Borderline Personality Disorder

[Summer93]

Hi all,

I'm new to the forum and wanted to get some advice regarding my mental health.

I've been seeing a psychologist for a month or so now and it's going great. I really feel as though she is helping me identify and overcome so many bad habits. However, in my first session, she said I may have BPD and told me she may need me to do some cognitive tests (quizzes etc). I overthink a lot. When she gave me a schema test to fill out last week, I started to overthink it once I got home and now I can't help but think I really may have BPD, since the test is associated with it. I've been reading into it and, to be honest, I know I most likely have it. I don't want to be diagnosed with it because of the stigma associated with it, but I also really want to know. Does anyone have any experience with being diagnosed with BPD or know what the schema test could indicate? I feel like my psychologist is leading up to telling me I have it but she wants to be sure before, which is probably what this test could help with doing.

Thanks in advance.

[james1]

Hello Summer93,

Welcome to the forum! It's great that you have come here to talk about this.

I have been through Schema Therapy, DBT and TFP, yet never been properly diagnosed with BPD. I've had a few psychologists and psychiatrists, and finally settled on the current one but she is quite unwilling to give me a diagnosis as she doesn't think it's important.

I have not experienced any real stigma or other such mistreatment. If anything, I think any mistreatment has probably come because of my own actions and bad habits. You sound like you are trying to take more responsibility for your own actions and bad habits and that is really great. That's exactly the kind of attitude that it takes to really break our negative cycles and build good healthy habits.

Perhaps she is doing these tests in order to form a diagnosis, and I can understand your fear of being associated with a label. I was also afraid of this. But isn't that the point of the therapy anyway? To learn how to break away from the label? Once you can try to identify the bad habits, you'll be able to work on reducing them. If people can see that you're doing all this work, they'll respect that and see that there is nothing wrong with you as a person. You've just developed some bad habits, and you're trying to break them.

Hope that is of some comfort! Keep it up!

[romantic_thi3f]

Hey Summer93,

Welcome to the forums and thanks for joining us! I'm glad that you're seeing a psychologist and it sounds like they've been helpful so far although you're kind of stuck with the diagnosis; partly wanting to know and partly not?

I completely understand the stigma and misunderstandings associated with BPD. Somehow as a society we have more compassion for depression and anxiety then any other personality disorder. You only have to look at movies to see that characters with BPD are typically feared or incredibly dangerous, which is such a myth in real life.

With that said though, a diagnosis can also kind of be comforting. It explains things. There's a reason for what you're experiencing. You're not alone in how you're feeling and there's so many that have pretty similar experiences. What do you think is going to be more powerful or more helpful for you?

As for the schema test - here's what I can find out. There are certain things that psychologists/psychiatrists look for in the DSM-IV (the diagnostic manual) and the schema test can be a 'guiding tool' to help them see how clearly you might 'fit' in that box. Although there's a lot, some of the unhealthy ones they look for can be things like abandonment, shame, failure, abuse, dependence or approval-seeking. The higher-rated they are the more likely it can be that you may have BPD.

I hope that this helps a little!