I used to think my biggest weakness was my emotions. In a business world that prizes stoic logic and unflappable grit, I was a live wire—sparking with intense passion one moment and short-circuiting into despair the next. I didn’t know it then, but I was navigating entrepreneurship with undiagnosed Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).
My journey wasn’t a straight line to success. It was a spiral, and it started with what I called “The Breakdown.”
The Breaking Point
It happened after a “small” setback. A key client decided not to renew their contract. To any founder, this is a blow. To me, with my BPD brain, it was an annihilation.
It wasn’t just a lost client. It was proof that I was a fraud. That my partner secretly hated me. That the entire venture was doomed and I was a failure. The world went black and white. The intense shame and fear were physically overwhelming. I spent the next three days in a fog of panic, unable to get out of bed, my mind cycling through a torrent of self-loathing and catastrophic predictions.
That was my rock bottom. It was also the turning point. Lying there, I realized I couldn’t build a business if I was constantly at war with myself. I sought help and was eventually diagnosed with BPD. For the first time, my entire life—the turbulent relationships, the rollercoaster emotions, the persistent feeling of being an alien—made a heartbreaking, terrifying, and ultimately liberating sense.
The Tools for the Climb: From Symptom to Strategy
Therapy, specifically DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy), became my business school. I started to reframe my “symptoms” not as fatal flaws, but as raw, unregulated power that needed to be channeled. My breakdown became the foundation for my breakthrough.
Here’s how I learned to translate my BPD traits from liabilities into assets:
1. The “Idealization/Devaluation” Cycle → Radical Pragmatism
I learned to recognize the “split.” When I felt that surge of fury or disdain towards my business partner over a minor mistake, I paused. I started asking: “What is the fact of the situation? What is my emotion about it?” I created a “24-hour rule” for sending emotionally charged emails. This single habit saved our partnership and taught me that a thought is not a fact.
2. The Fear of Abandonment → Fierce, Structured Loyalty
My terror of being “left” by my partner manifested as neediness and protest behaviors. We tackled this head-on by building unprecedented structure. We implemented weekly check-in meetings where everything was on the table. We defined our roles with excruciating clarity. This structure didn’t cage our creativity; it gave my frantic mind a safe container, allowing trust to grow. My fear of abandonment transformed into a deep, active loyalty to the health of our partnership.
3. Intense Emotional Pain → Profound Empathy
The same nervous system that could send me into a tailspin over a critical email is also wired for profound empathy. I learned to harness this. I can sit with a distressed client or a struggling team member and genuinely feel with them. This isn’t just customer service; it’s a human connection that builds fierce loyalty and has become our company’s secret sauce. My depth of feeling, once a liability, is now our core brand value.
4. Chronic Emptiness → Relentless Curiosity
The void I used to try to fill with frantic work or drama? I now see it as a capacity for learning. When that restless feeling arises, I don’t panic. I redirect it. I take an online course, read a business book, or dive into a new creative project for the company. That “emptiness” has become the engine of our innovation.
The Breakthrough
The breakthrough wasn’t a viral success or a million-dollar funding round. The breakthrough was a Monday morning.
It was receiving a piece of negative feedback and, instead of collapsing, feeling a calm curiosity. It was having a disagreement with my partner and working through it without once questioning the entire foundation of our relationship. It was realizing that the business I had built was not just a company, but a testament to my own healing.
My BPD didn’t disappear. But I am no longer at its mercy. I am its conductor. The passion, the intuition, the loyalty, the creativity—all the superpowers that were once tangled in the chaos—are now my greatest professional assets.
If you’re on a similar path, know this: Your sensitivity is not a weakness. Your depth of feeling is not a flaw. Your journey with BPD has given you a unique lens on the world—one that is desperately needed. The path from breakdown to breakthrough is paved with self-awareness, the right tools, and the radical belief that the very things you’ve been taught to hide are the keys to your unique success.
Your breakdown can be the foundation for your greatest breakthrough. It was for me.