Diagnostic Features

"To be emotionally naked before the world," Nick Viveiros writes, "is among the scariest things one can do." Diagnostic Features, his third poetry collection, chronicles Viveiros' experience living with borderline personality disorder, a complex mental health condition characterized by challenges with emotion regulation, fluctuating self-image, and difficulty managing interpersonal relationships. Utilizing the nine diagnostic criteria employed by psychologists to diagnose borderline in a clinical setting as a framework, Viveiros explores the central themes of his condition through a combination of prose pieces and poetic works. Raw, introspective and occasionally witty, Diagnostic Features relies on unconventional form and Viveiros' unique poetic style to dissect and explain the highly-stigmatized condition that defined his youth, adolescence and young adulthood.