Part of my life I thought I cannot have Borderline as I have not been abused as a kid. Another part of my life I thought that I am a very special case of Bordeline that developed without child abuse. And only recently, at the occasion of educating myself on the topic of abuse, I realised that I have been heavily abused, and by both parents, as well as my cousin. Mostly emotionally, but also a bit physically.
It is funny how the way you grew up always seems the most normal, regardless of what it really was. For example, I realised that as a grown up I have been heavily making excuses for my father who was hitting me on the head with no warning nor logic when I was little. I thought it was not a big deal, as he actually didn't mean it. He didn't mean to hit me, he just cannot control himself when he gets angry. So that's why I thought that this could not have been an abuse. Ahhhhh, right on the spot, that was exactly the fault in my thinking: it actually makes little difference whether the hurting was intentional or not.
There is many types of abuse and some of them are really sneaky - but when one starts educating oneself on the topic, they may found out that their most normal and happy childhood that strangely felt terrible, didn't feel terrible for no reason. Sounds so simple, doesn't it? But it took me really a lot of time to actually get it.
I hold nothing against my parents, and I know they did the best they could. I am not sure at all if I could do any better, or even as good as them. They are not bad people. They have their own emotional problems which they did not learn to handle before having children. And then they didn't learn it afterwards either, as they had to use all the energy on taking care of us. It is also likely that with another genetic setup their behaviours would not do me as much harm as they did. It's all a combination of different factors.
But it's good to be aware. It's the first step. First realise, then understand and forgive, and finally feel compassion towards yourself. I am still trying to get to the last one, it's the most difficult.