“I Don’t Want to Live Like This Anymore”

Abstract

This article reports on interview data gathered from 27 young people involved with a street-level service for young people considered “at risk” of diagnosis of personality disorder. Interviews with a self-selecting sample of young people explored the events that led to their initial contact with the service. Using Silverman’s twin-track approach, narrative analysis provided a description of “how” these young people describe their lives in terms of “I don’t want to live like this anymore” while “what” they describe provides an often harrowing account of dangerous relationships and social isolation. In the process, we draw on a theoretical framework developed from the work of Pierre Bourdieu, particularly, his notion of crisis. This is used to locate individual experiences in a broader social context and to suggest that policy and intervention aimed at reducing crisis, promoting reflexivity, and supporting stable adult relationships are key to developing less destructive life styles.