About me

Hi, I’m Katie, and this bit is really hard to write! Like many of you, I was labelled an attention seeker from childhood, so that’s what’s swirling round my head right now, but you’re going to want to know I’m a person and not AI, so I’m cracking on.

I’m a bit of a geek, a massive bookworm and love yoga but don’t do it enough. I have one primary-school aged son, he’s genuinely the best human I’ve ever met and I’m doing everything I can to make his childhood very different to mine.

Looking back, my mental health problems started to show from the age of 10, but I wasn’t diagnosed with anything until age 16 (depression) and was 19 before I had any contact with formal mental health services. My 20s were rough as hell, 30s weren’t too bad, 40s quickly went downhill, which led to my diagnosis with Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder as it’s called here in the UK, because who doesn’t like describing themselves as emotionally unstable?! So I stick to BPD.

Diagnosed at 43, I wanted to find my tribe; others diagnosed with or generally dealing with BPD later in adulthood. I’ve found individuals, but not a community, so I’ve decided to go ahead and make one. Two things have hit me in my search for information; there’s not much about being diagnosed in later adulthood, nor about the particular challenges we face as older adults. My posts will be sparked by my own experiences, but I will include research and resources (if they exist!) because we’re all trying to understand ourselves better; I’m guessing that’s how you ended up here. Thank you for reading, and joining me here.