This IS borderline personality disorder! Here's why:

I have another thread on here that I started before the release of this movie. You can find that here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2788716/board/thread/242231752?p=1

I have seen a lot of people who either have the disorder or just an opinion, don't think this is an accurate portrayal of the disorder.

I found this film to be comical, depressing and very accurate. If you read the criteria for BPD you may think that this person will act out in all sorts of ways; self injure, attempt suicide regularly, have many sexual encounters, have substance abuse or eating disorder problems, and much more. BP's who exhibit these are known as "Classic Borderlines" and are the most commonly portrayed in media.

However there is another type of BP called the "Quiet Borderline" and I believe this movie to be a representation of that form of Borderline Personality Disorder. You can read more about that here http://borderlinepersonality.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/07/the-quiet-borde.html

This is a story about a young woman who doesn't quite live in reality. She is narcissistic and focused on getting other people to understand her, and to get a better understanding of herself. Kristen Wigg did an amazing job.

As a borderline who is in decent recovery, I related to this film in many ways. I have trouble w/ relationships of all sorts. Friends, romantic, family. I am very self centered and have a hard time relating to people, especially empathetically. I have never had a long term friendship, and only romantic relationships which were very abusive on both ends. Both of these can be seen with her friend, who she has a hard time empathizing w/ (ex: offering her money as an apology, totally missing the point), and the two sexual/romantic encounters she had in the film. This sexual impulsivity is also a known trait of some BPs

BPs often don't remember situations accurately. We have extreme sensitivity to emotions which alter our memories of situations. This can be seen in her reenactments of her life during the film. Extreme anger can also be shown in the reenactments.

During times of extreme distress, we may experience what is called dissociation which means we don't feel real or we may see ourself in an out of body type way, and experience memory loss... often during these times we can be described as being "checked out" or "not all there" and do bizarre things such as streaking!

Fear of abandonment is evident when she realizes that her therapist is firing her... and even goes back after the very clear boundary has been set that she needs to find a new therapist.

Alice's obsession w/ TV obviously stems from her lack of sense of self (a trademark criteriea in all cluster B disorder), where she doesn't quite know what she wants to do with herself and her life. She feels lost and disconnected from society. She has no idea what her own personality is, so she obsessively watches talk shows and learns them line for line because she can't find a way to find a personality of her own. We do see her as her own person at least once in the show, when she is neutering the dogs/taking care of the dogs. This is obviously something that she knows she has a passion for (despite the recklessness of the procedure).

Is this textbook BPD? No. But BPD can manifest in so many different ways that saying this is an inaccurate portrayal is incorrect... it is just a different portrayal than expected or that we are used to.

I hope some of you may change your opinion after reading this. :)