and despise you the next. It does indeed take a strong–or understanding–person to put up with this.

Music can be a powerful educator.

What are some other ways to educate people about mental illness?

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