BORDERLINE - the only documentary about someone living with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).
The first time Regina V tried to kill herself she was 5-years-old. Now she’s 45 and hell-bent on trying to live – most of the time.
“A feel good movie true to its feel bad subject” – Boston Globe
A free screening of BORDERLINE will be presented at 2 pm on Sunday, May 19 in the Stony Brook Southampton Hospital Parrish Hall, (corner of Herrick Road and Lewis Street) by the East End Mental Health Awareness Initiative. Rebbie Ratner, the film’s director / producer, who was given a BPD diagnosis in 2011, will introduce the film and answer questions following.
Regina V is “outta work and outta love.” Witty and self-aware, she gives us access to her internal Borderline world. She makes observations that are uncomfortable but astute, reacts on impulse, attacks, laughs, burns bridges, apologizes….and remains dogged in her search for recovery. Yet the human intimacy she needs most to recover, her symptoms threaten to destroy.
Word on the street is that BPD is difficult to treat, perhaps because those who meet criteria are an emotionally labile bunch. Those with its symptoms experience quickly shifting emotions where one can move through anger, fear, sadness, shame and very occasionally happiness—in quick succession. An estimated two percent of the US population carries the diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder. Eighty percent of these people attempt suicide and 10 percent succeed. Approximately 25 percent of the substance addicted and 25 percent of the eating disorder populations meet the diagnostic criteria for BPD, yet few are actually diagnosed.
“BORDERLINE started when I got out of treatment,” writes Ms. Ratner. “My greatest accomplishment has been that I am walking both through and out of this Borderline experience. If I chose to tell no one, I would be contributing to the culture of silence that prevented me from finding help for so long. BPD is a hidden diagnosis, more common than widely considered. BORDERLINE (the film) is my opportunity to share perspectives on the Borderline experience, pull it out of the closet and in so doing, possibly encourage those who feel silenced in their experience to seek support.”
“What I explored in making this film,” Ms. Ratner writes, “is that the process of recovery is really the process of learning to live a relational life. Treatment requires close examination of intra and interpersonal interactions. The prescription for recovery demands a greater level of self/other-awareness, which in turn leads one toward a deeper humanity. We all could use a little more of this. In other words, the prescriptive for BPD recovery could well be served up to all.”
BORDERLINE the documentary. Sunday, May 19, 2 – 4 pm Parrish Hall Stony Brook Southampton Hospital, presented by the East End Mental Health Awareness Initiative, a Southampton Town and East Hampton Town collaboration. FREE. www.borderlinethefilm.com
