"This service has helped me incredibly."

I've been known to services since 2016 when I was diagnosed with BPD after I became homeless and was in a shelter. I've received MBT mentalization based therapy for a few years (now officially discharged) with the personality disorder and homelessness team. 

The nature of the illness is push/pull and for me I wanted to discharge myself every single week as a result of feeling distressed In group therapy because it is difficult. But that is the point. It is to help you find the skills to deal with other people's views, emotions and understand their intentions. 

I have to say the staff were amazing. I had my nurse therapist who was consistent for these three years and I developed a healthy relationship with her and managed to cope well with the ending of this. It was sad but she has helped me prepare for future relationships by helping me understand my patterns and how I think about things and other people's intentions etc. I've made incredible progress even though I've lashed out and split on the staff many times. Thankfully they are trained specially to understand personality disorders so they understood this splitting behaviour. 

Half way through the group therapy I just wasn't finding it helpful. It was actually detrimental and me and the staff had a meeting to discuss this and decided I'd quit the group and continue my 1-1 sessions. This was the best option for me at that time. 

This service has helped me incredibly. They are so compassionate and understanding and they make the effort to educate other professionals around the stigma associated with personality disorders and that just makes me so happy. 

I wish there were more services like this for people with BPD as I believe this is the only one in all of Glasgow or Scotland (?). In order to access it you need to be classed as homeless since there's a link between the two. So on reflection, I can now feel grateful for being homeless as terrifying as it was. 

5* service. Please get the funding for more of these specialised clinics! They are invaluable.