Newly Diagnosed With BPD? Listen Before You Google

She read him the criteria, told him to look it up, and sent him home. What Peter found online about borderline personality disorder nearly undid him. Peter Googled it that night and found a week of relief, then a month of self-loathing. He is a member of the BPD Alliance Lived Experience Committee, a husband, and the father of two teenage boys, diagnosed three years ago at 37 after what he calls a million therapists and a half. In this episode he tells host Diane DeMartino, LCSW, about the therapist who diagnosed him in one session and then ended the treatment, the years of therapy that treated his sleep and his job stress and never named what was underneath, the intensive outpatient program he mistook for DBT, and how he went from searching Reddit for people like him to sitting on a committee of them. **Try This Today:** If you just got the diagnosis and are about to search it, borrow Peter's rule: you are not what you Google. Then make one call a search engine cannot. Ask a therapist whether they treat borderline personality disorder, and if the answer is no, ask who does. **Chapters** (00:00) A Million Therapists (01:18) Go Google It (03:40) Trying It Alone (07:27) The Wrong Path (10:31) Finding His People (13:57) Words of Hope Peter found his way back through the annual Yale-BPD Alliance Annual Conference \[https://bpdalliance.org/yale-neabpd-conference/] panels and the Lived Experience Committee he now sits on. If you have BPD and want to join him, the committee takes applications through the volunteer page: \[https://bpdalliance.org/volunteer/]. For vetted books, videos, and programs, start with the BPD Alliance resource directory: \[https://bpdalliance.org/bpd-resources/]. If you are the parent, partner, or friend of someone with BPD, Family Connections is a free class for families: \[https://bpdalliance.org/family-connections/].  If you are looking for treatment, an IOP is an Intensive Outpatient Program and is not the same thing as DBT, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, an evidence-based therapy effective for treating Borderline Personality Disorder . Ask any program you call which one it offers. The statistics in this episode come from these studies: Broadbear, J. H., et al. (2025). Exploring the pathways to diagnosis for men with borderline personality disorder: A qualitative study. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing. https://doi.org/10.1111/inm.13413 Broadbear, J. H., et al. (2026). Time to diagnosis and treatment for borderline personality disorder: Opportunities and pitfalls during the consumer mental health journey. Journal of Psychiatric Research. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2026.06.023 Sanchious, S. N., et al. (2024). Recognizing borderline personality disorder in men: Gender differences in BPD symptom presentation. Journal of Personality Disorders, 38(2), 195. https://doi.org/10.1521/pedi.2024.38.2.195 Tedesco, V., et al. (2023). Diagnosing borderline personality disorder: Reports and recommendations from people with lived experience. Personality and Mental Health. https://doi.org/10.1002/pmh.1599 **BPD Alliance, The Podcast.** Where research and real life meet around borderline personality disorder. This episode is part of the **BPD Alliance 25th Anniversary Podcast,** marking 25 years of standing alongside individuals and families living with borderline personality disorder with the belief that healing, growth, and recovery are possible.   BPD Alliance is a nonprofit organization with a four-star Charity Navigator rating. To learn more or support our mission, visit bpdalliance.org.   If this episode helped, following the show and leaving a review helps someone else find it.   If you or someone you love is struggling, you can call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) in the U.S. Series music: Lisbeth Scott, "Following The Sun," courtesy of Valley Entertainment, Inc. https://ffm.to/following-the-sun-feat-orchid-quartet.ODL