BPD - Any advice

[BPDandme]

Hi All,

I was recently told I have Borderline personality disorder. To be honest I had never even heard of it.

Does any one else have it? Any tips on how to manage myself?

I feel I 'accidently' helped myself for a while by going to AA as I was abusing alcohol. I don't drink now it is not a good idea for me. I got sick of AA too dragging up the same things week in week out with the same people. But I am eternally grateful for what I did get from there.

A lot of the things about BPD ring extremely true, especially for in my 20s. I am early 30s now. Am I passed the worst of it? I was going through a bad phase when I was told I have BPD. I don't even know exactly what it is still.

Does it mean there is something wrong with me?

Have you read the NHS page explaining it?
https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/borderline-personality-disorder/overview/

There is nothing at all wrong with you. Have you experienced any trauma in your life?

Well done for getting on top of your drinking.

Who told you? Do you mean you've been diagnosed or someone else in a clinical capacity has told you you meet the diagnostic criteria?

BPD is a good diagnosis to get as there is a very good recovery rate if you get the correct treatment - eg it's not something you necessarily have for life.

DBT is the gold standard treatment for BPD. It can be hard to access on the NHS but can be sometimes (like everything, waiting lists etc) and may be easier to access privately.

There is nothing wrong with you, you have learned how to cope with and perceive life in particular way due to your experiences and who you are.

Therapy can be helpful for coping with the challenges faced by people with BPD, and this is offered by mental health services. Medication doesn't generally do much , but it can help some people some of the time.

I am not convinced that mental health services are the best service to help everyone ( or even many people ) with this diagnosis. The kind of peer support and space to talk you had at AA is probably a better model than what the NHS has on offer.

Be kind to yourself, you are still you and a diagnosis of BPD doesn't take away from that or define you in anyway . 💐

@SparklingMarkling until a while ago I probably would have said no. I was always told I was dramatic/ thought too much/ over reacted. Told you are fine. Told to cop on/ snap out of it.

My GPs who I loved mostly raised me. My mum saw me a few times a year. Haven't met my dad. My mum decided she wanted me to live with her aged 12. I had a sort of step dad. He wasn't physically abusive. But very very controlling. It's hard to describe and I know this is miniscule but it is a way I can easily remember what he was like. If I polished the coffee table in the sitting room I had to be very careful to take things off one as a time, polish, then put it back into the exact right spot. But he still wouldn't do it himself! Mum used not be allowed into the sitting room, she eat in the kitchen, I eat at the dining room table and he eat on the couch. I was allowed watch TV with him. But he was weird he sometimes put on porn/ other very unsuitable shows.

Him and my mum used to drink way too much. I thought drinking was just what you did. We used to go drinking together also. Off on big pub crawls all day (me and step dad) from about age 16. One time though I hadn't eaten all day I got a take away (noodles) I put half it on my plate when we got home. He said don't eat all that or you will end up a fat b#tch like your mum. At that point I was about a size 8 I had previously been size 6 and you could see my all my chest bones. Him and my mum were no longer together at this point but I still saw him regularly because I stupidly thought I loved him and he loved me(in a dad way). I do think in his own way he did love me. He has since died.

I still have a faint scar of a cross on my leg where I 'tried to carve some good into me' when I was about 14.

With my GPs they had loads of kids, and some were close to my age. I have gotten over this, but I used to feel very excluded. Still do sometimes. Like I am told I was raised the same and 'I am one of them' but then also told things like 'will you get out of this pic, we want one of just the close family, we will take one with you next' so there is a pic of all the siblings, then the siblings and me. It's silly but upsetting. They used to say I was dramatic and loved to throw tantrums. I think I was an upset little girl

My grandfather died when I was 18 I didn't take that well. My gran died when I was 25 and my aunt like a sister died when she was only 32. They all hit me pretty hard.

But I have done stupid very impulsive things. I have restrained myself a good few times too but not always. Often put myself into very stupid and dangerous situations, but that isn't where the worst things happened. 1st time I was raped though I was 15 at some posh peoples house party. Got drunk and fell asleep on a couch. 2nd time I again was drunk at uni so instead of walking home decided I would get a taxi. Been a few other incidents but these two made it to police (not my choice)

Sorry I am completely blathering and all over the place. Everyone has their stories.

@TheYear2000 I was seeing a psychiatric nurse for a few months. She said if I want to try see the consultant then she could refer me but the waiting list was very long and as I am not a huge risk to myself she didn't think I would be seen or added to a course

Don't just read the NHS stuff look at mind, rethink, borderlinepersonalitydisorder.org , rethink mental illness and so on. Different sites have some extra or offer differing thoughts on things.

@fantasmasgoria1 thanks I will look into those. It's very hard to understand that how I think may not be how 'normal' people think. Because I have no idea what goes on in anyone else's brain, realistically, no one else knows what it is like in someone else's head. I still often lie because if I tell them what is really going on inside my little head people would think I have lost the plot. Like I don't really know what goes on in there most of the time!

It is like a pond filled with many many little boats all with ribbons attached to the back. Some are nice some not so much. They all float around and I check in on them. Sometimes tho the boats get faster and all the ribbons get tangled so I have to sink those boats and start again. It can be very difficult to concentrate on one task at a time. I start one, then see something else so start that, then spot something else and start that. It takes a huge amount of willing myself to stay on task! That could be the dyslexic in me

Just be careful as bpd is one of the most misdiagnosed conditions and quite often you will find you get treated differently from some healthcare providers when you are labelled with that condition.

@Thegoodbadandugly oh really in what way? But that is one of the reasons I was put off seeing the consultant. I am guessing the nurse cannot have officially diagnosed me?

If it's misdiagnosed a lot does that mean there usually isn't anything wrong with the person and they are in fact normal?

OP there is no such thing as normal.
Sometimes neurodiverse people are misdiagnosed as with BPD. Not all people with BPD think the same!

There is an issue with stigma which is why sometimes people are happy to not have official diagnosis on their records.

For some reason people can be pretty hostile to BPD despite having no understanding of what it means.

Have you been officially diagnosed with dyslexia?

Have you ever been screened for ADHD?

You have certainly been through a huge amount of trauma.

Have a look at autism/ADHD.

There is research which is gaining a lot of traction to show that BPD is a bullshit diagnosis mainly misdiagnosing women who are autistic or ADHD.

@mathanxiety yes in school, about year 8 I think it was, can you grow out of it? I don't think I am "very" dyslexic . No I wasn't screened of ADHD

Ahh OP you didn’t whither on. You’ve been through a lot. I personally don’t think you are disordered but then I have strong views against certain diagnosis in mental health. Anyway, putting that aside I think you’ve learned to cope in ways that haven’t at all been surprising. There’s nothing disordered about that, it’s just human coping mechanisms. I do wish you well 💐.

Hey @OP one of my good friends has BPD and she swears by DBT.

No experience of having the condition myself but sending you the best of luck!

Hi OP, I've recently been told my 13yo daughter may qualify for a BPD diagnosis (or not - they're being rather vague about it) and I too find it hard to even pin down what that is supposed to be.

Apparently some people now say 'emotion dysregulation syndrome' instead of BPD, and that makes more sense looking at my kid. She either takes things massively to heart, to the point of self-harming, or she tries to block emotional responses out completely. Does that sound familiar?

The 'borderline' I can only understand in the sense that she both craves and fears connection with others, wants to be close but pushes people away in case they could do so first. A problem with maintaining boundaries, they're either rigid as brick walls or non-existent.

In your case, complex PTSD sounds just as likely to me. That messed-up stepdad, and the rapes you mention almost in passing... I'm sorry you went through all that. Don't let the labels become oppressive, and I hope you find healing.

You have hit the nail on the head there.

Again correct and then they are not accessing the correct help. Op a nurse cannot diagnose bpd. Tell them you want further investigations before being labelled bpd.

I would also recommend looking into ADHD and autism BUT some of your history does make BPD possible. DBT is the recommended treatment regardless.

Also see C-ptsd.

Lots of crosses over in behaviours and traits for BPD trauma and neurodivergence

@ThreeLocusts a fair bit of that does sound familiar. I have thankfully got better at relationships. I have a wonderful DH. Who to be fair I probably am too dependant on. I used to try to push him away though. I did that in previous relationships also. I would find/ cause drama in order to break up with them. Yes I can either take on the problems of the world as my own or harden towards it all together. But ultimately I am petrified of being abandoned, which seems to be a big flag of this.

I am in a 'good' place right now what ever that mean and I want to keep going on it. It is a hard balancing act sometimes. I want to put things in place to keep myself on this track before I lose it again and do something destructive.

Honestly though, from the way I have been dismissed by family over the years do most people not go through things like this? Feel like this? I have strong memories of crying my eyes out when my mum left after a visit and being told to stop being such a drama queen. That I am fine.

OP, the feelings you describe sound very familiar to me from both my own experiences and many others at my DBT group. As PP have said, it may be that you are neurodiverse or have C PTSD or have BPD or all three- the label isn't really the issue. DBT is extremely effective and will help you come to terms with the experiences you've had and the strong feelings- and also the feeling of being different/misunderstood.
If I were you, I wouldn't pursue a diagnosis as depending on your career you may have to disclose it and there is discrimination against the diagnosis- but I would pursue DBT on the basis that you've been told your symptoms suggest BPD.
It honestly completely transformed my life.

I would get on that waiting list to see a consultant. A nurse cannot diagnose you with anything, a GP cannot diagnose you with any nuero developmental disorder like ASD or ADHD or Dyslexia and a GP also cannot diagnose you with any personality disorder like BPD or a psychiatric disorder like c-PTSD.

You need to see the consultants that are qualified to know the differences because there is overlap in the symptoms of all these that make it difficult to know what your needs are. The diagnosis drives the therapy. If you are misdiagnosed, the therapy will be the wrong therapy for you.

So I was misdiagnosed with BPD by a consultant btw, so even they are not infallible. That was later erased from my record by another consultant that worked with me longer and said it was ASD plus PTSD not BPD (I also have ADHD and mild dyslexia). I’ve had the PTSD diagnosis for a good decade now but am on waiting list for ASD assessment.

For example, fear of abandonment due to having been abandoned IRL isn’t definitely BPD, that could be PTSD. PTSD is a normal reaction and defence to having survived very not normal traumatic things (and you have a history of serious and repeated trauma). So it’s not just what symptoms you have but why you have them and how much they affect your daily functioning. I’m not diagnosing you, god no!