SO, I have BPD and want to talk about the Neil Gaiman thing. I'm seeing a lot of disconcerting stuff on the TL about why it's funny or okay and why it's not okay and some real wild views about BPD and y'all...it's more nuanced than some of you are acting.

First of all, I looked in to that book and it sounds like its actually a really shitty resource written by someone who isn't a professional and also doesn't have a personality disorder but clearly hates people with them. This book is bad but I've seen the take that-

books of that nature shouldn't exist and if you think that...you're wrong. Books or other resources offering support to those suffering as a result of someone in their life having a personality disorder are immensely valuable both to the person reading them so they can heal from-

the trauma but also to those of us dealing with personality disorders because books responsibly written can help the people in our lives better understand us. We do shitty, weird stuff sometimes and if everyone around us is better informed we're all going to be able to move-

forward better and healthier.
As far as the Goodreads post itself: It's a little bit funny and that's okay. Let me explain before you crucify me. We don't know for sure whether or not Neil posted that intentionally. Could have totally been linked to something else. Probably not

but totally could have been. Let's assume that it was intentional because it probably was and it's meltdown May so why not? It's not an okay thing to do. Period. It's not cool to out someone's mental illness (though I don't know if she's open about it or not tbh)

and it's definitely not okay to be like "ohhh look at how crazy and bad my ex is. She has a PERSONALITY DISORDER and it's so SCARY." It's actually really horrible and it sucks immensely to be constantly demonized for something that actively lowers your quality of life ALREADY.

It also sucks that people don't understand what your illness entails and they make all kinds of assumptions. If he made that post on purpose it was a decidedly damaging thing to do, however, human beings are messy and not all bad or all good and we do damaging and cruel things

to each other. It's not necessarily okay but we literally all do it. I think we're also all fascinated when we see people do messy and dramatic shit. We LIVE for it. Keeping Up With the Kardashians has been on for how many years? It's stayed relevant because we love watching

drama unfold that doesn't actually directly affect us. It's normal. So yeah, Neil doing that is a little funny because it's so fucking messy. If you laughed or retweeted it you're not a bad person or a bad ally or advocate to the mental health community.

You're just a person, who isn't all bad or all good, who laughed at another casualty of Meltdown May. Think about why you laughed and what you think of mentally ill folks, sure, but don't beat yourself up. I laughed too.

Understand that having a personality disorder is a complicated thing and even those of us that have them have complicated feelings about them. I constantly struggle between "Don't demonize me, I'm trying" and being hurt by people being a little gunshy with me because they

have bad past experiences but also I have to be empathetic and patient there because guess what? When you have BPD you can be really toxic if you're not working on yourself. It's an explanation for many things but not an excuse. Someone with any personality disorder

should be ready to acknowledge and correct harmful behaviors as well as make amends. If you're sitting around being an asshole and blaming your disorder and never working to change and then turning around and also getting pissed because people say you're toxic for the behaviors

associated with you disorder maybe do some self reflection. I don't want to be demonized or written off because of a diagnosis and you KNOW I don't want to be abandoned over it (it's okay to laugh) but I also know I have to work a little bit harder to make sure

that I am a healthy and positive person in the lives of others and don't let my own insecurities and negative patterns have a bad effect on them. That's not a bad thing, it's growth and it's recovery. Checking yourself and getting therapy to be a better person isn't a bad thing.

Just remember that things aren't always so heavy and sometimes you have to look at a joke for what it really is and not the horrible cruel thing you assume it is.