To think the stigmatisation of borderline personality disorder is awful

[PonderingBPD]

Most people with BPD have experienced alot of trauma, typically during childhood, hence the disorder which has alot of parallels to complex PTSD. It's not something people choose to have and is actually soul destroying to live with.

Why are people with the condition spoken of and thought of so negatively? It's essentially victim blaming.

AIBU?

I don't think anyone is trying to suggest a 'more palatable' diagnosis. It's not really a walk in the park having depression and complex PTSD either. But the latter DOES have a number of treatment options, unlike BPD, so I admit I don't quite understand why the OP wouldn't consider she has mis-diagnosed herself.

I am not just going by my own experience, I have known a lot of people in my life with combinations of depression and PTSD. Nothing the OP has said seems particularly out of place with those diagnoses.

This is incredible, I had no idea such a thing existed. Thank you for using your lived experience to help others with BPD.

I would love to access something like that but have such a deep-seated fear of 'outing' myself to my GP. I have three young children, the youngest of which is just 7 months old, and I'd worry that the diagnosis (or even the question mark being on my medical record) would raise red flags and trigger a social work referral.

Those fears aren't entirely unfounded as I know a couple of mothers who's capability has been brought into question due to their mental health.

Your post gives me hope that in time I may be able to access the help I need (DBT ideally) without fear of stigmatisation or reprisals.

Please do keep up your amazing work 🙏

No strings attached to autism?

I work with lots of people with bpd and eupd. Truthfully, the majority are supremely difficult.

I don't think it's comparable to autism tbh.

I have since apologised for drawing comparisons with autism. I used autism for reference with my DH in mind so didn't really look at the bigger picture.

If it helps, we don’t insist on a PD ‘diagnosis’ - people present to their GP reporting difficulty regulating their emotions, and that’s enough. They don’t have to say they have or think they have a PD. Yes most of them would meet the threshold for diagnosis, but like you were saying, unless you end up in secondary care you’re never going to get in front of a psychiatrist. And the NHS won’t refer you for PD treatments (STEPPS/DBT/MBT) WITHOUT the diagnosis.

So if you aren’t ‘bad enough’ to need secondary care there is no help for you, you don’t even get told the diagnosis so you know yourself what’s going on in your head and can explore self funding treatment options. There’s just nothing. So things get worse, until you DO end up in secondary care, and then you end up needing way more interventions and costing the NHS way more money than if they’d just helped you earlier in your life when you first asked!

One of the principles of our service is that there should be LESS barriers to accessing treatment, not more. The earlier people can start to learn the ‘why am I reacting to things the way I am’ and the sooner they learn the skills they need to master to manage disorder long term, the better for EVERYONE.

Sorry, but those of us who have lost energy, time and money to someone with BPD who uses their illness as an excuse to lie, manipulate and turn people against each other... There's a reason we take a dim view of it.

Yes, autism wasn't a good example to highlight.

I read that alot, about BPD patients being supremely difficult to work with, and that doesn't fit me at all. I'm agreeable to a fault actually. I've had CBT, EMDR and ACT therapy (not BPD related) and got on well with each therapist. I don't think any of them would label me as difficult.

I know lots of people with no MH issues who are very difficult to work with so it's not something exclusive to people with BPD.

As a previous poster mentioned you probably come across people with BPD all of the time and don't realise it because they don't fit into the stereotype of chaotic, difficult, troublesome etc.

The people most likely to be in contact with professionals with regards to BPD are likely to be the 'lower functioning' ones, who can be world's away from the 'higher functioning ones' who you would never guess had it.

Quiet BPD as mentioned above, I'm pretty sure that's the sub-type that I have. I wouldn't feel comfortable complaining at a restaurant let alone having fisticuffs with people or shouting at HCP's etc.

Can you not take a dim view of the individual without stereotyping a whole bunch of people who have nothing to do with that individual and would likely never behave in the way that they did?

I had a neighbour from hell once, they were of a particular demographic, I don't now think badly of all people in that demographic because you can't tar everybody with the same brush.

Not a great analogy I know, but I'm sure you'll get my drift.

So take a dim view of THAT PERSON - not everybody with the disorder.

There are 9 common traits - you only need any 5 for a diagnosis - every single person will present with some or all of those traits to greater or lesser degrees, it will also vary across their lifetime. There are over 150 possible combinations!

Put 150 people with BPD in a room and there will be some things they have in common, like any 150 people you put in a room. But they will all present uniquely. You cannot generalise. And I AM going to make a comparison with ASD here - because autistic people suffer stigma also as a result of blanket assumptions based on ‘what an autistic person looks like’. There is no such thing as a ‘typical autistic person’. There are traits that many autistic people may have in common. There is no such thing as a ‘typical BPD person’. There are traits that many people with BPD may have in common.

so how about we STOP manning sweeping derogatory and stigmatising assumptions about ANY group of people and instead treat each individual as exactly that - an individual.

and yes, some of them will be vile individuals - as you meet generally in life.

OP to answer you, I was traumatised by having a mother with BPD. Among all the negative experiences I encountered, one of the worst was never knowing what mood she would be in. It created an atmosphere of such uncertainty and instability. Her black and white thinking was profound, either everything was Great or it was Awful. There was manipulation and a lot of cruelty.

I do feel so sorry for a child whose parent has BPD, in any form, but I realise this is my bias due to my childhood. But I can't unlive my experiences, and sadly further contact with a friend with BPD cemented my view - she was exhaustingly self-centered, which seems to be a common trait?

PPs have linked to studies, but there is much evidence to suggest that BPD (and bipolar) are actually undiagnosed autism:

www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.735205/full

I'm sorry for what you went through, her BPD doesn't excuse any of it. Not one bit.

I suspect my mother has BPD too, a realisation I only came to recently as I'm now NC and had the mental space to reflect back over my childhood with her. I suppose I too am evidence that a parent with BPD can fuck you up.

However I don't see (or use) my BPD as an excuse to mistreat my children. I don't have that in me. I use her parenting as a template of how not to raise my children and I shield them from my emotional instability as best I can.

With regards to being self centered - I certainly believe I deserve better than / more than the way I've been treat in life (especially by my mother and previous partners) however for me that doesn't translate into being inheritantly selfish and only out for myself. I'm agreeable to a fault and tend to put others before myself, to my detriment, such is my desire to be loved / liked and accepted. Like PP, I end up in some pretty shitty situations by trying to put everybody else first. I do find myself thinking "but what about MEEEEE!" alot but that doesn't come out in my behaviour or treatment or others iykwim. I just get annoyed with myself.

This is a really good post 🙂

It's certainly an interesting theory, and very sad for those misdiagnosed. I would be lying if I said the thought hadn't fleetingly crossed my mind as i soent years ppndering what is wrong with me I'm as sure as I can be that it's not ASD. I'll do some more reading though and have made a note to look into all of the resources mentioned upthread about other diagnoses.

Unlike DH, DS and other autistic people I know I've never struggled with 'reading' other people or relating to them. I do fine socially. I'm very well in tune with my emotions, as up and down as they are. I can read between the lines well and don't struggle with sarcasm. All things my DH and other ASD adults I know tend to struggle with.

Bpd is not caused by childhood trauma, it's something that you either have or not like autism. The sooner people realise this then they won't think it's something that can be changed. My dd is autistic and has bpd, she certainly hasn't experienced trauma, she's just wired that way

Not all cases can be linked to childhood trauma but childhood trauma is extremely prevalent in people with BPD. People with Borderline Personality Disorder are 13 times more likely to report childhood trauma than people without any mental health problems.

Studies found a strong link between childhood trauma and BPD, which is particularly large when emotional abuse and neglect was involved.

That's not me saying you're in any way responsible or that she had a bad childhood, sometimes there just is no apparent reason, but for alot of us there is.

I’m convinced my mum had BPD. Text book behaviour. However she had no self awareness, an unbelievable superiority complex, thought she was always right and everyone else wrong so never sought any help because she couldn’t see a problem.

terrible mood swings, violent towards me as a child, would smash my bedroom up and throw stuff out the window if she felt my room was messy. So crazy over reactions. I remember once she rang me hysterical- I thought someone had died., turned out the internet wasn’t working. Very critical of me into adult life, would put me down constantly. Stabbed my dad. Fell out big time with every boss, friend, neighbour she ever had, always their fault obviously. 😬.

Like a similar pp I’d avoid someone with this diagnosis due to previous experience. Though having insight into it is good so I guess shows more capacity to change behaviour.

Blimey, that's alot to deal with as a child. I'm so sorry.

Stabbing your dad though - that sounds more psychopathic than typical of BPD. Obviously I'm not a specialist and shouldn't be throwing around the buzz word 'psychopath' but I know a few people with (diagnosed) BPD and I would bet my house on them never being a risk for stabbing somebody. I know I would never do that. No matter how angry I got. I hate to think that's the sort of behaviour that springs to mind for BPD.

Mental health aside your mother was absolutely cruel and failed you miserably. I hope you have found peace x

People want to #bekind and urge everyone else to #bekind about mental health, until they actually have to deal with people who suffer from poor mental health. Its very easy to post motivational pics on insta, it can be hard to deal with the fall out from someone struggling with a personality disorder.

Two of my closest friends are diagnosed BPD.
Friend A completely rejects her diagnosis
Friend B actively sought it after reading about BPD.

Both friends are prone to self destructive behaviours such as drinking too much alcohol, some drug use, drink driving, physical self-harm etc.

Neither friend has ever (to my knowledge) been violent to anyone other than themselves. The opposite actually, the idea of hurting and therefore pushing someone away is horrifying to them.

Friend A can be manipulative and tells a few porkies. Examples such as texting "goodbye" and switching her phone off then not answering the door. Lying about alcohol consumption or changing stories to change the narrative.
Friend A struggles with friendships, someone taking too long to text back will result in that person being blocked because A assumes they actually hate her and have hated her all along.

Friend B has a lot of fair weather friends because her risky behaviour can be fun for others (will party all night, skip work, dance til dawn etc.) If she has an audience. Friend B has been treated terribly by men all her life because ahe is eager to please can be easily manipulated.

Friend B is open to help and support and will accept it, Friend A cancels appointments last minute.

Friend B experienced childhood trauma, Friend A didn't.

Neither friend uses social media.

Both women are very different people, and a diagnosis of BPD doesn't change that, they still have their own personalities, quirks, likes, and dislikes, there is no one size fits all BPD person.

I actually know very little about BPD, despite I would say knowing a lot more about health and mental health than your average person. That to me suggests a woeful level of education on it and other personality disorders. I find also that even with the breaking of mental health taboos, personality disorders aren't being grouped under that umbrella, so people are very understanding of anxiety but not so much of bipolar etc.

Stabbing your dad though - that sounds more psychopathic than typical of BPD.

Actually, if you really want to dig down deep into
BPD, most of the recent published research shows that BPD and psychopathy share many common features and individuals with BPD score highly on tests for psychopathy.

Further to that, under stress, individuals with BPD revert to a secondary psychopathic state. The issue with that is that BPD is dissasociative so often, the individual is unaware of their behaviour and how it affects the people around them.

In these types of conversations there is always a chasm between people with experience of individuals with BPD who report them behaving in certain ways, and individuals with BPD who say they don’t engage in these behaviours.

And of course, BPD exists on a spectrum. Some people will be high functioning, some will be low functioning and then everything in between.

It is so important if you have a BPD diagnosis to be engaging with treatment, eg, DBT. But there are other treatment modalities available. If you have children, it is imperative to be doing this and doing it now.

To be clear: BPD and psychopathy are two completely seperate things. I’m not saying individuals with BPD are psychopaths. But I don’t imagine what I’ve said will come as a surprise to anyone who was raised by a BPD parent or has been in a relationship with someone with this disorder.

People with autism typically don't suffer from hallucinations, rapid speech, insomnia or hypersomnia, so I doubt this. Bipolar is more than mood swings.

BPD is a common diagnosis in prison populations. That's not to say all people with the diagnosis will end up there.

You also haven't been diagnosed so can't use yourself as an example of traits.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4825675/

psycnet.apa.org/record/2022-02596-001