Borderline Personality Disorder

[MyGastIsFlabbered]

I've been reading a lot about this and fit so many of the characteristics of it, been on ADs for years, and always assumed I had severe chronic depression. Can I just walk into my Dr and say I think I have it? Does anyone know what is involved with a diagnosis?

Gast and Feeling, it'd be best if you went to the GP and told them you're concerned for your own mental wellbeing. Tell them the feelings you're experiencing, but don't actually name any psychiatric conditions - leave that to them. It's very true that they're disinclined to take you seriously if they believe you've gone ahead and self diagnosed.

Your feelings are valid and you both clearly want some help processing them, and some reassurance. If this help comes in the form of support from a mental health team, so be it, but it really is best to let them do the diagnosing.

The name Borderline Came from the initial belief that it was between psychosis and neurosis. They know that is not the case anymore. Professionals call it 'Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder' but I prefer 'Emotional Dysregulation Disorder.' That sums it up, basically- one is not able to regulate one's emotions.
One can have the condition and be high-functioning - holding down a job, getting on with life day to day or one can be low-functioning- struggling to leave the house, unable to work and so on. It's a tough illness, made even tougher by the fact that most people don't understand it. The name doesn't help, either. It shares many similarities with C-PTSD and is often associated with a very unhappy childhood. Many people who have it were abused - physically, emotionally and/or sexually when they were very young.
I find that there is more understanding amongst medical professionals than there used to be.

I'm BPD - high-functioning they used to call me. Not so much these days. It's just so fucking exhausting. Emotions 0-60 all day every day.

Although tbh why is it I am considered crazy for having strong emotions? It perplexes me that people can move on so quickly from relationships - takes me years.

I struggle with self-harm (food, fags, booze, other) and suicidal stuff. When I'm bad I can't leave the house because everything is just an opportunity.

Am currently trying to get pip - dunno if I'll get it being as I'm really fucking good at playing the normal game. Need to up my gurning for the interview.

Hate the "manipulative" label - so damaging. Wouldn't dare try and manipulate someone - what if I were to be rejected?

Am just so fucking tired of it all - read a report from an Ivy League uni not long ago - seems we are 400 times as likely to commit hari-kari as the general population.

Am sick of the constant chitter-chatter in my head.

MyGast I respond to applause with tears, that's pretty weird and even Dr Google couldn't find anything about it

Happiest why can't your friend work?

OP I also have BPD and I interrupt and I don't have a 'professional persona'. I misinterpret everything to do with social activities.

MummySparkle - how was your Asperger's diagnosed?

I've found my people.
I've had PTSD since childhood, legacy of being dragged through the 'care' system. At the age of 4 I was in a psychiatric unit for children for an assessment, I didn't get my SS file until my early twenties, it said I failed to make attachments and I had an immature attention seeking personality disorder, would need long term residential care.
I did well considering everything, I had a career own house Married had three children, had a few break downs at times when life got too difficult.

I was treated for depression, although nothing seemed to help.
DH was very supportive, my inlaws were a nightmare. After sixteen years together our world was rocked by my DH having cancer. After two years of caring for him he died, it's almost eight years ago now but I don't feel like I've been the same since, people around me allowed me some time for grieving but they think I'm 'OK' now. I'm not.
I then got a diagnosis of bipolar PSTD, psychologist said it could be BPD, I fit both really. I've had loads of talking therapy, but I always felt worse afterwards as it would stir everything up then I had to shove it back in a box until my allotted time a week later, doesn't anyone else feel like that?
I'm not sure if it's all down to my childhood experiences. The stress of my children's ASD or the death of my DH, the reality is it's probably all of those things.
I've not been able to do paid work for many years, I do voluntary when am well.
Fuck that was a bit of an outpouring of stuff, I find I can't talk to people face to face so I store it all up, online feels easier for me.

I've name changed for this thread. I have a BPD diagnosis (got diagnosed in 2003). I had classic symptoms throughout my teens and early twenties. I self harmed for years, took a number of overdoses and attempted suicide. I was hospitalised twice.

I then managed to hold things together for thirteen years. Sorted out my life, got my degree, worked in the City as a lawyer.

Having thought it was all behind me I ended up relapsing spectacularly at the end of last year and am still trying to get back to normal.

All I can say, from my experience, is that I don't tell people about the BPD. I haven't told family and very few friends are aware. I also have major depressive episodes, which seems far more socially acceptable than a personality disorder. The contempt at which I've been treated with, back when I was in my early twenties, from various healthcare professionals, was ghastly. Personality disorders seem to bring out the worse judgment from a significant number of people.

I haven't engaged with NHS mental health services this time around - I'm fortunate to have been able to go private and access DBT with a private clinical psychologist. I don't want to be judged or labelled or face the kind of horror I had to last time around and I fear that NHS services won't have changed in the intervening period.

All I can say, from my own experience, is be very, very careful as to what kind of label and diagnosis you want. Having that on your medical records is not something to be taken lightly. There is still a massive stigma. It doesn't help that personality disorders are very difficult to treat as well, which means a lot of the time, you'll be written off by local mental health services, who don't want to take the time or effort to try and deal with you.

I'm sorry to be so overwhelmingly negative. Others may have different experiences. Good luck, in any event, OP.

I think high functioning would be the term to describe me, atm. Like I said, I have had to make pretty major changes in my life to be able to function though.

I have also been told that bpd (somehow I prefer that to unstable personality disorder, that makes me feel even more nuts!) is untreatable. I have requested dbt though which I cannot have until my current talk therapy has finished, which will most likely be a very long time.

I have major issues with my identity and knowing who I am. Others would say I have a strong personality but it feels like something I put on in the morning with my clothes and make up to be honest. This is what is confusing about bpd, to others that seems fake and manipulative but it's not. I often 'borrow' in incorporate parts of other people's personalities into mine if I like them, I have to be really careful though, I found myself taking in quite destructive traits from a guy who made it very obvious that he fancied me.

Does anyone else get that? I find men tend to generally be over friendly with me, my friends tell me I have lost of 'fans' (that sounds really big headed and it's not, honest) I am reasonably pretty but I often wonder if I am obviously a vulnerable woman and that this is attractive to some sorts of men? (Luckily I married a man who is not like that at all, I just seem to attract them in life generally)

Others would say I have a strong personality but it feels like something I put on in the morning with my clothes and make up to be honest.

Me too. I work in a tattoo shop and you need the hide of a fucking rhino to take the 'banter' (hate that word!) we regularly throw at each other. For me it's like putting on a mask every day.

I often wonder if I am obviously a vulnerable woman and that this is attractive to some sorts of men?

And this. Before I married DH, I was a complete and utter twat magnet. I attracted arrogant, selfish, controlling and abusive men who seemed to revel in tearing down women with strong personalities (ha!).

A psychotherapist once had difficulty describing how I came across, he said needy was the wrong word, but there was something very vulnerable about me that he couldn't put his finger on.

clona

That fits with me too, bad childhood and also abused in early relationships (I mean literally when I was a child, like 14 "going out" with "men" in their 20s )

it's interesting to hear that other people don't have a sense of who they are. i am different things to different people. actual me is just...blank. i don't know who i am and when i'm alone i just zone out and disassociate a lot of the time.

at the moment i'm a little bit obsessed with the idea of ECT. my depressive disorder keeps on rolling and i've been on a shedload of meds since 2012. does anyone have any experience of this?

OP, given you have been seen before by mental health professionals, it might have been picked up if you had shown behaviours such as: unstable personal relationships, difficulty engaging with therapy, difficulty holding down a job, self harming or suicidal behaviour. Were any of those the case? Often mental health involves stepped care, so you go through the treatment for common mental illness before you get stepped up to the more severe end, like personality disorder. There are treatments which can help. DBT and MBT are probably the best options.

Feeling that is almost my exact history! My therapist took a long time getting me to accept the term 'groomed' but now I see that now.

Beauty I agree, I seem to have a strong personality and don't seem outwardly vulnerable but I think I have an air of something like that about me that seems to attract fairly self centred guys who either want a challenge or to save someone. Problem is I seem to still attract them even though I'm married and my rock bottom self esteem makes me vulnerable to even small 'advances'. I have to be careful to keep away as much as possible

exWife, I had ECT some years ago. It didn't do a great deal for me, just knackered my short term memory - it did improve over time, but it's still not what it was. If your depressive symptoms outweigh manic ones, it might be worth looking into, but I'm not sure if it's a widely used treatment.

fairly self centred guys who either want a challenge or to save someone

Yes to both of these, Kitty. One ex from years ago used to boast that he'd 'made me a better person'!

Please just bear in mind something my own CPN once said: "everyone has some disorder of personality". The traits involved in PDs are, to some extent, present in the general population. It's when they're so strong that they interfere with work, relationships and quality of life to the point where treatment is warranted that they become diagnostically significant.

I am concerned that people are Googling lists of qualities and taking them literally. There is a hell of a lot of nuance involved in a good psychiatric assessment, and something as serious as a PD will take years to accurately diagnose. There is overlap between many conditions, and many psychiatrists may even disagree on a diagnosis for a patient because the lines between them are so subtle.

There is a strong BPD "internet culture" with individuals grouping together, and in some ways it seems to intensify and concentrate peoples' perceptions and views of the world in a way that could be considered unhealthy.

A disorder of personality is a very serious diagnosis and has a lot of stigma attached because "you are the condition" rather than being a person with a condition. I would not suggest anyone pursue a diagnosis lightly. Think carefully about what you'd like to get out of it.

When I was diagnosed BPD for a while, I got a leaflet on DBT and was told that there was no cure. They later found out I was bipolar and my treatment has been very different. I was very relieved to find out I didn't have BPD. Sometimes depression causes the black and white thinking that PDs experience. A good psychiatrist will treat any underlying mood disorder before leaping to a PD diagnosis.

And though it's good for people to discuss PD ways of looking at the world with each other, there's a risk of becoming obsessed with the label. I had a friend diagnosed with BPD who leant heavily on the PD/eating disorder online world and nearly everyone she interacts with now has BPD. This has potentially stunted her recovery because every time she feels the world at large has wronged her, she goes to other people with PD echo chamber for support/reassurance that it's everyone else's fault, instead of focusing on her own behaviours and working on that.

Field I agree, especially as someone with bpd, sometimes a label can 'become' the person. I found after my bipolar diagnosis I became slightly obsessed with being the label and being a good version of bipolar.

My pd has taken years, a breakdown and a pretty significant event to be diagnosed. It was mentioned I had 'traits' alongside my bipolar. Looking back and looking more carefully at symptoms it was very obviously not bipolar (too rapid and not long enough manic) and more bpd. However, that is all in hindsight.

It has been really good hearing from other who have said they do or feel the same. However, it is important to me to keep remembering that this thinking and way of feeling is disordered. However, it helps me feel it is not me but a disorder.

I know lots of people take to diagnosis very personally, how can you not, it's a personality disorder. However, I am so used to mental health labels that I see them as just that, a label to describe a set of disordered feelings or thinking that is not who I am but part of who I am.

I hope you don't mean me, Field. I have mentioned BPD before and been shot down by other people who claim I don't know what I am talking about. Well, I do. I am not just googling the Internet. I have diagnosed BPD (by two different psychiatrists at 2 different times). My illness is as a result of very bad abuse and rape experiences, but I have had good therapy and I am as well as it is possible for me to be, right now.

Not sure if this has been posted but there is a really good website called BPD central.

Are any of you on meds? I've had AP's + ad's in the past. Currently medicating with Valium and booze as shrink is reluctant to prescribe meds. I feel I need something as I'm not doing well (coming up 24 months of bad patch).

Not at the moment. I was on lamotrogine which worked really well. I came off it to conceive and was never put back on. I manage my symptoms with diet, exercise, reducing stress and therapy.

They recently talked of medication after my last crisis but for some reason lamotrogine is off the cards (too expensive I think) 3 of the mws options were tricyclics that send me manic and 1 had a weight gain side effect, not an option as I also have ednos and weight gain would be the end for me!

i take venlafaxine (300mg), quetiapine (400mg) and mirtazapine (30mg). i'm also on Tramadol and pregablin for chronic pain.

i'm medicated for my depressive disorder. it seems to go in 2-3 month cycles of ok then i crash. i recently started mirtazapine and i can go up to 45mg if i need to - got a docs appointment in a couple of weeks.

my sleep is terrible but the GP won't prescribe sleepers for me as i'm a recovering alkie - my notes state that i'm likely to hoard sedatives - i have overdosed a couple of times.

i'm horrifically fat. i hate it and it doesn't help the self-loathing!

I take lamotrigine (200mg), and my psychiatrist allows an emergency prescription of a week's worth of lorazepam for if and when I hit a crisis point - he authorised it for my doctors' surgery, so I don't have to wait for an appointment with him to get it.

It'd take me forever to list past meds. I've taken pretty much every antipsychotic bar clozapine, which I understand to be very much a last resort and anyone prescribed it in my area has to be monitored by a dedicated clozapine clinic. My psychiatrist stopped prescribing them for me after the side effects became unbearable - I couldn't look after my DC properly when I was on them.

Valproate made my hair fall out, and I was told I should never have been prescribed it in my early 20s, due to its teratogenic nature and the fact it affects fertility sometimes. Lithium was awful too. My psychiatrist won't prescribe antidepressants as they've always made me manic. It's been such a nightmare trying to find something that's worked.

exWife, I'm in recovery too, but I'm often given small doses of zopiclone - 2 or 3 days' worth - as sleep deprivation for me is absolutely catastrophic for my mood cycles.

I take pregabalin for anxiety and chronic pain but I don't feel like it does much so I'm about to start coming off it. I take amitriptyline for sleep and I have quetiapine for sleep too (tried low dose mirtazipine but that had the reverse effect) but again I'm not sure it works so I don't really take it. I took fluoxetine during university and basically slept through half of it. If I don't take the amitriptyline I can't sleep at all anymore. I was diagnosed after 8 years bouncing around in the system, self-harming daily and living in utter chaos. Things have only really calmed down since DH because he's very emotionally closed. My first psych doctor refused to put me inpatient even when I was suicidal because he said I'd wind myself up focusing on it too much and I definitely think he had a point, although my relapses now are quieter and more about me losing my grip on reality.

The psychiatric unit in my city only has 8 beds - they'll do anything and everything to avoid admitting inpatients, even when they're actively suicidal, likely to harm others too, and should be considered for section (one chap I know very nearly succeeded in cutting his own throat. They STILL wouldn't admit him).

It's a very sad state of affairs.

My gp gave me amiltryptiline last summer - and I hit crisis - have since learned it's not recommended for BPD. My team don't want to give me meds but I feel I need lamotrigone or similar - lithium was spoken of years ago.