Borderline
Reviewed By Janet Mawdesley May 11, 2021
Author Sandie Jessamine
Distributor: Bad Apple Press
ISBN: 9780648780779
Publisher: Bad Apple Press
Release Date: April 2021
Website: https://badapplepress.com.au
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Compelling, horrifying and deeply personal, Sandie Jessamine revisits a youth full of challenge, change, mental illness, abuse and sadness to share the very real lack of understating that faces so many people with serious mental health issues in Borderline.
Finding herself classed as destructive, unmanageable, wild, sad, wicked and peculiar at the age of fifteen, she spent a number of her formative years in, escaping from or being returned to the Kamballa Institution, formerly the infamous Parramatta Girls Home.
She eventually managed to make something out of her troubled life, working and teaching in the prisons of New South Wales, work she enjoyed. Being diagnosed with Complex PTSD helped her better understand her issues and learn to cope by understand her limitations; to being able to accept the ‘white noise’ of severe mental health issues and understand what to do when the ‘white noise’ threatened her way of life.
After a series of traumatic family events, in a life filled with deep trauma, with her daughters relapse into drugs closely followed by her father’s death due to Cancer, she had a complete breakdown at work, which would see her diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, one of the most stigmatised psychiatric conditions and one that is noted by its manipulative, attention-seeking, emotional and mental instability issues.
Facing these life changing series of diagnoses’, Sandie Jessamine realised the only way forward away from the darkness was to face her past, and by doing so to find some form of healing, understanding and acceptance of a life that was far from ‘normal’.
Borderline is her story of survival, immense bravery and strength as she returns willingly to a world of trauma through the many voices of witch, rebel, teacher, fighter and distressed child, to reclaim both her life and her sanity.
Borderline is raw, deeply emotional and comes with a Forward and a warning that the contents of the book could be deeply disturbing to anyone facing mental health issues. Borderline is also full of hope, understanding and stubborn determination not to let the stamp of mental illness destroy everything she had worked for and overcome.
Sandie Jessamine believes personal stories make up a huge component of the history of the modern day and Borderline, a story of so many young women’s lives, lay hidden, away from the light of understanding mental health, until in Sandie Jessamine words, she had to go mad to begin to live.
If you have found anything in her story disturbing please contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.