'Borderline Personality Disorder is my superpower'

**Borderline Personality Disorder is my superpower** Tighthead prop Donna Rose has experienced an unforgettable 12 months on the rugby pitch. Last year she proudly represented Wales at her second World Cup and helped Saracens secure the Premiership Women’s Rugby title in June. Off the field she is known as a hard‑hitting player with a large personality, yet few see the regular struggles the 35‑year‑old copes with. Rose lives with borderline personality disorder (BPD), a mental‑health condition that causes unstable moods, behaviours and relationships. “When people hear the words ‘borderline personality disorder’, they tend to think I’ve got 10 personalities,” she told BBC Sport. She describes her BPD as often presenting itself as terrible self‑doubt, likening it to having a “devil” telling her she is not good enough. “It affects me all the time of my life,” she adds. “If I feel something, I feel it doubly as much as someone else. Something that is so small to someone could be so large to me.” “You wake up and you’ll be in your head. You don’t want to get out there, you’re being told you’re worthless and what’s the point of getting out of bed.” “It’s exhausting.” She was diagnosed with the condition at age 21. Growing up in the traveller community, Rose sensed she was different from those around her but could not pinpoint why. She found concentrating at school difficult and felt she was merely labelled “naughty”. As her mental health deteriorated she encountered trouble with the police before everything came to a head. “I was going through a truly draining time in my life where I was just sad, uncomfortable with me, my surroundings,” she said. “I got referred into the mental health team, where I was then diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.” “I didn’t know what it was, I just thought it was a statement until I truly dived into it.” “I knew I had to change my life around, so I did some research on the internet and I started to get an insight into what borderline personality disorder was. I started to learn that triggers were things that set my brain off to take myself back to a place where I didn’t want to be.” If you have been affected by issues raised in this article, information and support are available on BBC Action Line. Rose manages her symptoms with a daily pill, but she calls rugby her real “medicine”. “It gives me the buzz,” she said. “There’s a lot of adrenaline that’s stored in my head and it helps to bring it out.” The front‑rower was a latecomer to the sport, making her international debut only in 2021, yet she is now one of the most senior members of the Wales squad, having earned 42 caps. She has played at two World Cups and four Six Nations tournaments and has won the PWR title with Saracens twice. Nevertheless, she says her biggest achievement in rugby is that it helps her manage her symptoms. “If I’ve done a rugby session and I’m exhausted, then it kind of does die down a bit because I’m exhausted and the devil on my shoulder is exhausted too,” she explained. Rose believes having the condition in mind makes her a better player. “I say it’s my superpower,” she said. “I was never particularly good at catching and passing, but I’m good at getting the ball and smashing through people.” “It took me a while to learn to control that anger, but now I really use that as my superpower, because it makes me disciplined.” The changing room, which often holds more than 30 people, is one of Rose’s most challenging environments. She had to carefully manage her mental health during last year’s World Cup. “I had a support network of my teammates, the staff and the doctor,” she explained. “They are all obviously aware of what I go through daily, so we’d have regular check‑ins.” “If I was going to lose my mind, I would just go out for a coffee and chat about it.” Rose notes that fear of abandonment can trigger episodes for those living with BPD and she values the support of Saracens teammate Marlie Packer and Wales’ Carys Phillips. “There could be loads of noise [in a changing room], and I would just feel alone, like nobody likes me and I could basically be in an empty room,” she said. “But on the flip side, sometimes that noise can get a little bit too much. That’s when I just quickly get ready and take myself out.” “My teams are really good at letting me have my 5 minutes to myself, but they also know when I need an arm around me and they will give me that too.” Eighteen months ago Rose welcomed a new addition to her ‘support network’ when daughter Margot was born, something she says “changed her world”. An accompanying image shows Rose with her young daughter Margot after playing for Wales, captioned: Donna Rose became a parent in 2025. “On those days where I’m having a truly awful day, I come home and walk through the door and just see her smile at me, it just changes me completely,” she said. Rose now describes herself as an “open book” when discussing the condition she “lives with” rather than “suffers from”. “The reason I speak about my disorder so openly is because I want to help people around me,” she adds. “I know with a mental health disorder, you feel isolated, on your own and that you cannot be who you want to be.” “But I want to show everyone that even if you have a mental health disorder, that is not a full stop. You can push to thrive to be who you want to be.”