BPD Diaries: Stories and Science with Steff

What do people with borderline personality disorder wish everyone else understood? I asked around, and here are the answers I got.In this short episode, we see that BPD is more than its symptoms. Behind the reactions are human beings trying to make sense of their experiences, build meaningful relationships, and find their way forward.Whether you live with BPD, love someone who does, or simply want to understand it better, this episode is for you. 🌱 Have questions, stories, or something you’d like us to cover? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at [email protected] and let’s keep the conversation going.If you’d like more support in your journey toward BPD recovery, Steff offers 1:1 sessions using evidence-based tools from DBT, Schema Therapy, and Mindfulness to help you heal. Email for a free 30-Minute Consultation: 📩 [email protected] or check out the website: www.bpdsupport.org

Is Medication the Best Solution for BPD? In this episode, I sit down with Professor Joanna Moncrieff, Professor of Critical and Social Psychiatry at University College London and practising consultant psychiatrist, for a conversation that challenges some of the assumptions about mental health, psychiatric diagnosis and medication.Joanna's work has challenged the idea that psychiatric drugs work by correcting an underlying “chemical imbalance” in the brain. So what does that mean for people with BPD?Content note: This episode discusses psychiatric medication, depression, suicide, trauma and mental health diagnoses.⚠️ This episode is for education and discussion, not medical advice. Please don't stop or change any medication without talking to your prescriber. Some medications can cause withdrawal effects if stopped suddenly.🌱 Have questions, stories, or something you’d like us to cover? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at [email protected] and let’s keep the conversation going.If you’d like more support in your journey toward BPD recovery, Steff offers 1:1 sessions using evidence-based tools from DBT, Schema Therapy, and Mindfulness to help you heal. Email for a free 30-Minute Consultation: 📩 [email protected] or check out the website: www.bpdsupport.org ReferencesMoncrieff, J. (2025). Chemically imbalanced: The making and unmaking of the serotonin myth. The History Press.Moncrieff, J., Cooper, R. E., Stockmann, T., Amendola, S., Hengartner, M. P., & Horowitz, M. A. (2023). The serotonin theory of depression: A systematic umbrella review of the evidence. Molecular Psychiatry, 28(8), 3243–3256. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-022-01661-0Moncrieff, J., Cooper, R. E., Stockmann, T., Amendola, S., Hengartner, M. P., & Horowitz, M. A. (2024). Difficult lives explain depression better than broken brains. Molecular Psychiatry, 29(1), 206–209. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-024-02462-3Stoffers-Winterling, J. M., Storebø, O. J., Pereira Ribeiro, J., Kongerslev, M. T., Völlm, B. A., Mattivi, J. T., Faltinsen, E., Todorovac, A., Jørgensen, M. S., Callesen, H. E., Sales, C. P., Schaug, J. P., Simonsen, E., & Lieb, K. (2022). Pharmacological interventions for people with borderline personality disorder. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2022(11), Article CD012956. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD012956.pub2Streit, F., Awasthi, S., Hall, A. S. M., Braun, A., Niarchou, M., Marouli, E., Babajide, O., Frank, J., Zillich, L., Callies, C. M., Avetyan, D., Zillich, E., Naamanka, J., Gonzalez, J., Harder, A., Lu, Y., Aherrahrou, Z., Ahmad, Z.-U.-A., Ask, H., ... Witt, S. H. (2026). Genome-wide association analyses of borderline personality disorder identify 11 loci and highlight shared risk with mental and somatic disorders. Nature Genetics, 58(8), 1831–1844. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-026-02654-3

I Was Hospitalised Again and Again. Then I Discovered DBTWhat does recovery from BPD actually look like?In this deeply honest conversation, Debbie DeMarco Bennett, better known as Debbie Corso, author of Stronger Than BPD and founder of DBT Path, takes us back to the years when her life was dominated by intense emotions, chaotic relationships, suicidal thoughts and repeated psychiatric hospitalizations.Debbie talks openly about being misunderstood and misdiagnosed, the stigma surrounding BPD, her eventual diagnosis, and the moment DBT began to change the course of her life.Debbie also talks about her concerns about the potential risks of the growing reliance on AI for emotional support and why she wants to be part of shaping how we use it safely.This is a conversation about BPD, DBT, recovery, hope, lived experience, stigma, relationships, AI and what it means to build a life worth living.Resources & LinksDBT PathThe DBT program offers a 9-month DBT skills class and is designed to make DBT accessible to people worldwide .Website with Blog: https://emotionallysensitive.com/Debbie's books (written under her pen name, Debbie Corso):Stronger Than BPD: The Girl's Guide to Taking Control of Intense Emotions, Drama, and Chaos Using DBTThe Stronger Than BPD Journal: DBT Activities to Help You Manage Emotions, Heal from Borderline Personality Disorder, and Discover the Wise Woman Within (co-written with Kathryn C. Holt, LCSWOther Books Mentioned:Self-Compassion Workbook for BPD: Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills to Find Self-Forgiveness, Healing, and Self-Love with Borderline Personality Disorder by Amanda SmithThe Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity by Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, MD🌱 Have questions, stories, or something you’d like us to cover? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at [email protected] and let’s keep the conversation going.If you’d like more support in your journey toward BPD recovery, Steff offers 1:1 sessions using evidence-based tools from DBT, Schema Therapy, and Mindfulness to help you heal. Email for a free 30-Minute Consultation: 📩 [email protected] or check out the website: www.bpdsupport.org

Why can spending money feel like emotional relief when you have BPD?You feel empty, lonely, rejected, angry or overwhelmed. Then you see something you want. And that little voice says, "Buy it!"In this episode, I explore the complicated relationship between BPD, impulsive spending, emotional regulation and shame.I look at why spending can become a way of escaping emotional pain, filling chronic emptiness, extending a good mood or even trying to buy a different version of yourself.This episode is about understanding why the spending happens and what we can actually do about it.🌱 Have questions, stories, or something you’d like us to cover? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at [email protected] and let’s keep the conversation going.🎧 Looking for meditations made for emotional regulation, BPD, and more? Check out  Empowered Heroes Meditations  on ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify.If you’d like more support in your journey toward BPD recovery, Steff offers 1:1 sessions using evidence-based tools from DBT, Schema Therapy, and Mindfulness to help you heal. Email for a free 30-Minute Consultation: 📩 [email protected] or check out the website: www.bpdsupport.org Free financial support resources:UK: StepChange Debt Charity - https://www.stepchange.org | National Debtline - nationaldebtline.orgIreland: MABS (Money Advice and Budgeting Service) - mabs.ieAustralia: National Debt Helpline - ndh.org.au | 1800 007 007US: National Foundation for Credit Counseling - nfcc.org | CFPB- consumerfinance.gov📚 Referenced Research Includes:American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed., text rev.). https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425787Carpenter, R. W., & Trull, T. J. (2013). Components of emotion dysregulation in borderline personality disorder: A review. Current psychiatry reports, 15(1), 335. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-012-0335-2Glenn, C. R., & Klonsky, E. D. (2009). Emotion dysregulation as a core feature of borderline personality disorder. Journal of personality disorders, 23(1), 20-28. https://doi.org/10.1521/pedi.2009.23.1.20 Kujovic, M., Bahr, C., Riesbeck, M., Benz, D., Deiß, M., Margittai, Z., ... & Meisenzahl, E. (2025). Effects on impulsivity and delay discounting of intermittent theta burst stimulation add-on to dialectical behavioral therapy in borderline personality disorder: a randomized, sham-controlled pilot trial. Borderline Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulation, 12(1), 2. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40479-025-00278-3 Lieberman, M., Eisenberger, N. I., & Crockett, M. J. (2007). Putting feelings into words: affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity in response to affective stimuli. PsycholSci18 (5): 421–428. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01916.x Ott, C. A., Voce, A., Grinband, J., Lopez-Castro, T., Fertuck, E. A., Stanley, D. A., & Lempert, K. M. (2025). The borderline personality disorder feature of identity instability predicts temporal discounting in a community sample: An exploratory study. Personality Science, 6, 27000710251374485. https://doi.org/10.1177/27000710251374485 Sansone, R. A., & Wiederman, M. W. (2012). Spending too much: Relationships with borderline personality symptomatology. International journal of psychiatry in clinical practice, 16(4), 316-318. https://doi.org/10.3109/13651501.2012.693186 Starcevic, V., & Khazaal, Y. (2017). Relationships between behavioural addictions and psychiatric disorders: What is known and what is yet to be learned?. Frontiers in psychiatry, 8, 53. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2017.00053Zac, A., Huang, Y. C., Von Moltke, A., Decker, C., & Ezrachi, A. (2025). Dark patterns and consumer vulnerability. Behavioural Public Policy, 1-50. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/bpp.2024.49

What if the label everyone's afraid to give a teenager is the one thing that could save their future?Professor Joost Hutsebaut has spent a career working with young people on the edge of a diagnosis most clinicians won't touch: borderline personality disorder (BPD). In this episode, Joost explains why he wrote a paper called The Diagnosis That Should Speak Its Name, arguing it's ethically right to diagnose personality disorders in teens. We dig into where a "difficult personality" ends and a disorder begins, the real risks of stigma versus the risks of staying silent, and how his own philosophy - "make therapy simple again" - reshaped the way he practices. He also honestly answers some of the internet's most asked questions. Whether you're a clinician, a parent, or someone who's ever been told to "wait and see," this conversation reframes early diagnosis as an act of hope, not a life sentence.🌱 Have questions, stories, or something you’d like us to cover? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at [email protected] and let’s keep the conversation going.🎧 Looking for meditations made for emotional regulation, BPD, and more? Check out  Empowered Heroes Meditations  on ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify.If you’d like more support in your journey toward BPD recovery, Steff offers 1:1 sessions using evidence-based tools from DBT, Schema Therapy, and Mindfulness to help you heal. Email for a free 30-Minute Consultation: 📩 [email protected] or check out the website: www.bpdsupport.org📚 Referenced Research Includes:Bomhof, C., Löffler, J. P., Brugman, S., Lodder, P., van den End, A., van Dijk, M. K., ... & Hutsebaut, J. (2025). The effectiveness of generalist (GIT-PD) versus specialist treatment (MBT/ST) for severe personality disorders (Personality Disorders Access to Effective Treatment, P-DAET): study protocol of a pragmatic randomised controlled non-inferiority multicentre trial. BMC psychiatry, 25(1), 1107. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-025-07550-4Clarke, S. L., Soons, N., Videler, A. C., van Alphen, S. P., Van, H., Dil, L., ... & Hutsebaut, J. (2025). The progress in the field of clinical staging for mental disorders within the last decade: an updated systematic review. Frontiers in psychiatry, 15, 1473051.https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1473051Hutsebaut, J. (2020). Make therapy simple again. Tijdschrift voor Psychotherapie, 46(2), 96-106.Hutsebaut, J., Clarke, S. L., & Chanen, A. M. (2023). The diagnosis that should speak its name: why it is ethically right to diagnose and treat personality disorder during adolescence. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 14, 1130417. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1130417Hutsebaut, J., Willemsen, E., Bachrach, N., & Van, R. (2020). Improving access to and effectiveness of mental health care for personality disorders: the guideline-informed treatment for personality disorders (GIT-PD) initiative in the Netherlands. Borderline Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulation, 7(1), 16. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40479-020-00133-7Remeeus, M. G., Clarke, S. L., Feenstra, D. J., Van Eeren, H., Smits, M. L., Debruyne, S., ... & Hutsebaut, J. (2024). The (cost-) effectiveness of early intervention (MBT-early) versus standard protocolized treatment (CBT) for emerging borderline personality disorder in adolescents (the EARLY study): a study protocol for a randomized controlled trial. Trials, 25(1), 261.https://doi.org/10.1186/s13063-024-08095-9Renneberg, B., Hutsebaut, J., Berens, A., De Panfilis, C., Bertsch, K., Kaera, A., ... & 30 experts with lived experience–clients, relatives, significant others-from 10 European countries. (2024). Towards an informed research agenda for the field of personality disorders by experts with lived and living experience and researchers. Borderline personality disorder and emotion dysregulation, 11(1), 14. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40479-024-00257-0