Diagnosed with BPD what does this mean?

[SarahLulu]

Hi guys,

today I went and saw a new psychiatrist I told her my history and she asked about my childhood etc. Towards the end she started talking about personality disorders and said that because I'm 18 can't officially diagnose me but I fit the diagnostic criteria (I also have depression and anxiety). She wrote it down and told me to research it a bit. When I called my mum and told her she was like in denial nup you don't have that I want to talk to the psychiatrist. Everytime someone comes in the hospital (shes a nurse) with BPD all the nurses go oh here we go, they are all attention seekers. I said to her I havent done anything for attention! I reasoned with her a bit and she did her own research and spoke to the psychiatrist at work.

I'm not sure what it means - I only no of the stigma attached to it. I don't know how to feel and react even though it explains my previous impulsive suicidal behaviour.

Mum's telling me everyone with BPD are manipulative and attention seekers. I didn't fully understand BPD myself and thought that people with borderline were a bit manipulative. But I'm not.

There's a lack of education surronding mental illness and I feel like depression is slowly getting accepted, however BPD it scares me to be associated with it. It saddens me that the world is like this.

[james1]

Hey SarahLulu,

I've seen you on the forums before...I don't know if I mentioned but I've been going through therapy for BPD.

So I'm 25 now and perhaps the best way to think about BPD is to actually step away from any preconception and even from the diagnostic criteria.

If you think about the diagnosis, they say you need 5 of 9 criteria. But what if you have four? Then you're okay? So you can see how the diagnosis is flawed.

Personality disorders, if they can even be called that, are better left to psychologists usually because they tend not to treat it as a diagnosis. The issue, at its core, is often just a very heightened emotional response to certain things. For me, it's anything my mum says - I get antsy around her - or a fear of friends leaving me.

All the stuff about being manipulative...I didn't think I was either until I noticed my behaviour. But manipulative is not part of the diagnosis. Manipulative behaviour is just a symptom of a very core fear, so that fear could present itself in different ways for different people.

I don't know whether you do have it or not. Impulsive behaviour is certainly a trait of BPD, but its a trait of many things too. If you think of BPD as a spectrum instead, perhaps you lie somewhere on that.

If you are seeing the psychiatrist again, you could ask them why they think you have BPD, especially if you're not convinced. But I think the best thing to do is to have a think about whether you might want to see a psychologist about therapy. Whether you have BPD or not, that kind of impulsive behaviour is often symptomatic of something and a combination of medication and therapy is often best for BPD symptoms.

I hope you feel comfortable replying 🙂

James

[Guest_989]

Hi Sarah!!

I have BPD and know a great deal about symptoms, causes, treatments and such.

It's a common misconception that BPD sufferers are attention seeking. In reality the emotional pain they burden inside becomes so much that in order to relieve their symptoms/pain they self harm, act recklessly, abuse substances etc

These behaviours appear to be attention seeking to people who do not understand what they are doing.

In reality the Bpd sufferer is doing the opposite, they are attempting to self relieve there pain.

The problem with these self relief techniques that while they do offer short term relief the symptoms will reappear until they learn how to deal with them using mindfulness and dbt techniques.

Even if you do get diagnosed with Bpd it is not something to be ashamed of or worried about. It's highly treatable and you can live a normal life