For a long time, I truly believed I had Borderline Personality Disorder.
Not because it deeply resonated with me, but because a therapist gave me that label when I was raw, heartbroken, confused, and just trying to understand why my emotions felt so big and overwhelming in my body.
It was right after a complicated relationship ended. A really painful one during a very vulnerable period of my life.
About a year after leaving an abusive relationship, I entered a stressful and confusing emotional situation that made me feel on edge again and triggered deep trust issues.
I told my therapist at the time that I felt angry, overwhelmed, and deeply hurt. Instead of someone saying, “Instead of recognizing it as a trauma response, I left that session with a BPD diagnosis.
I understand now how my anger and intensity could’ve looked like a personality issue on the surface, but what it really was was a nervous system shaped by trauma.
And I honestly wish more mental health professionals were trained to recognize that, especially since trauma informed care is still a newer focus in medicine.
So I took that diagnosis and made it my whole identity. Because at the time, it was the only explanation I had.
It helped me make sense of the intensity. The anger. The grief. The heartbreak.
I remember thinking, Maybe this is just who I am. Maybe I’m wired to fall apart.
And I carried that belief for years.
It wasn’t until later, in deeper therapy, that the truth finally came out.
A new therapist and a clinical psychologist who specialize in trauma looked at my history and told me straight up that:
This isn’t BPD.
This is Complex PTSD.
With BPD, there is a long-term pattern of intense emotions and relationship struggles that’s seen as part of someone’s personality so this is how someone has always been emotionally.
C-PTSD is the result of long-term trauma, where your body and nervous system are still reacting to past harm.
Same kinds of symptoms sometimes, but very different roots. So I wanted to explain the difference so you can better understand.
I was not dealing with a personality disorder or a flaw. Just trauma that never had the chance to heal.
And suddenly everything made sense.
There’s a conversation we are NOT having enough about women, trauma, and the mental health system.
So many people are walking around believing they have Borderline Personality Disorder when what they actually have is C-PTSD.
And the sad part?
From the outside, they can look incredibly similar. Even professionals get it wrong.
People have to understand that so many of these mental health labels are baskets, big, vague containers that catch symptoms which overlap with dozens of other conditions.
If you grew up with instability, emotional neglect, betrayal, or unpredictable relationships, your nervous system had to adapt.
You didn’t learn calm. You learned to stay alert.
You didn’t learn safe. You learned to remain vigilant.
You didn’t learn steady. You learned to become reactive.
It’s so freaking exhausting, but that’s survival.
But because the mental health world still focuses heavily on symptoms instead of context, deep trauma responses often get mislabeled as pathology.
BPD is considered a pattern of emotional instability across all areas of life.
C-PTSD is a pattern of emotional injury caused by relational trauma. One is framed as who you are. The other is what happened to you.
And that difference matters.
Getting the wrong diagnosis can actually become another trauma.
For years I genuinely believed I would never thrive as a wife or a mother.
That I was too unstable. Too emotional. Too broken.
And yet here I am, mentally healthy, grounded, married, running a household, and raising children.
Imagine hearing that you have BPD at your lowest and internalizing it. You start to put yourself in a BOX when you get fixated on labels and think this is permanent or better yet, not curable.
And women, especially women who’ve lived through relational trauma, are diagnosed with BPD at incredibly high rates.
And it keeps them stuck in shame that never belonged to them.
Women who think and feel deeply, who’ve been betrayed time and time again and lived through chaos will obviously respond strongly to perceived danger.
No doubt about it. But Intensity is not pathology. Intensity is reactionary.
And once life becomes safer, relationships become healthier, and your nervous system finally gets to exhale, healing can begin.
I’m living proof of that.
For me, spirituality and faith became my anchor. When I found grounding in Islam, I finally felt safe in my body.
There’s a ayah in the Qur’an that brings me so much comfort: “Verily, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest.” (13:28) And I felt that rest for the first time in my life.
Safety rewires what trauma once conditioned. If you’ve ever been diagnosed with BPD and ever felt heavy, shameful, or not-quite-right… trust that feeling.
Many women later realize their emotions make far more sense when seen as trauma, not a personality disorder.
And trauma can heal with safety, support, and grounding. You were never broken. You were surviving.
And survivors can heal.
Honestly, Vanessa 