Hi Hugo,

I am someone who is was diagnosed with Mood Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified (NOS) when I was fourteen. I was given this label after my first hospitalization. I was went to an ER room because I was having an episode of dissociation. I asked to be put to sleep so that I could “wake up”. When I left the hospital I was too scared to face any “help” and created a mindset of denial and “next year will be different!”- which I still have to this day.

Mood Disorder, NOS basically means “we don’t know enough about what is happening to give this person a label right now”. I’ve also heard it’s given to younger people because the physician doesn’t want to stigmatize and burden an adolescent who may be going through a phase.

Anyway, I am twenty five and have been hospitalized three times since then. I still cannot face that I have a problem that requires proactive action. This truth is, I have Borderline Personality Disorder. Why would I want to accept that? People on internet forums and the media say people who have this are dangerous, manipulative, shallow, unlovable.

When I look in the mirror, I don’t see this. I see someone who is kind, reasonable, funny, loving, caring. I like animals, want people and animals to be free and happy, I listen to other view points, am courteous to strangers, considerate to living mates, I don’t believe my emotions toward people are “shallow”. Why would I want to associate with a diagnosis that defense lawyers try to give jilted lovers who blow their spouse away and young “party moms” who kill their kids.

I recently had a social worker who, when he found out I was borderline, began treating me completely different. I spoke to me like a child and invalidated all of my interests (studying a foreign language, for example) as me trying to find an identity. When he found another job he sat down with and said “I’m sorry, I’m leaving…I know this is hard for you.”- I had the most superficial and professional connection to this person but because I was borderline he thought I had formed some unstable, insta-attachment.

Although this is kind of funny, it’s also sad. These are the people who are assigned to help you. These are the mental health professionals. These are the people you’rey ou’re girlfriend is encouraged to pursue. “Getting help” is no guarantee she’ll be help. This is especially true if she lives outside a major city. Small communities do not have highly trained psychotherapist specializing in certain areas. In one resource isn’t working for you, there aren’t anymore you can try.

When I lived in Toronto I found someone who specialized in what I have experienced. When I found this psychotherapy, I was moving back home in a few months because of financial reasons I never got to work this person for any reasonable amount of time.

Like everyone, I have problems. But these problems are complicated by the fact that I experience distortion of the psyche, particularily in close, intense relationships. And I am alone with this problems.

For this reason, I hope that you sit down and think one last time before you make a final desision of cutting ties completely. Only you can know if you should leave. But I can tell you what your ex is facing might be monolithically hard to confront. I know that it is frustrating when people will not admit to and/or own up to a problem. No one has the patience of a saint. But I hope that I gave you someone insight into reasons why she is resistant so you can be more understanding of her, even as just a friend to her. Validate her hesitance. it’s fear that’s not entirely unjustified.

<3.