You know what, I'm partly disabled (fairly newly). I have several illnesses that cause my physical energy as well as my emotional situation to rollercoaster, and unluckily for me, there ARE no (legal) medications for my disability. I just get to feel awful most of the time and just have to push through work when things get bad. I have been an interpreter and a teacher with this disease and NO ONE KNOWS except my boss, so I never, ever get to use it as an excuse.
When I say or do unpleasant things due to my being under the influence of a bad day for my disability, my apology to whomever (99% of the time it's my husband) does not include "it was the illness, it wasn't me." Yes, the illness put me in a position to say and do unfortunate things. I still did them myself, and I take full responsibility for them.
I wrote, I thought, a compassionate and thoughtful post responding to AB's request for info about health insurance in general chat. No response. AB asked straight out "should I be an interpreter" which I had answered in that post. Ignored, apparently. All this being the case I am with Etoile here. I don't have the patience to mollycoddle someone who I believe has proven himself to be in no position to be an effective interpreter; nor do I, any longer, have the energy to be positive with people who abdicate personal responsibility, illness or no illness.
And before you tell me I don't know about BPD, I used to work on a crisis hotline and spoke regularly to many, many people with BPD and other mental illnesses, both on and off their meds.