back from the borderline Podcast By mollie adler cover art

back from the borderline

back from the borderline

By: mollie adler
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About this listen

I don’t want to talk to your personality; I want to talk to your soul. Imagine if your most painful and debilitating mental health symptoms and self-sabotaging behaviors aren’t evidence of 'disorder' or 'dysfunction', but adaptive strategies that once kept you safe. My goal is to help you shift from asking ‘What’s wrong with me?’ to ‘What happened to me?’


The word ‘borderline’ in this podcast isn’t about psychiatric labels. It’s about coming back from the inner psychological brink we all experience. Everyone has found themselves on the edge, in that liminal space where the old self falls apart and the new Self emerges. Here, we explore what it means to undergo true emotional alchemy: that ancient and primordial process of falling apart, confronting the underworld of our psyche, and falling back together into someone stronger, wiser, and more whole.


Many highly sensitive people who identify with the seemingly never-ending list of diagnostic mental health labels contained within ‘the bible of psychiatry’ (the DSM) share the same underlying sense of being irreparably broken, disconnected from their intuition, and paralyzed by life’s existential questions. I believe the resulting—and perfectly understandable—chronic feelings of emptiness and spiritual starvation are the TRUE causes of our current collective ‘mental health crisis.’


Together, we’ll dive into depth psychology, mythology, human consciousness, critical psychiatry, and the impact of trauma to help you begin the process of emotional alchemy. This exploration will help you get to the root cause of your suffering and free yourself from the toxic shame, limiting beliefs, and mental programming that have kept you locked in the chains of your past.


In an era where mental health and spirituality are too often commercialized, I’m not here as a guru with a quick fix to sell you. I don’t believe anyone is ever truly ‘healed’ or ‘cured.’ There is no return to some mythical state of pre-trauma purity, but rather a continuous spiral of unbecoming, unlearning, and transformation. As a fellow seeker, I will be there in your ear, walking alongside you on your path toward wholeness as a sort of parasocial big sister. That, I can promise.


By integrating the concepts we explore together, you’ll begin to see that anyone—even you—can come back from the borderline.


CRAVING MORE? Visit backfromtheborderline.com to dive into my universe, connect with me, access my Patreon, and discover more about my journey and work. Don’t forget to follow Back from the Borderline so new episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays automatically drop into your podcast feed.

acast+ https://plus.acast.com/s/back-from-the-borderline.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

mollie adler
Hygiene & Healthy Living Personal Development Personal Success Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Spirituality
Episodes
  • why you reject the love you crave (emotional maturity, trauma, and learning to receive)
    May 15 2025

    You might think you’re just protecting your peace. You might say you have high standards now. That you’ve outgrown certain people. That if someone really cared, they’d just know how to love you right. But lately, have you been pushing people away without even realizing it? Judging their efforts before they land? Feeling like no one ever gets it quite right? Maybe your healing has made you sharper. Wiser. But has it also made you harder to reach?


    This episode is about what happens when the thing you’ve been working so hard for—real love, real support—starts to feel impossible to accept. Not because it isn’t there, but because it’s showing up in forms you didn’t expect. Because you’ve started thinking love only counts if it looks and sounds exactly the way you pictured it.


    We’re going to talk about that. The spell of perfection. The pressure to be fully healed before letting anyone in. The way we start to treat love like a product instead of a relationship. And how to catch yourself before you wall yourself off from the very thing you’re craving.


    If this hits, you’re not broken. You’re just at a threshold. Let’s talk about how to cross it.


    🔓 UNLOCK THE FULL EPISODE + BONUS CONTENT: Want to keep listening? Get full access to this episode, ad-free listening, and my entire archive, plus exclusive Patreon-exclusive podcasts like The Consciousness Stream and The Deep Cut and access to Pathwork, my digital mystery school.

    Pro Tip: iPhone users should sign up through a browser (Safari or Chrome) to avoid Apple’s extra fees.


    🔗 CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE


    My full archive is available at patreon.com/backfromtheborderline


    acast+ https://plus.acast.com/s/back-from-the-borderline.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    Show more Show less
    17 mins
  • healing the christian wound: empire, myth, and the pattern beneath it all
    May 13 2025

    There are wounds that don’t show up in diagnoses or clinical language. The kind that live in the silence after a question you weren’t supposed to ask. These are the questions that form when love is offered only through obedience, when God is turned into surveillance, when the sacred becomes something you’re told to fear. For many of us raised in Christian frameworks (especially the more rigid or institutional ones) that wound still lives in the body.


    This episode is an attempt to speak to that wound. To name it without collapsing into blame, and to look at the deeper story beneath the one many of us were handed. I’m not here to convert you, and I’m not here to condemn anyone who’s found peace inside traditional religious practice. I know plenty of people who walk their faith with open eyes and open hearts. But I also know how many of us were handed something hollow, or cruel, or incoherent, and told it was holy.


    This conversation is an attempt to locate the pattern beneath the story and to learn the difference between the Christ of empire and the Christ who spoke in symbols. We dive into themes of religious trauma, but also about what can be reclaimed. The sacred didn’t disappear. It was distorted, covered over, and misnamed. This episode is for anyone who’s felt that loss and wants to begin tracing the thread again, not by going back, but by going deeper.


    You’ll hear about how Christianity absorbed and erased older traditions, how empire used myth to consolidate power, and how figures like Jesus and Mary Magdalene may have carried far more esoteric and integrative wisdom than we were ever taught. But more than that, you’ll hear from someone — me — who’s been through the collapse, walked away, and is now circling back. Not to return, but to recover something essential.


    If you’ve ever felt like the word “God” was ruined for you… if you’ve struggled to trust your own spiritual instincts… if you’ve longed for something real but couldn’t stomach the dogma… this episode is for you. Not to give you answers, but to invite you back into the questions that are worth asking.


    GO DEEPER WITH HUNDREDS OF BONUS EPISODES + WEEKLY PATHWORK PROMPTS.


    Unlock my FULL ARCHIVE of members-only content + Patreon exclusives:


    PATHWORK → Weekly self-inquiry prompts to turn insight into transformation.

    THE CONSCIOUSNESS STREAM → Raw, unfiltered deep dives.

    THE DEEP CUT → Structured breakdowns of esoteric + psychological themes.

    BONUS EPISODES + RESOURCES → Hundreds of hours of hidden gems.


    Start exploring right now for FREE and see everything waiting for you at backfromtheborderline.com.


    acast+ https://plus.acast.com/s/back-from-the-borderline.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    Show more Show less
    1 hr and 22 mins
  • the death of celebrity culture is here (and why it's good for your mental health)
    May 8 2025

    Katy Perry kissed the ground after spending a mere three minutes in space. The headlines framed it as some kind of feminist milestone. The internet didn’t agree. In this episode, we trace the unraveling of a cultural myth that once felt untouchable. We talk about how celebrity became a modern form of sainthood. How did we get here? And are we standing at the edge of its collapse? From the spectacle of the Blue Origin mission to echoes of Marie Antoinette standing on the balcony of a crumbling monarchy, this moment is a mirror. A sign that the performance is no longer holding.


    We explore the history of idolization, the archetypes we’ve projected onto the famous, and what it means to realize those archetypes are no longer serving us. This is also about empire. The ways fame, influence, and individual power have been shaped and sold inside systems that are now starting to break. If you’ve ever found yourself caught in the loop of admiration, envy, projection, parasocial relationships, or performance — this is a depth psychological tour into what’s underneath it all.


    But it’s also a return. A reminder that your energy belongs to you and how to call it back. And maybe, as new tools emerge and old myths die, we’re not meant to look for new idols. Maybe we’re meant to look inward.


    🔓 UNLOCK THE FULL EPISODE + BONUS CONTENT: Want to keep listening? Get full access to this episode, ad-free listening, and my entire archive, plus exclusive Patreon-exclusive podcasts like The Consciousness Stream and The Deep Cut and access to Pathwork, my digital mystery school.

    Pro Tip: iPhone users should sign up through a browser (Safari or Chrome) to avoid Apple’s extra fees.


    🔗 CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE


    My full archive is available at patreon.com/backfromtheborderline

    acast+ https://plus.acast.com/s/back-from-the-borderline.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    Show more Show less
    34 mins
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All stars
Most relevant  
I started listening to this podcast to learn more about borderline personality disorder so that I could better understand a loved one with BPD traits. Mollie is uniquely qualified to host this podcast as someone who is on her own journey with BPD. There's been a wealth of useful information here as well as destigmatizing of BPD. I think this podcast is valuable to anyone struggling with regulating their emotions or to their loved ones, not just to people with a BPD diagnosis or suspected BPD. Mollie is so generous with her experience and her knowledge and her voice is very soothing, which makes these a very easy listen.

More than just BPD, great mental health pod

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Helps me truly do the emotional alchemy talked about on here I feel
Honest, insightful, compassionate, and smart in all the best ways

Beautiful

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This Podcast has helped me incredibly. As a parent of a fourteen year old daughter who has not “officially” been diagnosed with BPD, but displays all of the characteristics, BFTB has helped open my eyes. I have been unable to understand what my daughter is going through, as she has never been able to talk to me about what she’s feeling. Hearing all of this explained through the experiences of Mollie, and her guests really has changed the way I see behaviors with her. There is invaluable information here.

View from a parents eye

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Amazing podcast; Extremely informative and thought provoking. I love how it helps to inform about bpd and cptsd with a compassionate lens. The added touch of spirituality adds a fresh and lovely blend. Mollie never fails to deliver each topic, and no topic seems gratuitous. This podcast helps many with bpd to come to terms with their condition and for individuals to have compassion for themselves. Thank you, Mollie. You help a lot of people like myself to feel seen.

Amazing, to say the least.

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I am in love. I just discovered this today and I've already listened to 13 episodes...some of them twice! Mollie is a delight to listen to. Her language is hard-hitting and authentic. Her research is real, her guests are genuine, and her conversations are raw. Great resources--books, social accounts, podcasts, songs, interviews, etc. I've gone through a half box of tissues, and I've almost peed myself laughing. For my first podcast ever, this did not disappoint!!!

Poignant, relevant, accurate!

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