High River residents get a chance to learn about Borderline Personality Disorder Thursday night from an Okotoks mother of a young woman who suffered with it up until her tragic death.

Deb Sands daughter, Amy was killed when someone fired into a garage where she was seated on August 31, 2012.

The garage was frequented by people who used drugs and an argument had broken out during the morning and a man threatened to return with a gun.

Sands says people with the disorder usually lean to a high risk lifestyle.

"They're also sometimes at risk for suicide, so we didn't know any of this at the time, we just noticed that Amy, who'd always been a sensitive child suddenly as a teenager became very difficult," she says. "She very early got into soft drugs but as she got older she got into crystal meth and that became her addiction. Addictions go hand in hand with borderline personality disorder as well."

Deb Sands says she and her husband Ed, longtime Okotoks town councillor, wondered if they'd been overindulgent parents or they hadn't disciplined her the way she needed, adding their two other kids seemed to be fine but she always seemed to be having trouble.

She says while they were struggling with Amy she would come across to others as just a normal child.

Sands will be reading from her book, "A Moth to the Flame", Thursday Feb. 9 at 6:30 p.m. at the High River Library.

Proceeds from sales of the book, now in its second printing, go to McMan Youth Family and Community Services Association who help families such as the Sands deal with this disorder.

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