This Onion article gives a good overview of Borderline Personality Disorder, but the idea is pretty much given away in the title: Totally Hot Chick Also Way Psycho. Read more about BPD here. Overall, if you feel up and down, very moody, empty, lonely, have difficult relationships with others, have anger outbursts, become frantic when abandoned, feel ambivalent about closeness (see classic book I Hate You–Don’t Leave Me: Understanding the Borderline Personality) ; engage in black and white/all or nothing thinking, cannot be empathic to others, are impulsive and reckless in your behavior, and have self-harmed, these are good indicators that you may have some BPD tendencies (note of the obvious: I cannot diagnose you using this webpage. I can’t even see you.) BPD is debilitating (although you can be high functioning BPD and nobody knows how you really act except your intimates) and people have long thought that it did not respond to therapy. Now we know better and in fact BPD symptoms can decrease significantly in treatment. And if your parent or partner is/was BPD, books like Surviving a Borderline Parent and Stop Walking On Eggshells can help you understand this in depth. But this is not where I am going with this. Here is why Betty Draper is BPD as well in my opinion, although of a different stripe than the girl in the Onion article link. (Spoilers below if you haven’t seen the whole season!)

Betty, although hot, which partially makes up for it, does not seem to have any empathy. We see this in how she acts toward her kids as well as how she acts towards Don when he tried to confide in her before the marriage ended. By the 2014 season, Sally is realizing her mother’s emotional limitations and is angry with her. Her little brother is developing an anxiety disorder. As soon as the children stop being babies and can have wills of their own, Betty is no longer able to interact with them lovingly, except at rare times. She takes things very personally and is unable to see the world from a child’s perspective (eg when she got very angry at her son for giving away her sandwich on their field trip). Like other borderlines, Betty can never be single, and there was overlap between Don and her current husband. We get the impression she feels empty, and her identity is based primarily on her looks and the prestige of her husband, although recent episodes suggest she may be maturing and want more of an adult identity of her own. Betty also engages in impulsive and addictive behaviors, eg sleeping with Don at their children’s summer camp, binge eating during the season when she was overweight, drinking, smoking, shopping. Betty’s childhood has been alluded to; her mother thought she was overweight and her father did not seem to think much of her intelligence. BPD has been linked to an invalidating childhood, so this makes sense. What do you think? Who else on TV is BPD?

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This blog is not intended as medical advice or diagnosis and should in no way replace consultation with a medical professional. If you try this advice and it does not work for you, you cannot sue me. This is only my opinion, based on my background, training, and experience as a therapist and person

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