This morning, I was at work thinking about how many years I have spent in treatment with how little success. My friends and family tell me not to look at numbers and catastrophic, but...


We know that BPD is a condition that affects 1.6% of the general population (329,500,000), meaning there are roughly 5,272,000 BPD patients in the US.

We know that 70% or 3,690,400 of BPD patients experience symptoms severe enough to attempt suicide. 

We know that 10% or 527,200 BPD patients eventually die from suicide. 

That means 30% or 1,581,600 normally live without experiencing symptoms severe enough to cause a suicide attempt.

This means 60% or 3,163,200 patients with severe symptoms will live an entire lifespan. 

Research has indicated that 50% or 2,636,000 of all BPD patients will become “cured” of symptoms and live a normal life. Optimistic right?

However, the same research has indicated 40% or about 2,108,800 patients “never manage to participate in society fully.” It is easy to extrapolate that the 40% who “never managed to participate in society fully” would be in the 70% that attempted suicide.

When factoring the 30% of patients who never attempted suicide and are far more likely to experience recovery, that means only 20% or 1,054,400 of severe patients will ascend into the recovered category. 

Ultimately, this means that there are twice as many severe patients who don't recover as those with severe symptoms. 

How are you supposed to improve when therapists/psychiatrists have turned you away for being “too severe,” aka they don't know how to treat people like us? 

How are you supposed to have any social success without professional help or other social resources? 

What chance do we have at success?

I'm serious -  how are we supposed to beat those odds? All of my efforts have just resulted in more people (including me) being burdened or hurt. I am sick of watching my life go nowhere. BPD symptoms have ruined every friendship or relationship I’ve ever had. I don't have a social life or hobbies. I even had to give up on going to University in person due to debilitating anxiety from 15 years of bullying. I have never had more than three months without suicidal ideation either. It still looks like my suicide attempt was the right choice, and surviving it is just burdening everyone.

I'd be happy to go back and link the scientific articles used to get to numbers. However, right now, I'm at work and don't want to, LOL