To think people with eupd aren’t taken seriously when struggling

[User30372]

A friend of mine has repeatedly told professionals that she didn’t feel safe and was going to do something. She’s now seriously unwell in hospital and I just feel if people listened to her she wouldn’t be in that position. I’m sure she will be sent back into the community despite this. I know inpatient care isn’t the answer to everything but surely for someone at such high risk it should be considered not dismissed due to a diagnoses.

Also, to add to this, sometimes 'labels' overlap...the main link is with psychosis, is it is linked to severe stress and trauma. People with schizophrenia, often have difficult childhoods, rates are higher in ethnic minorities, refugees, people who moved around a lot in childhood and people who were bullied...I really think arguing over these labels doesn;t help that much.

It's unfair if people think just personality disorders are linked to abuse, sometimes they are sometimes not. people are all different / individual.

Also having read quite a bit on mental health these diagnoses can sometimes depend a lot on the country / psychiatrist / context and can even change with time. There's a lot of criticism of the DSM guide anyway and how it was made up, interesting reading.

Basically it is a lot more complex than it can first seem..

And you can say you weren't "talking about all people with EUPD" but that was the implication. Someone said they were saddened by how people speaj about those with thedisorser, and you're response was "really?" as if you shouldn't be saddened, and then you tell of ylur daughter who was abused by her mum with EUPD, aa if that is justification for the stigma. Loads of Bipolar mums fuck their kids up, does that mean we can't be sad about how they are perceuved in general?

@kateybeth79 - glad to hear it worked so well for you. I completely agree medication needs sorting first. I've been very lucky to have had a lot of support from the NHS. I had 7 months on an acute to stabalise me enough for on-going treatment. I was in a place where I couldn't comply with my medication in the community so hospital really helped. I then moved to an EUPD unit where my meds were further honed by a psychiatrist with a high level of experience of EUPD. I have completed a year of DBT and it has helped massively. My s/h is almost nil now. I'm doing CBT now with the hopes that I can then be discharged to do schema or truama therapy in the community. I'm hoping to be able to go to a DBT group too to help with the transition of using DBT skills in the community.

@Orangeblossom78 - I agree it is very complex. However the most important reason to get the right 'label' is to get the correct treatment.

I think it's a fucking cop out of a diagnosis that is then used as an excuse not to help people. Really it's a massive umbrella which anybody who doesn't fit the criteria for another distinct condition gets put under. It groups the vulnerable, anxious, depressed, traumatised and suicidal with the psychotic, narcissistic, manipulative and abusive. Obviously some people who try to commit suicide do so for a reaction, but others who try to commit suicide are then given the same diagnosis when their intentionally was entirely different. Some want to be the centre of the universe, others just want to die quietly after living horrible traumatic lives. It'd also horribly misogynistic. One criteria is promiscuity, which in men is judged differently than in women. That's just not acceptable in anyway. I think we need to look at some sub types and at modernising the definitions (and defining them clearly) around terms such as promiscuity.

I think they need to start being honest about medication, hospitalisation and treatment too, just because the statistics say that EUPD sufferers in GENERAL don't respond well to medication or hospitalisation but do to DBT, if you get somebody on the far side of DBT who is incredibly anxious they may be better treated as having an anxiety disorder and unable to take part in DBT groups, for instance.

I wish they could be more honest and say "we don't have the beds, we don't have the support in hospitals" and that "we don't have the right medication to treat it so so far it is not always treatable with Medication, but it works well for some" instead of "medication probably won't work."

People with an EUPD diagnosis deserve to be treated fairly and with respect, not branded attention seekers and ignored.

@AmazingGreats - promiscuity isn't one of the 9 symptoms of EUPD (it can come under impulsivity - but that includes lots of other impulsive behaviour too). People should only be diagnosed with EUPD if they clearly have at least 5/9 symptoms. However I agree at least by some not very up to date psychologists it can be used as an umbrella as you say.
Best practice is to treat the symptoms with medication and offer DBT therapy. But I think many with EUPD just slip through the net which is very sad.

@UndertheCedartree

I know that they do ask women if they have casual sex and use that to match one of the criteria, sorry if I've got the wording wrong.

@AmazingGreats - that again is a very out of date opinion. Yes, there is no drug that cures EUPD but I've not seen anyone with EUPD not respond favourably to medication to treat the symptoms. And you're right someone can't just be thrown into DBT - firstly they need to be assessed properly to see if DBT is the correct treatment. There are other therapies that may be more suitable and have shown to be good for treating EUPD. If the person is highly anxious they need medication to deal with that first before they can engage in therapy.
I think you're on to something that sometimes a professional uses the incorrect statement 'EUPD can't be treated' as an excuse for 'there aren't any beds/not enough care cos/not enough therapists' etc.

@AmazingGreats - you didn't get the terminology wrong - I was just saying promiscuity of itself isn't a criteria but could come under 'impulsivity'. But asking women if they have casual sex and implying that means they are promiscuous is very wrong!

Well, no, but having unsafe sex where you ae in danger is what they mean, or should be looking for, that was one of my destructive behaviours when I was a teenager. Oh hey guy I vaguely know, do I wanna get in your car with 4 other men I've never met at night? Sure, why not, let's do it for the thrills and if you abuse me wl, I deserve it anyway.

For me, it was about purposefully putting myself in sexually vulnerable positiins with older or dangerous men, and also because I equated being sexually desired as value/my worth as a girl, I wanted all the sexual attention I could get, from anyone.

@zurina - yes, exactly having sex impulsively where it could put you in danger would come under 'impulsivety' - however that is not the same as 'casual sex'.

@Zurina

That was my point, that a lot of those things are poorly defined. Lots of people have impulsive behaviour, but there's a big difference between having a one night stand with somebody you fancy the pants off and the kind of liaison you are talking about.

Sorry X posted a bit there

I think the lumping together of a mental health condition and a personality disorder are the biggest issue. They are different things. Separating the "EU" from the "PD"

I've shared my home with two people with diagnosed EUPD, they certainly were nothing like the posters who talk so eloquently of not being manipulative, of not regularly threatening to commit suicide and of not flying into rages over some perceived rejection.
My experience is something I will never recover from despite having had therapy to do so for months.
I understand EUPD, there's not much I haven't read and not much I haven't experienced living with and the question I always am left with is if these dreadfully hurt and damaged people feel so much pain, then why the hell do they think they have the right to try to bring people down with them? Why the vitriol and the poison directed at loved ones? Why the grudges against anyone who doesn't agree with their behaviour and calls them out on it?
It's hardly surprising I guess that on a board such as MN a person with EUPD would actually post that they are vile to loved ones, that they are spiteful and vindictive, that they rage and smash things up.......
It's the same on BPD boards with people with the diagnosis constantly stating how misunderstood they are and the loved ones stating just how their lives have been destroyed being around them

Obviously some people who try to commit suicide do so for a reaction

Usually, it's about proof of love. Some people with EUPD have a hard time mebtalising and can't fathom love existing within the person without it being physically demonstrated through action. In this report, which uses anon accounts from therapists about service users (at the service I use coincidentally), obe therapist detailed how a EUPD patient started sleeping on the hospital grounds because "if she couldn't see the service, it was iut of sight and out of mind, it didn't really exist", it was a real need.
In similar way, we struggle to know that love from a person towards us exists when not explicitly expressed. Or when the person is distant. This can lead to attempts to get the person close again, to demonstrate the love. But it doesn't come from a place of "lets manipulate this person to say they love me or do X" it really is a belief that that person does not love you or care about you like you do them.

Oh, I wasn't trying to validate them asking about casuak sex, I was trying to agree that they shoukd be looking fir destructuve dangerous impsive sexuak encounters, not one night stands or FWB or simply having lots of sex with many people.

Also sorry for all the typos - I turned auto correct off because it kept correcting my swear words probably should turn it back on!

I didn't just mean people with EUPD, there are some narcissists/abusers who use it as a technique to control their partner or stop them leaving or to control child contact etc. I think for the most part suicide is born out of desperation for love, for help, or out of a genuine desire to die. It's a belief that nobody loves them or that they are upsetting others, so I don't think it's often a selfish act. It's a desperate one if it's for love or help, and it's a tragic and final one if it's for a desire to die. And the response is so often "well you didn't really mean to if it didn't work/you asked for help" FFS do we want the person to just try harder next time? Surely we want to find any way we can of making sure they don't get to that place again not say they are "just" attention seeking. But there are people who do do it to manipulate people too; there are always few bad apples. But they should not be used to represent the whole.

@itsalmostspringagain - I think the point we are trying to make is some people are manipulative, some people are toxic, some people fall out with family and hold grudges - but none of that is within the symptoms of EUPD. So yes, some people with EUPD are manipulative as some people without EUPD are manipulative. I have never aimed poison and vitriol against my DC and I think if I had SS would have something to say about it. But obviously to take a wider context very damaged people often act in ways that are misunderstood by others and by themselves. And many people due to old stigmas and beliefs don't get the treatment for EUPD that they need.

I could send my husband and daughter on to talk about our relationships? My daughter would happily tell you of our fantastic relationship where I am trusted 100%, we're very close and I was the first person to pick up on her anxiety and get her help. My husband could tell you how the only person I've ever hurt is myself and how even after self harming I hide it from him for as long as humanly possible.

I don't know why @itsalmostspringagain you are so determined for us all to be monsters, we're really not, some of us might be but please don't tar us all with the same brush. It's the same as saying everyone with PND is a risk to their child because some have gone on to developed psychosis and kill their children, or that all dogs are evil because some have killed. It's unfair and cruel.

I think it's seen as attention seeking because many take overdoses so often that people end up thinking 'well, surely you know by now that half a pack of tablets is unlikely to kill you, especially when you immediately phone for help' .
Sad, but that's the way people see it, that's certainly how I thought about it with my dsis.
I now try to think of her actions as 'attention needing', which does help me not to just go NC with her.

I don't know why @itsalmostspringagain you are so determined for us all to be monsters
Er because that is my experience.
My understanding is EUPD is primarily a disorder where the sufferer swings between love for someone one minute and hate the next. It's no surprise therefore that sufferers will always have difficulty in maintaining healthy relationships, it's the nature of the illness.
I really don't want to be unkind but your child is probably young, most young children will hero worship their parents, warts and all. And most adults who choose to live long term with a person with EUPD will have co dependent tendencies