YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

This episode was just okay for me. Lynn Fox is obviously a high -functioning borderline and probably low on the spectrum. I don't feel that she talked enough about the effect it had on her children and husband, and the characteristics of her husband, ie someone who would partner with a borderline. Also her self-deprecation was very uncharacteristic of my experience with a borderline/narcissistic pd mother (and aunts). However, I will admit it was probably good for me to hear someone who is diagnosed as borderline (besides Marcia Linehan) working towards something better.

My own experience as the scapegoated/black sheep daughter of a borderline mother who could not hold a job, but instead married men 3x! (all Narc. Personality Disordered - but with very different styles of presentation), was horribly traumatic (9 of 10 on the Adverse Childhood Experience chart, yay me!) but I am recovering (at 47). My family is riddled with people on the personality disordered spectrum, no branch hangs devoid of one possibly disordered partner. If we don't create them we marry them in my family. FWIW we are an upper middle class family full of doctors, and psychiatrists (and alcoholics).

Anyway, I'd love to be a guest on Paul's show to talk about my experience growing up with a histrionic/borderline/npd mother and family. I don't think this episode really did justice to the horrors of borderline personality disorder, but I do applaud Lynn Fox for the tremendous strides she has made. My jaw was literally dropping when she joked about herself.