An honest and compelling memoir, Girl in Need of a Tourniquet is
Merri Lisa Johnson’s account of her borderline personality disorder and
how it has affected her life and relationships. Johnson describes the
feeling of "bleeding out" — unable to tell where she stopped and where
her partner began. A self-confessed "psycho girlfriend," she was
influenced by many emotional factors from her past. She recalls her
path through a dysfunctional, destructive relationship, while
recounting the experiences that brought her to her breaking point. In
recognizing her struggle with borderline personality disorder, Johnson
is ultimately able to seek help, embarking on a soul-searching healing
process. Equal parts literary experiment, psychological inventory, scholarly inquiry, and autoethnographic cultural intervention, Girl in Need of a Tourniquet is Lisa Johnson’s account of coming of age, coming out , coming to terms with grief , and becoming borderline .
