BPDFamily.com

I was first diagnosed with BPD about 35 years. Terrifying given the long-term prognosis at the time. I've had years and years and years of therapy, survived the long drawn death of my husband of 28 years and the subsequent depression I had after he died.

Now, ten years later I am in a wonderful, happy, healthy relationship with a new man I met online. He and I are having a long-distance relationship because he lives about 70 miles from me. I have not shared my psychiatric history with him. This is because I asked my psychiatrist about 8 months ago, 'If you had to give me a diagnosis today, would you still say that I am Borderline?" He said, 'No, you suffer from bouts of depression but I would say you are neurotic, not Borderline anymore."

My reaction was, "Yippeeee!" because I don't feel like I have any of those Borderline traits.

So, my question is: should I disclose my history to my new gentleman caller. We've been seeing each other for about six months. I keep hoping he will google me and find my website: dvorahelias.com and I've given him lots of hints thinking that he would see the site and then ask me questions about it. So far, he has not done so.

Any ideas on how to proceed with this?

Welcome to the site.

Personally, I would share it with him. It's not something to be ashamed of. I've read a lot of posts here written by people who knew going into a relationship that their partner had BPD. It obviously doesn't scare everyone off, and if it did, you probably don't want him anyway!

It sounds like you've done a lot of work on YOU, which is great.

Thank you for your feedback. I agree and I have been trying to find the right time to have this conversation. I don't think it will scare him off because my way of doing things is very different these days and that has been his experience of me. I have a lot of anxiety issues though and I want to talk to him about those. So, perhaps I will try to have this conversation with him this weekend when he comes to see me. Thanks again so much!