allow me to accompany you
My name is Karley, and I have what’s known as BPD. Although I don’t hold too tightly to the term “borderline,” it is a useful and shorthand way for me to identify my experiences. I know that any label does not fully describe the depth of our experiences and that there is so much beyond categories. My vision is to provide effective care & support to people with BPD — whether or not a diagnosis has been applied — so that we may build lives worth living, outside of a system that doesn’t always see the fullness of possibilities within us.
While I do think that learning dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) skills can be transformative, I think there’s more that can help us — particularly somatic work as a portal to (re)connecting us to our intuitive knowledge through our embodied emotions. Meditation and mindfulness practices can also support us in developing a more attuned relationship with ourselves.
I assert that feeling things deeply is a gift. Our emotions give us information, especially through the body. Many of us categorized as borderline have been disconnected from our bodies and therefore our deep emotional knowledge — knowledge that can keep us safe, feel truly ourselves, and therefore connect with the people and the world around us.
I want us to work together to find ways to stand in our own power, with access to the full range of our emotions to guide us.
You already have the power inside you — let it unfurl.
—karley
about my education / knowledge
I have formally studied social work, addictions & mental health, and trauma. I’m also trained as a a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner™ (SEP), which heavily informs not only my work, but my understanding of people’s minds and bodies. I appreciate that this modality doesn’t rely on pathologizing language to describe people’s experiences, and it also aligns with my understanding of BPD as the manifestation of a chronically dysregulated nervous system which can be traced and worked with, rather than a “personality disorder.”
My knowledge also comes from lived experience, informal learning through books, and the work I’ve done with and alongside other practitioners.
Check out my profile on Psychology Today.
about my work experience
I have worked for 10 years supporting survivors of sexual & domestic violence as a counsellor, group facilitator, and crisis line worker. I also have experience providing professionalized addictions treatment.
I am skilled at supporting people who:
deal with chronic emptiness and existential boredom
struggle to manage or stay with their internal experience and emotions
have become disconnected from their natural healthy aggression and struggle with boundaries as a result
feel shame about the way they think, feel, and behave
are managing the long-term impacts of experiencing violence, neglect, and relational misattunement
have a complicated relationship with anger
are burnt out and finding a way back to themselves
have had a difficult time trying to access mainstream mental healthcare in the past