I think PD refers to how fundamentally damaged we can become. Growing up in the demeaning and painful way you did wouldn’t just cause you to be depressed, it would damage the very core of yourself and who you are. It did for me. That’s the personality disorder, literally, your personality has become disordered (and so dysfunctional). The ‘label’ is not saying you are odd. If anything, it is recognising what you have been put through.

I am sorry you feel this away about The Cassel though. I love the hospital and what it offers. I have felt so genuinely cared for there, both by staff and by patients. It’s a place where I am in so many ways instantly understood because of what comes with the label of a PD, whereas I have only confused professionals before. The whole culture is based on the fact we all recognise each other’s and our own abuse, as do the staff. In fact, they are often the ones to remind us to be tolerant of others and their distressing behaviours, because it stems from a place in which we have been hurt, badly.

I just wish I was better able to make use of this place and that I didn’t feel so totally damaged & broken, a feeling which I had a long time before I was ever told I supposed PD. I wish you could come back now and see, and be happy, that it is not the place you remember. It is a good place. I wish I could live up to it.