In the stories about Borderline Personality Disorder that Mala was familiar with, a borderline woman was always toxic – intense, erratic, angry, manipulative. And she was almost always the villain in someone else’s story. But no one ever talked about the *source* of the intense emotion – what was at the heart of it. 

More to read about borderline:

I'm A Black Woman with Borderline Personality Disorder | Business Insider 

Why I'm Distancing Myself From My Borderline Personality Disorder Diagnosis 

Diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder Is Often Flawed | Scientific American 

(Re)Valuing Borderline Personality Disorder as (Counter) Knowledge | Word & Text: A Journal of Literary Studies and Linguistics 

Transcendent Luminescence, Ravaging Flames: On Alexander Kriss’s “Borderline” | Los Angeles Review of Books 

How Infinite Jest tethered me to life when I almost let it go | Aeon Essays  

Borderline Personality and Self-Understanding of Psychopathology | Psychiatry At the Margins 

Either all psychopathology is personality psychopathology or there is no such thing | Psychiatry at the Margins 

Transgender and Gender Diverse Patients Are Diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder More Frequently Than Cisgender Patients Regardless of Personality Pathology | Transgender Health 

I Have Forgiven Myself for My Pre-Diagnosis Recklessness | by Zuva Seven | An Injustice! 

Skill Issues​ | Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Its Discontents 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For Maryam, anorexia was a way to disappear. But outside the institutions meant to cure eating disorders, she learns to resist the binary of recovery or death.  

This episode was produced by Maryam Gunja and Phoebe Unter. 

And informed by…

Studying Hunger Journals by Bernadette Mayer

Hungry Bengal: War, Famine and the End of Empire by Janam Mukherjee

Saving our own lives: a liberatory practice of harm reduction by Shira Hassan 

Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body by Susan Bordo

We need to reject the false narratives around anorexia by Katy Waldman

Strangers Among Us by Rachel Aviv

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr. Devon Price talks with NK about 2022’s Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity. Masking is a coping strategy, a way that neurodivergent people (especially autistic people) learn to fit into neurotypical society, with uneven success. But like many coping strategies, masking can do more harm than good in the long run – and the act of unmasking is a small act of resistance against conformity.

Transcript

This episode also includes some clips from Autistic Masking & Unmasking, The 4 Types of Autistic Masking, Twice as Hard: Masking Neurodiversity as Black Women, Discover your neurodivergent masks, and Black and Autistic! The Struggle is Real… 

Plus Devon Price recommends Amythest Schaber’s Ask An Autistic series, The Secret Life of a Black Aspie: A Memoir by Anand Prahlad, and Uncomfortable Labels: My Life as a Gay Autistic Trans Woman by Laura Kate Dale.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bertranna’s autism makes her obsessed with finding the Truth about neurodiversity. With Ayesha Khan, PhD and The People’s Oracle.

Transcript 

AND INFORMED BY:

Unmasking Autism by Devon Price 

African-Americans With Autism Face Additional Challenges - NPR

The Persistent Invisibility of Black Autism - Undark.org 

The Biology Behind Autism Spectrum Disorder - Yale Medicine 

Data and Statistics on Autism Spectrum Disorder - CDC

The mother of neurodiversity: how Judy Singer changed the world | Autism | The Guardian

Singer’s thesis was included in a British Open University anthology titled Disability Discourse, and is now available in an ebook called Neurodiversity: The Birth of an Idea 

Who coined the term ‘neurodiversity?’ It wasn’t Judy Singer, some autistic academics say

A correction on the origin of the term ‘neurodiversity’ - Independent Living On the Autism Spectrum (InLiv)

On the neurological underpinnings of geekdom - The Atlantic 

Politicizing Neurodiversity - by P.E. Moskowitz:

Empire of Normality by Robert Chapman 

Neurodiversity and the Pathology Paradigm | Psychology Today 

Negotiating the Neurodiversity Concept | Psychology Today 

NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity by Steve Silber 

Neurodiversity Rewires Conventional Thinking About Brains | WIRED

Neurodiversity in the Classroom by Thomas Armstrong

“The 8 Million Species We Don’t Know” -  New York Times Sunday Review

Common Biologically Essentialist Language | by Cat Harsis | Medium 

What If Gay-Rights Advocates’ ‘Born This Way’ Argument Is Wrong? 

It's time to rethink “born this way,” a phrase that's been key to LGBTQ acceptance | Salon.com 

‘Beyond Race’ Biology Course Busts Myths About Human Diversity | College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences | University of Maryland 

Decolonizing= abolishing bioessentialism & the neurodivergent/ neurotypical binary  - Ayesha Khan, Ph.D.

Psychiatric diagnoses & bioessentialism will not liberate us - Ayesha Khan, Ph.D. 

What Is a Collectivist Culture? Individualism vs. Collectivism 

Collective Culture & Mental Wellbeing: What Tanzania Can Teach Us About Mental Health 

Science is not objective or apolitical  - by Ayesha Khan, Ph.D. 

A Guide to the James Webb Telescope's View of the Universe - New York Times

we are all made of stars

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If depression isn't caused by a chemical imbalance, why does everyone think it is?

Transcript

WITH:

• P.E. Moskowitz 
• Micha Frazer-Carroll

AND INFORMED BY:

Breaking Off My Chemical Romance - The Nation 

Many People Taking Antidepressants Discover They Cannot Quit - The New York Times

Emotional Blunting, No Libido, No Life - by P.E. Moskowitz

Keep the antidepressants away. New study says chemical imbalance in brain isn't causing depression - The Economic Times  

The Epidemic of Mental Illness: Why? - New York Review of Books 

The Illusions of Psychiatry - The New York Review of Books 

Mad World: The Politics of Mental Health by Micha Frazer-Carroll 

DSM History - Psychiatry.org 

How do new disorders get into the DSM? - Slate 

Delusions of Progress: Psychiatry’s Diagnostic Manual - Los Angeles Review of Books

“Scientific Nightmare”: The Backstory of the “DSM” - Los Angeles Review of Books 

Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker

With Prozac Nation, Elizabeth Wurtzel blew open the memoir as we know it - BBC 

Prozac Nation (2001) 

Prozac: Revolution in a Capsule - The New York Times

How Prozac entered the lexicon - BBC News

Renamed Prozac Fuels Women's Health Debate - Washington Post 

After the Boom, No Reason to Smile - Barron's 

Something Happened to U.S. Drug Costs in the 1990s - The New York Times

Conflicts of interest and DSM-5: the media reaction - Speaking of Medicine and Health 

Many authors of psychiatry bible have industry ties - New Scientist 

Undisclosed financial conflicts of interest in DSM-5-TR: cross sectional analysis - The BMJ 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Samara puts her trust in psychiatry to fix her.

Transcript

WITH: 

+ PUPPYBREATH

AND INFORMED BY:

The Ritalin Explosion - PBS FRONTLINE

Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker

Strangers To Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us by Rachel Aviv

Antidepressants rapidly alter brain architecture, study finds - Los Angeles Times

Breaking Off My Chemical Romance - The Nation 

The Illusions of Psychiatry - The New York Review of Books

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After Tina’s dad died, she was devastated. But was her grief “disordered”?

Transcript

WITH: 

+ Lashanna Williams, A Sacred Passing

+ Dr. Joanne Cacciatore, PhD

AND INFORMED BY:

Dying Without Regrets According to a Death Doula - VICE

Seattle-area grief groups bring mourning into the light - Seattle Times

What's A Mental Disorder? Even Experts Can't Agree - NPR 

DSM-5-TR turns normal grief into a mental disorder | Miss Foundation

A History of Prolonged Grief Disorder's Inclusion in the DSM — And What Is Missing From It - Psychiatry At the Margins

Why was prolonged grief disorder added to the DSM? - American Psychiatric Association

How Long Should It Take to Grieve? Psychiatry Has Come Up With an Answer. - The New York Times 

Prolonged Grief Is Now Labelled a Disorder. Not All Psychiatrists Agree. - VICE 

Impairing Social Connectedness: The Dangers of Treating Grief With Naltrexone - Kara Thieleman, Joanne Cacciatore, Shanéa Thoma 

What is good grief support? Exploring the actors and actions in social support after traumatic grief | Miss Foundation  

It’s Mourning in America | The New Yorker

How People Of Color Can Experience Grief Differently Than White People | HuffPost Life  

Grief, Unmedicated - by P.E. Moskowitz - Mental Hellth

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rachel tells NK about the pain of her perfectionism, then NK talks to somatics practitioner B. Stepp and artist Yumi Sakugawa about rewriting internal narratives of shame and punishment.

Transcript

WITH:

+ B. Stepp: www.haveheartsomatics.com 

+ Yumi Sakugawa: @yumisakugawa

AND INFORMED BY:

The dangerous downsides of perfectionism - BBC

“Multidimensional Perfectionism And DSM-5 Personality Traits” by Joachim Stoeber

Contemplating the Infinite with Annie Dillard - Literary Hub

Silent All These Years: On Annie Dillard - The Millions

Annie Dillard on Creativity and What It Takes to Be a Writer - The Marginalian 

Generative Somatics

Want to Fix Your Mind? Let Your Body Talk. - The New York Times

What Your Body Has to Do With Social Change - YES! Magazine 

Brené Brown: Can We Gain Strength From Shame? - NPR 

The Hidden Stress of Growing Up a Child of Immigrants - VICE 

How to Be Less Self-Critical When Perfectionism Is a Trap - The New York Times

I Finally Accepted Nothing Can Be Perfect - VICE 

Yumi Sakugawa on shame, hiding, paralysis, and making bad art. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.