Those who have a relationship with someone suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), will know how difficult it can make every aspect of life.

Mark Diehl, the author of the memoir Stealing Cinderella: How I Became an International Fugitive for Love, has been there. His mother, who suffered from BPD, often harped on worries not grounded in reality. For example, she was paranoid that his daughter’s ice skating lessons might bankrupt his family.

She would act on these fears, recruiting others to help her press Mark for answers. Her constant badgering drove Mark to distraction. At one point, her intrusion caused him to flush his daughter’s beloved pet frog down the toilet by accident.

After Mark’s mother’s behavior became increasingly manipulative, relentless, and abusive, Mark decided the best thing for his own family would be to cut ties.

But it wasn’t easy.

Mark shares some painful truths he learned about the process of stepping away from a relationship where boundaries wouldn’t work.

In spite of these difficulties, as an adult, Mark is able to have a healthy relationship with his wife and daughter.

In Mark’s memoir novel, Stealing Cinderella, he shares the story of how he meets his wife in South Korea.

While they had little in common to bond them together, Mark found they had a particular shared formative experience. This bonding experience was one of separate and different, though equally neglectful, and damaging childhoods.

Mark’s experience was being raised by a mother with Borderline Personality Disorder while at the same time being completely neglected by his father.

Jennifer’s childhood scars were “from being viewed and treated by her family as a disappointment from birth, useful only as a bargaining chip in the matchmaking game for her siblings… She grew up like Cinderella. Before she was of marrying age, her parents dressed her like a boy or in her older sister’s discarded clothing; only when it came time to present her to prospective husbands did they buy her nice clothes, shoes, and handbags. She was reminded of her inferior status constantly, including through her parents’ coercive and punitive behavior.”

Both Mark and Jennifer experienced incredibly difficult childhood circumstances.
Jennifer and I had experienced painful abandonment by our families and the sting of our parents’ arbitrary, bewildering, and often violent behavior toward us. ~ Relationships, Shared Trauma, and Tough Times
Another complication of their relationship? Their interracial relationship brought about many difficulties, including angry stares and even threats to their lives. Taxis would ignore them, and restaurants refused to serve them. Even their employer forbade them to see one another.

Jennifer risked being attacked by total strangers because of her relationship with Mark. She was in fact, brutally beaten by her parents and locked in her room.

Watch or listen to the full interview:

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