Does it matter if I have borderline personality disorder?

[Doesitmatteranyway]

So years ago, when I was late teens/early 20s, I was treated by psychiatric team for a few years due to problems with low mood, anxiety, intrusive thoughts and self harm. I was a hospital inpatient 3 times and attended a day unit for 2 years. I made one suicide attempt. I left university in my first year and lived a chaotic life for a while, didn’t work, didn’t get on with my family, drank a lot and used drugs and spent all my money on random weird shopping sprees. I fell out with most people I knew.
I then got better and went back to university and have been working for nearly 20 years. I’m now happily married and had 2 kids and a few good friends. All this time I’ve continued to take medication (SSRIs) and have functioned ok as long as I take care to lead a kind of boring life with no drama. I try really hard to be a kind and useful member of society. I have a lot of guilt and shame about the way I was and I rarely talk about it.

Now I’m in my 40s. My 40s have thrown a few things my way. The loss of a parent, a physical health problem that is now resolved but left me with a lot of health related anxiety. I have been struggling on and off for a couple of years and also had some bother with perimenopause symptoms. I’ve been referred to psychiatry again and I am worried that there must be something very wrong with me.

when I was in my 20s my key worker suggested that I had a personality disorder. I responded by becoming very distressed and it was never mentioned again. It felt like he was trying to tell me I was a bad person and I couldn’t cope with the idea that I had something wrong ‘with me’ rather than an illness that could be treated and cured.

now I realise that I need to talk about this with the psychiatrist but does it really matter ? I worry that I may be a bad mother because maybe I am behaving in a way that is harmful to my children psychologically without even knowing that I am doing anything wrong. Maybe people see me as an odd person but that I don’t realise that I’m odd. Or maybe this is just my intrusive thoughts and anxiety causing these feelings ?

that all sounds really confused but I just feel really preoccupied with it. Does anyone have any experience of BPD and has recovered and then relapsed? Or had similar worries?

But then that is black and white thinking isn’t it as I have also encountered some wonderful people in healthcare both as a service user and a member of staff

I had an abusive childhood. My parents had a huge house and we had private school and from the outside my parents were praised. Except my father regularly beat me and punched me in the head for any little perceived misdeamour. He once came into my room having brought me a hifi unit the week before for a Christmas present it was playing on volume 1 he smashed it up with a hammer. I left home at 17 and went to uni and graduated and kept going back for approval I was trauma bonded.
I got married to a version of my father and divorced him after a year and then got pregnant and had a baby but a wealthy man who dumped me and has never seen his child. And so on - I accept I am probably a huge functioning autistic / my child both are. I accept I’m not good at relationships, red flags 🚩 or boundaries and 18 months of counselling has helped me enormously - after two years of Nc I met my parents to see that now they have no control over me they are sad, lonely, evil spiders sitting in their lonely deserted web, I am free.

I am aware anything can be a trigger from poor sleep to a traumatic tv show and I am kind to myself and low myself much more.

i take a mild antidepressant each day and I see this as going to be life long.

DD and I were both diagnosed with BPD at different times. I had a traumatic childhood so it made sense, but DD did not. Turns out we actually both have ADHD. So yes I think women with autism, adhd etc often get misdiagnosed as having BPD.

BPD seems to be a catch all term for a group of symptoms/behaviours, it’s a label and I don’t think a particularly helpful one. When I was told I had BPD I found myself dwelling on the past and blaming my parents for “breaking” me. Wishing I could be “normal” and thinking I would be suffering forever. Finding out I had adhd was a revelation. Everything made sense. I stopped focusing on the past and found lots of useful information on living with adhd.

I was in my 50s when I was finally diagnosed so I feel I “wasted” a lot of time. But I am happy that DD got her diagnosis at a much younger age and has been given a lot more help.

@MissEnolaHolmes I’m sorry for what you went through. I experienced something a little similar in childhood - my step father was very charming to all he met but had a dreadful temper at home. He called me ‘the whinger’ as I was a sensitive child who got upset easily and he would yell at us all. There was an awful atmosphere in the house as we were scared of angering him in some way. Often it would be something ridiculous like if your spoon touched your cereal bowl and made a ‘ting’ noise at breakfast. He used to punch me and my brother in the head if we talked in the bath as it made an echoing sound.

@Fuwari im glad you have found a way and techniques that help you lead a more fulfilling life. I hope your daughter is able to make the most of her life and fulfil her potential.

@Fuwari My DS 20 is diagnosed BPD and is on waiting list for adult adhd assessment. He was assessed as a child but not diagnosed. His psychiatrist says he is certain he has adhd.
For me, the more I read about adhd, the better the diagnosis fits, more so than BPD. Though he could have quiet type BPD.
There seems to be considerable overlap between BPD and ADHD- but also some very stark and obvious differences- and the picture is further complicated by common co-morbidities.