Borderline personality disorder. “What in the hell was that?” raged Rachel Reiland after discovering the term on her discharge papers from the hospital psychiatric ward. As the twenty-nine-year-old accountant, wife, and mother of young children would soon learn, borderline personality disorder (BPD) was the diagnosis that finally explained her explosive anger, manipulative behaviors, and self-destructive bent, including devastating episodes of substance abuse, anorexia, and sexual promiscuity.

With astonishing honesty, Reiland reveals what mental illness feels like and looks like from the inside. Her story is horrifying, but in the end, hopeful—offering living proof that healing from this tenacious psychiatric disorder is possible through intensive therapy and the support of loved ones.