On Writing Rough Magic: Living with Borderline Personality Disorder
By Miranda Newman
Some books start out as a tiny seed inside of you. The seed needs years of care, understanding, and ideal conditions to grow to the point that it’s ready to be harvested. Rough Magic is one of those books.
For over a decade, I navigated Canada’s broken mental health care system in hopes of finding relief from the complicated and painful way I moved through the world. At 16, I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. I was hospitalized numerous times throughout my twenties. I went through years of therapy, yet I still suffered, feeling lost in a cycle of confusion and despair. I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t getting better.
In my late twenties, I was hospitalized in Toronto’s leading mental health hospital, where it was suggested that I might also be living with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It was a moment when everything shifted for me. I finally recognized some of my more painful behaviours in a diagnosis that, while daunting, provided a framework for understanding my experience. More importantly, I was connected to long-term and specialized group treatment that led to meaningful healing.
When I spoke to my new therapist about my BPD diagnosis, she recommended I avoid Googling the disorder. She warned that I was unlikely to find anything positive about it. Naturally, I did the exact opposite. My heart broke when I saw she was right. People with BPD were frequently described as manipulative, attention-seeking, or untreatable. Here was a group of people who weren’t just vilified by the general public but also by the very people who were meant to help them.
BPD is considered one of the most misunderstood and stigmatized psychiatric disorders. In solitude, it seemed best to keep my story to myself because my diagnosis was steeped in so much prejudice. But then I began group therapy. I was surrounded by wonderful, caring, and supportive people with BPD, which was so at odds with everything I’d read about the disorder. That’s when it became apparent to me that people with BPD, who were so often relegated to the dark corners of conversations about mental illness, deserved a light shined upon them.
The people in my support group gave me hope—and hope is the backbone of mental health recovery. After three years passed, I was ready to give back to a community that had provided me with so much solace and support. My background is in journalism, and in my freelance career, I focus on mental health care. The decision to write a book about BPD came naturally, but determining how that book should look required careful thought and consideration.
It was important to me that I write a narrative about BPD that didn’t just focus on the painful or negative aspects of the disorder—there were enough books about BPD like that already. I wanted to analyze and demystify information about the disorder, bust myths that persist around the diagnosis, and (most importantly) focus on some of the positives that come with living with BPD. In my early research, I learned people with BPD are extremely emotionally empathetic, talented at involving and influencing others, and prone to periods of intense joy, which present as an unparalleled zest for life. I wanted to highlight our strengths instead of our weaknesses. In illuminating the complexities of living with BPD, I hoped others with the disorder might find the peace that comes with self-acceptance.
Throughout the writing process, I grappled with problems common to memoirists. Namely, how much do I share of my personal journey? What do I owe to myself? My family? My friends? My readers? Writing a memoir is a balancing act that requires a lot of vulnerability. It’s a bit like being naked in public.
But I also dealt with feelings unique to people living with mental illness who are writing their stories. Vulnerability can be very frightening for people who come from a history of trauma, as so many people with BPD do. There were many days I found myself sobbing over my keyboard while writing about difficult memories. Some essays in Rough Magic were so challenging to write that they required five or six major edits. Others only went through one or two. Unearthing and examining these memories led to more healing. I was very fortunate that writing Rough Magic had the added benefit of keeping me on the path to mental health recovery.
Writing Rough Magic wasn’t just about sharing my story though. It was about creating a bridge for others who might feel alone in their struggles. Rough Magic advocates for greater awareness and understanding of BPD. Each page is an invitation to the reader to look beyond labels and see the human beneath the experience.
Ultimately, it took me eight months from when my book sold to write my first draft. But years of experience, research, and healing went into the creation of this book. Rough Magic was a lifetime in the making.
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Miranda Newman is the bestselling author of Rough Magic: Living with Borderline Personality Disorder (2024). Her writing has appeared in The Globe and Mail, Chatelaine, Broadview Magazine, The Walrus, and more. Her story, “Kids in Crisis,” received an honourable mention from the National Magazine Awards. She lives in Toronto.
A harrowing but ultimately uplifting memoir about living with borderline personality disorder—the most stigmatized diagnosis in mental health.
“I didn’t know whether to take you to a psychologist or an exorcist.”
This is how Miranda Newman’s mother described the experience of trying to find an explanation for her daughter’s behaviour. It would be years before Miranda was able to find a diagnosis that explained the complicated way she moved through the world. She would have to advocate for herself in the mental health system while dealing with abuse, being unhoused, survival sex, suicide attempts and hospitalizations.
Through it all, Miranda has found strength in her diagnosis. Her recollections are visceral and confessional, but also self-aware, irreverent and funny. She tells readers how she has found strength and joy in what others might see as tragic, while bolstering her personal recollections with deeply researched observations on Canada’s mental healthcare system, and the history of diagnostics and disorder, using research supported by her work at Yale University.
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Category: On Writing
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