For a long time, I genuinely believed I had Borderline Personality Disorder. Not because I resonated deeply with the diagnosis, but because a therapist handed it to me when I was raw, confused, heartbroken, and trying to make sense of emotions that felt too big for my body.
It was right after a complicated relationship that ended painfully, during a vulnerable period in my life.
This man didn’t cause my diagnosis nor was he abusive towards me, but there were layers long before him, from childhood trauma to a prior abusive relationship I had endured, but that breakup definitely stirred something in me that I hadn’t yet healed.
So instead of someone saying that all of my feelings were due to trauma, I was told that it was BPD. I took that label and made it my entire identity because, at the time, it was the only explanation I had for how deeply I felt things. I advocated for it for years.
It was the only way to make sense of the intensity, the anger, the heartbreak, the grief. I thought, Maybe this is just who I am. Maybe I’m wired to fall apart. But the truth, the real truth, came years later, in deeper therapy, in safer and progressive environments, and in moments of spiritual grounding where I could actually hear myself think.
A new therapist and clinical psychologist that I started seeing that specializes in Trauma finally confirmed to me that it wasn’t BPD.It was
Complex PTSD.
Not a personality disorder. Not a character flaw.Not an identity. Just trauma that never got the chance to heal.
And once I understood that, everything finally made sense. There’s a conversation we aren’t having enough especially about women, trauma, and the mental health system.
So many people are walking around believing they have Borderline Personality Disorder, carrying the weight of a lifelong label, when what they actually have is C- PTSD.
And the saddest part? C-PTSD can look so much like BPD from the outside that even trained professionals get it wrong sometimes.
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, betrayal, emotional neglect, or unpredictable relationships, your nervous system had to learn how to survive. You didn’t get to learn calm, you learned alert.
You didn’t get to learn steady, you learned reactive. You didn’t get to learn safe, you learned vigilant.
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 create second trauma too. Can you freaking believe that? For years, I genuinely believed I would never thrive as a wife or a mother.
And yet here I am today: mentally healthy, stable, and thriving. When someone is told they have BPD, the message they often internalize is that they will always be this way, that they’re unstable, and that their reactions prove something is fundamentally wrong with them.
Imagine hearing that at your lowest and internalizing it. You start to put yourself in a BOX when you get fixated on labels.
And women especially women who’ve lived through relational trauma are being diagnosed with BPD at disproportionately high rates.
And it keeps people stuck in shame that never belonged to them.
Women who think and feel deeply, who’ve been betrayed time and tie again and lived through chaos will obviously respond strongly to perceived danger. No doubt about it. But Intensity is not pathology. Intensity is reactionary.
It is evidence of how hard you’ve fought, how much you’ve survived, how deeply your heart works. C-PTSD is not a personality disorder, it’s a reflection of what you endured.
Once your environment becomes stable, your relationships become safer, your body stops bracing for impact and your mind stops searching for threats, you can now begin healing.
I have already started.
For many people like myself, spirituality and faith becomes the anchor. Once I felt connected to the one and true God, I felt held, guided, and safe. I felt like I could breathe again.
When the heart finds grounding, the nervous system learns ease. There’s an ayah in the Quran that brings me so much comfort and that verse is “And in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest.” (Qur’an 13:28).
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 discover that their emotional landscape makes far more sense under C-PTSD, a trauma-driven condition that responds beautifully to safety, therapy, nervous-system work, and spiritual grounding.
Just remember that you were never the disorder. You were the survivor and survivors can heal.
Honestly, Vanessa 