Research Article

Experiences of Women Diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder: Perception of Motherhood, Social, Health, and Construction of Gender

Table 4

Text fragments of the interviews of the participants.

SubtopicsTextual fragments

Violence and instabilityM01: “And all this comes because I have suffered a lot since I was little, I have had many problems since I was little with… My parents.”
M04: “My mother, when she got up badly, would get angry and hit you. I haven’t received a kiss from my parents or a hug… (pause). It’s been very hard.”
M07: “When I said at the age of 16 that I had a drug problem, my father threw me out of the house. My parents almost separated because of me.”

I was rapedM07: “There is an issue, but it’s not… it’s very hard… it’s really hard (…). I’m just going to tell you that I was raped.”
M01: “My brother abused me… I don’t talk to that one… We were in my father’s office, we had gone to do our homework (long silence). I hardly talk about this.”
M08: “A violation. From a supposed friend of mine. With 12 years. She hit me and everything, and I lied in the complaint because she had threatened me with death. (…) That was when I got worse. They gave me seizures, they had to tie me up, sedate me… I got into drugs… Everything. These are things that I don’t usually share.” (M08)

I would like to get out of the wayM08: “When I was 11 years old, I tried to commit suicide, and… I have already taken 6 or 7 attempts.”
M04: “My brother committed suicide because of the situation of my house, which was not pleasant. And he was brave and committed suicide. And I’ve tried 5 times and I’m still here.”
M06: “The day I think about the pills, he can hide all the pills he wants, that as long as I say I take them, I take them. At my mother’s house I have also tried, but she caught me, because I vomited blood; then she caught me and I had to tell her.”

They diagnosed me PTM03: “I am not very satisfied. I want an explanation of why I have this psychic suffering since I can remember, almost.”
M02: “It’s like they put something there and that’s it, but I’m not interested in knowing what symptoms it has, because I think that when you start to find out what the symptoms are like, and what the disorder is like, it can be good, but also it can be very negative, in the sense that it stigmatizes you.”
M02: “And that the diagnosis, well, that’s it, a label, huh? But it’s not you, you’re not “borderline personality disorder,” you can have borderline personality disorder, but that’s not you.”

I have lost many peopleM04: “Well, they turn away from you. If you already have a mental illness they say “wow, this one has a mental illness”, and they turn away from you. They do not want anyone with mental illness.”
M01: “I have no one here. I have a brother who is working a lot and he cannot accompany me; my sister-in-law, when I have fallen ill, she has put me aside; the family has cast me aside.”
M03: “I have lost people along the way, because when I have directly hurt myself they have disappeared from my life because they did not want to know anything about someone like that.”

I have to continue caringM07: “My children have had a very bad time, very bad, and I feel very guilty. That is there for my whole life.”
M03: “My psychiatrist told me “you have to get discharged,” and I told him “you haven’t seen me for 4 months, how are you going to discharge me?.” And he tells me “yes, because you are missing a lot, you are taking care of your children, and your parents….” And I told him, “you are punishing me for being a mother, you are punishing me for taking care of my parents.”
M04: “Sometimes I also hit my son, I yell at him, and I do things that my parents did to me too.”

Neither crazy enough to be among the crazy, nor sane enough to be among the sameM03: “I have the feeling that professionals sometimes do not take me seriously, because it is true that my pathology, or my attitude, is not as evident as that of other people with mental illnesses. So it does give me the feeling that they have criteria, and they leave me a little apart.”
M03: “When I have to go back, they put a different label on me. If I go with this label, maybe they treat me based on this label and they don’t know how to help me, or they can’t help me.”
M02: “The other time I was in the day hospital…uh…I think I didn’t fit in at all. And this one time I haven’t come to fit in either, I always have the feeling that, once again, I don’t fit in. That I’m not crazy enough to be among the insane, but I’m not sane enough to be among the sane either.”

In the hospital, you lose your autonomyM02: “Fatal, we always finished… something always happened and it ended badly. Because they order you in a way… It appears to be you are stupid. In addition, then the medications, overmedicated. They tied me up…”
M06: “Being treated worse than a dog… I think that’s shameful, too shameful.”
M02: “I had a bad episode, and they took me there involuntarily. And it made me feel like a prisoner, like a prisoner. I understand them perfectly and I appreciate them, the prisoners, because… That’s the worst thing that can happen to you.”