Born Under the Gaslight

A Memoir of My Descent into Borderline Personality Disorder

By: Cindy Collins

Narrated by: Taylor Coan

“What will the neighbors think?” “Keep your voice down, or the neighbors will hear you screaming.”

I never knew the neighbors, but, more importantly, they never knew my family. Right next door was a house of horror, and they indeed never knew. This is the story that was carefully concealed from you. This is the story that can happen even if you do grow up with neighbors watching.

From author Cindy Collins comes an unblinkingly honest, poignant, and often heartbreaking firsthand account of what it’s like to live with borderline personality disorder (BPD)...and the pervasive trauma she endured as a child that led to her descent into the dark world of BPD.

Gaslighted by her mother - who cultivated an outward appearance of being the perfect wife and mother - Cindy suffered ongoing sexual abuse by multiple family members, abandonment, and cruelty at the hands of the one person who should have loved and protected her most. The resulting fits of rage, extreme thinking, difficulty maintaining relations, and depression would set Cindy on a path of destruction until she finally found the hope and courage to fight her demons.

Chronicling her childhood of abuse, her diagnosis of BPD in her twenties, and her ultimate road to recovery, Born Under the Gaslight is a memoir like none you have ever listened to before. Offering a rare and insightful glimpse into the inner struggles of someone who lives with BPD, Born Under the Gaslight is a must-listen for therapists, others living with BPD, and anyone wanting to understand the complexities of BPD and how to offer practical and emotional support.

©2019 Cindy Collins (P)2020 Indomitable Publishing, LLC

A must read for anyone

Cindy Collins, has brought courage to a subject that so many are frightened to mention let alone talk about in detail; mental illness and it’s effects.
In this book she openly and in some cases, candidly talks about her own horrors of growing up with a malevolent and diabolical family who’s only goal was to hide their evils, and go on living as the “perfect white picket fence family”. Her book will systematically cut through all the “perfects” like a razor-blade of Truth, and expose you to an unimaginable life of pain and anguish.
As she finally reaches and confronts her diagnosis with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), in this book you can’t help feel a deeper understanding of what it must be like to carry on through the many levels- from living with your attackers, to a life of poverty, and to finally living an every day existence in a supposed “normal” safe society.
The reader in this book does a wonderful job taking you on this wild ride, that is in fact Cindy’s story. With every word putting you right there beside the author, and her hell-inspired demons, as she claws her way back to reach an acceptable level of humility to function again.
This book will show you to you always the importance of checking up on those we care for deeply, who may be living through corrupt hands of abuse and or from a mental illness that has been diagnosed or otherwise lurks inlabuse the back shadows of their mind.

Life Changing

I have consumed more self improvement non-fiction in my life than I can count, and this book is going to have more of an effect on me than everything else put together. Although I do not have BPD, I am on the trauma-caused "dissociation spectrum", and I can see so much of myself reflected in Cindy's story that it's kind of scary. On top of that, the reader poured so much emotion into the words that I would have thought it was Cindy herself, if I didn't know better. There's pain and anger in there that was moving. The very next book I have started on after this is a DBT workbook. I have a lot to unpack from inside myself after this book. If you had a narcissistic or neglectful parent, were bullied in school, or otherwise were subjected to emotional, physical, or sexual trauma as a child, you owe it to that wounded child inside yourself to listen to this book.

Wonderful, painful, hopeful.

This story shows the life in a real light from the eyes of a child, to an adult learning to make due with life as it is now. Pain, and hopelessness turns into a thrill ride of new life and a journey to recovery. To anyone that struggles with BPD this is the book to see you are not alone.

A refreshing new perspective, engaging read

I'm happy I downloaded this audiobook! As someone diagnosed with BPD it was nice hearing the ups and downs, and being able to relate to the author. This book is like pulling back the curtain on the thoughts of a person suffering with Borderline. It also really makes you think about how peoples actions effect others. 10/10 would highly recommend!

Insightful Memoir

Memoir was frank, honest, and a very gutsy thing to write. Definitely kept my attention. The narrator was engaging and easy to listen to.

well written

honest easy to understand . helped in understanding border line personalities. kept it interesting an easy read couldn't put it down once I started.

Horrible

This book is pure filth and highly offensive. It has no story to it and is dripping with hatred for the, ahem, author’s family