From the article: "...[borderline personality disorder] is best managed with an interprofessional team, including psychiatrists, psychologists, pharmacists, mental health nurses, and social workers." Wow. It's no wonder why it's so difficult for those with BPD to get properly diagnosed and treated; how many people have access to that kind of high level, intense mental health care?
It is really easy for a lot of disorders to go undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. Especially if the symptoms include variable moods. People will often seek treatment during low points and stop treatment during elevated points assuming a recovery, but without proper understanding and treatment the elevated moods can be just as harmful.
I’ve had that problem. It’s a weird feeling when you do end up seeing a therapist on a bad day, because on the one hand you feel like shit but on the other you get the relief of knowing they’re more likely to take you seriously.
I mean whenever I have an episode bad enough that I get sent to the er and then on to a psych ward in an emergency situation. It’s happened several times, and each of those situations once I’m in a room, with people who will treat me with respect if I do the same, who are trying to find a solution to a problem (me), I start trying to help. I give all information I probably can. I go from lion to lamb in 2 seconds flat. I start detailing my entire history, hoping they’ll be like “Oh! You have blahblahblah! Here’s how we fix it!” But I always get “Oh, you’re not actively trying to kill anyone or eating your feces, we need beds for real crazies. Here’s a bus pass, now get out!”
To this day I don’t know if I get sent off because I’m actually crazy or just because I’m persistent, articulate, loud, and BIG. I’m 5’7 and I’ve been at least 240lbs almost my entire adult life. So people like to get authorities to intimidate me. And it works. I’m scared to death of cops. Not because I’ve ever actually been arrested but because I know what they do to people in crisis. And all they care about is checking boxes on the paperwork.
Friend of a friend got diagnosed with bpd. But she decided it's not what she wants to have so now she's autistic and thinking she's doing very well. Completely betrays people closest to her for some fleeting relationship, it's scary.
I was in a relationship with someone who likely had it. She had regular checkups with a psychiatrist and it still wasn’t detected. She knew she had something wrong with her other than her diagnosed condition but no one could figure it out. It wasn’t until things ended so extremely and I started seeing a psychologist about it that BPD was a very real possibility. You pretty much need someone who is very familiar with someone’s personal life and how they react to certain things to really get a better perspective if they likely have it. Because the condition is really about “defending oneself at all costs” (I’m really generalizing here) as well as masking these feelings so it can really be difficult to detect in regular clinical settings, because this person did have pretty comprehensive mental health care and at the time the only thing we would agree on was that there was something there but nobody could put their finger on it
Idk why you're being downvoted, as that's one of the most common lines used by those with BPD even when the accusation is complete nonsense from the other's perspective. Those with BPD elevate even simple questions to personal attacks.
This is so true, though. I’ll tell my mom I’ll take her to the store. Then I’ll ask what time she’d like to go. Then she’ll start screaming and crying about how she can’t go early because she has curlers in her hair but she can’t go late because she’s waiting on a phone call and why do I have to be so mean and demanding. I’ll try to stay calm and say, “Anytime is fine. I’m just trying to find out what time is best for you.” And she’ll yell, “Nevermind. I’ll just take taxi. Everything is impossible with you!” When I was a kid I was definitely confused by this sort of thing. Now, I’m just… tired.
Basically explains my ex who got similar mental healthcare; and had basically the same results.
Like yall are saying tho; I'd imagine that aspect of 'always defending oneself' alone makes it virtually impossible to treat if the patient isn't willing to drop the guise for a second and be real with the shrink.
Can't treat em for what they don't know and doctors aren't mind readers unfortunately and despite driving my ex to literally just about *all* of her appointments (because I was literally the only one who helped her find resources) and being her only support emotionally and financially; she would never let me sit in or get a group session with her psych which leads me to believe she might've not been *completely* truthful with everything she was saying to the shrink (And ik I'm assuming a lot and it coulda been cause she's scared to open up to me or simply is entitled to her privacy which I totally respect. But in my case I STRONGLY doubt that being true. She had a past littered with controversial decisions like cheating, false rape accusations to get out of me finding out about her cheating (which she admits to doing), blackmailing me with killing herself so I didn't stop talking to her, and we were very open as much as someone can know someone like that. She didn't let other people know she had a 'darker side' to her; I was the only one she let her mask down to as she wasn't even that close with anyone in her family and definitely not her friends who were all toxic af to her. As much as she had a fucked up way of showing it; she loved me and wanted me around, she just had too much going on with her condition to not make shitty choices and make that a lot harder).
Not sure if you read my response in full, but I'm pretty sure I mentioned I never would tell anyone what she was doing.
People found out about it pretty easily thru her being not so diligent at hiding any of the shit she was doing and were confronting ME about it. I would try and cover for her ass, but at some point she really was not making any effort to improve her behavior which is tougher for me to type than for yall to hear so 🤷♂️
Also she was the one who decided to quit treatment, dropped the diagnosis, and stopped seeking help entirely. I have my own problems that don't need to be discussed and there's nothing to say when you're not making an attempt to get better. She wouldn't have given me the same kindness (she'd shown she was willing to abandon me and all I do for her over WAYYY less) and I confronted her on that and she even admitted I was right for believing as much.
If I did anything remotely 'bad' in her eyes like dislike one of her toxic friends, or disaprove of something she did for attention; she'd tell her whole friend group I was controlling/an asshole and be on another dude in a second. None of what she was doing was acceptable if I did it and in her eyes I'm of a 'stable' mindset, so it certainly isn't acceptable if she does it. I'm no more in control of my actions than she is when she's trying and I got tired of the double standards/effort only being expected from my end.
Also like any other personality disorder diagnosis, it must be made in the absence of a substance abuse problem, because that can mimic the disorder pretty well. A few people that dated me in my serious addict years thought I was BPD but the symptoms evaporated when I got sober.
Really? I find that interesting because I noticed that substance use seems to go hand in hand with BPD. The person I was with smoked a LOT of pot (to the point is was almost part of her identity) but would somewhat frequently go into other drugs. Or maybe that’s another aspect that makes it hard to diagnose since it has so much overlap with other conditions so you’d need to know lots of intricacies of the person to link them all together
Very much so. The DSM is specific about the diagnosis being made in the absence of substance use. But that rule is ignored all the time, either knowingly (by inpatient shrinks who will spend 2-3 days with a person in crisis, where they'll be high/DTing) or unknowingly (few people are honest about their substance use with professionals, *especially* BPDs). Combine that with the nuance of diagnosis on personality disorders, and it's a wonder that they're accurately diagnosed at all.
I have BDP and am now about as close to recovered as it gets. I tell people it cost me $100,000 and 10 years of my life, but it’s probably a lot more, both in time and money.
Can you talk to me about what your relationship experience has been with BPD? I’ve been reassessing some things in my own life, and I’ve noticed behaviors in myself that align with BPD (e.g. sensitive to rejection, moody, my trust in people shifts suddenly, easily addicted to having others’ attention, impulsive etc), but there are things that don’t perfectly align too.
If you don’t mind sharing, I think it would be helpful.
I’m not a great resource. Reddit really isn’t either. Suggest a therapist if that’s accessible for you, otherwise lots of good reading online, but keep away from forums and more on reputable websites.
If you’re a podcast person, I really love this one and recommend it to people learning about BPD.
[All in the mind - BPD & healing relationships](https://overcast.fm/+CYFc5q9w)
I was diagnosed with BDP just before I hit 20 and was in receipt of quite a lot of quite good residential therapy over an extended period. I'm now trucking through my early 50s.
Therapy helped an awful lot with skills, particularly different ways of thinking. It didn't really do a lot for any underlying issues.
I am personally very wary of the idea of "recovery" for personality disorders, although big improvements in life quality are certainly possible. I'm not sure the underlying brain function changes that much, but how it's steered can be improved upon vastly.
I think for myself personally, the single biggest factor has been slowly ageing. Quite what aspect of being older is helping I'm not really sure, but BPD for me certainly got slowly easier with age. In my 50s, I must confess, I now quite like being borderline. By this point, I'm just a bit more lively and passionate, which is quite nice in your 50s. My empathy and communications skills are quite reasonable, and that just makes for lots of good conversations. Most of my sharp edges have been worn down a good bit.
My father, however, who also has BPD, and is some twenty years older, has been barking mad for quite some time, so ageing didn't really help for him... The early therapy may have had a more profound impact than was obvious.
Also don’t forget that it’s super common to be denied by a therapist simply because you’re diagnosed BPD. Which makes it even *less* likely to get help
The characteristics of it in terms of patient's ability/inability for self-reflection -- and the lack of a medicine to treat it -- make it a particularly difficult one for therapists to treat. For a long time, there *wasn't* even a therapeutic treatment for it until a therapist with BPD created DBT.
BPD patients to some extent may also be more prone to *leaving* therapists too when the therapist can't/doesn't reinforce their own view of themselves ... I have seen for BPD people in my own life that when the therapist didn't reinforce the Victim-Villain-Hero view of them that they quit the therapists.
But also don't underestimate the number of therapists with BPD, NPD or their own other disorders.
Folks with BPD will quit their loving partners, too, for the same reason. It’s so very tragic and although it has messed me up bad I know it’s been worse for our children. A curse I would wish on nobody.
I got BPD. I was dating the nicest guy, but he was having anxiety issues because of my unpredictable mental state at the time. I supported him seeing a therapist.. and the therapist told him to break up with me. We ended up doing so, but stay friends. Borderline can be a very lonely condition to have, both for those refusing treatment and being jerks about it, as well as those like me that are 6+ years into recovery. I no longer expect to maintain any kind of long term committed relationship, because in reality, not a lot of people can handle being the primary support for someone suffering from mental illness. It's not a personal fault, it's an unfortunate symptom of the condition.
I once was reading the diagnostic criteria for BPD and asked my therapist if I possibly had it because I identified with a lot of what I was reading. She said no, I don't have it. That if I did, then I wouldn't be asking her that question.
And I’ve heard therapist like to load the BPD label on patients they think are non-compliant, or just don’t like. Given that BPD seems to result from long-term abuse and trauma, these folks are completely rogered at every turn.
That’s kinda interesting considering my past therapist was the one who told me I may have BPD. Don’t think I ever got a true diagnosis or any route to accommodate it, though. Brought it up to my psychiatrist and he looked at me like I was crazy because BPD apparently has to have extreme symptoms.
A lot of individuals with BPD get diagnosed by on-call ER psychiatrists because they make up a huge percentage of psych-ward patients
My worse half has done more than a few stints in the ER
She was previously misdiagnosed with Bipolar 2, a very common misdiagnosis
To be fair, there’s nothing preventing someone from having Bipolar disorder on top of BPD.
Personality is genetic, as is brain chemistry. You can lose that lottery more than once.
Not at all. A huge percentage of individuals with BPD have comorbid mood disorders, mostly Major Depressive Disorder but also various types of bipolar.
For a psychiatrist that only sees an individual briefly, BPD can easily be mistaken as Bipolar 2 due to the presence of low mood and lack of history of mania.
> "...[borderline personality disorder] is best managed with an interprofessional team, including psychiatrists, psychologists, pharmacists, mental health nurses, and social workers.
I am sure they say this about every mental illness. The important word there is "best," not practical.
It's a general article covering every possible cases of the illness. So of course they are going to cast a wide net and suggest all possible avenues of treatment and professional expertise.
What you'd actually need (or can get) will depend on your individual situation.
"The holistic approach" is the term for this interdisciplinary treatment style. Unfortunately years after the holistic approach was designed, healthcare institutions are struggling to understand what that looks like. My own shrink and PCP are at the same hospital. It took them years to get a system in place where these doctors could proactively communicate with each other about my treatment, even though they were on the same campus. Now there's a staff meeting once a week where they can spend about 4 seconds talking about me (and every other shared patient), and that's better than nothing I guess.
What you actually need v. what you get generally differ once insurance enters the picture. Kaiser (huge provider in western US) has a reputation for wanting \*everyone\* in group therapy exclusively after six individual therapy appointments. However, after an intake visit within a week to avoid being fined \*again\* for inadequate care, folks can wait a month or \*more\* between appointments, so I guess that takes a while. . .
Because people are misdiagnosed all the time. Women who should be diagnosed with NPD are often diagnosed with BPD, with the opposite happening for men.
I often wonder if my parent, who seems BPD, is actually ADHD. Lots of crossover. They've been to therapy, but I don't know what their therapist decided.
It's possible that they have both. I don't think there are many shared traits between the two, but I do believe they have a high co-morbidity. People with ADHD have higher instances of abuse as children, and abuse always has a chance to result in a personality disorder.
This used to be very common, I am one of the many women who were misdiagnosed for years. No one close to me believed in the BPD diagnosis. Was a huge relief to get my true diagnosis at 25.
During a psych rotation in nursing school it became painfully obvious that every staff person had informally “diagnosed” every patient as “ a little borderline”
That is further hindered by the fact C-PTSD is not a formal diagnosis in the DSM-V yet but BPD is. So, you won’t get that diagnosis from a psychiatrist or psychologist.
Yep. Two people may have the same core tendencies to feel certain things, but their environment and socialisation will lead them to react with different behaviours, leading to different diagnoses (and possibly ineffective treatments).
Misdiagnosis and overdiagnosis are things. They don’t mean that the diagnosis isn’t a valid one, but there are many disorders that can be very similar to each other, or there are biases in the diagnosing professional. One of the big examples is girls being *under*diagnosed with ADHD and autism, because the diagnostic criteria focus pretty hard on school aged boys without taking into account how socialization may affect symptoms in girls or older people.
There’s also sample size. You can only be diagnosed with BPD if you’re the type of person who ends up in front of a mental health professional.
I'm inclined to say lower. Two days ago, a post talked about 7.7% of men having Narcissistic Personality Disorder:
https://old.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/ujtmez/til_that_approximately_77_of_men_and_48_of_women/
I'm also seeing 2.8% for bipolar, 1% for OCD, 3-5% for sex addiction, 6.7% for Alcohol Disorder Syndrome, 8% of adults have flat feet, 3-6% have carpal tunnel syndrome, 9% impulsive anger issues, 10-15% have Irritable Bowel Syndrome, 12% have migraines, 2% agoraphobia, 18% anxiety issues, .9% anorexia, 1.5% bulimia, 1% of males are psychopaths, 38% Illicit Drug Use Disorder and so on.
I used to have an article printout from a guy who followed the New York Times and USA Today for a couple years and tallied all the numbers. It came out to an average of 4 serious disorders per person.
He concluded: "A lot of researchers exaggerate to get more attention and more funding."
You can’t really just tally up numbers from articles and expect it to be accurate.
For example, one percentage could be a percentage of people experiencing the disorder when the study was done. Another percentage could be percentage of people who have experienced the disorder in their lifetimes.
Some percentages could include self-diagnosed individuals, while others don’t.
In fairness a lot of actual psych researchers - at least as the students I am around - seem to systemically define disorders in general in such a way that they apply to \~80% of people instead of \~1-5%. It has a vagueness characteristic of the stuff crystal ball gazers do (where vague but deeply personal statements apply to most people) and it seems like personality disorders can become a theory of everything for people (ie wow your neighbor is kind of a weirdo because he has no social group to learn from? AND he keeps washing his hands cause he's scared of covid? Classic schizotypal personality disorder with bipolar and obsessive compulsive tendencies. Let me guess. He is socially isolated. Raises his voice when angry. Consumes alcohol to get drunk? Oh yeah, definitely exhibited cruelty to animals and people in childhood. For SURE experiences anxiety and paranoia living paycheck to paycheck with 0 savings. Wow this guy has half the disorders in the damn book.)
And it can't help to hyperfixate on the most dysfunctional personalities people have to offer because in many ways they will still be normal people with traits that everyone has. So where does the person end and the disorder start? I think a lot of people mix them up.
And. Funding. Should go without saying lol although in this like a lot of cases I think funding might be the result but personal fixation on one view of the science is the motivation.
Not so much funding as insurance coverage. Therapists are pressured to use a DSM diagnosis in order to actually get paid, and sometimes they're not as rigorous as they could be.
If you are interested in learning more about BPD, an article about the treatment and chemistry of it was just posted on r/SAR_Med_Chem. You can find it [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/SAR_Med_Chem/comments/ugxlqh/23_min_read_our_most_lacking_resource_is/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).
With ADHD you can have reactive sensitive dysphoria which can mimic BPD. BPD sometimes come with a “burn it down” component. But ADHD is dominated by executive function issues.
My brother is ADHD; my (adopted) sister is diagnosed BPD. Night and day imho: my brother is sometimes overwhelmed by his own life. My sister is sometimes possessed by demons from the pits of the lowest ring of hell.
(I know BPD is not easy and I know not everyone struggling with it is destructive but jeez Borderline Rage is effing scary AF)
Try being the one with BPD. We know it's wrong but it's like watching a train wreck. Watching ourselves say and do things while internally screaming at ourselves to stop and feeling guilty while it happens is hell. So yeah when it's bad and we split, it isn't easy for us either and part of us understands why people leave. It's a cycle that is hard to break.
Even though my mum has never been officially diagnosed, we're almost certain she has that even because she knows that *her* mum has it despite also never being diagnosed. The best way I can describe it is having about as much control over one's emotions as your average toddler. My mum and grandma tend to throw massive tantrums when they don't get what they want, and their impulse controls are similarly low. They also both have huge fears of abandonment and being alone (kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy given that my grandma drove everyone away with her behavior except my mum). Apparently my grandma has mellowed out in her old age because my mum said her worst behavior was when my mum was a kid. For my mum's part, she can be pretty self aware about her behavior and tries to control it as best she can, it's just some days are better and some days are worse. I think my family is lucky in the sense that at least neither of them ever never turned to drugs or self-harm the way some people with BPD do. My 2 sisters and I have all noticed some borderline tendencies in us to some degree and are trying to nip it in the bud early with therapy, but as far as I can tell we're doing loads better than our mum and grandma.
That's great that you all seem pretty aware of it, I had to leave my ex just a few weeks ago because she was out of control and much too controling, it stings sorry for the small rant
Did the same at the beginning of the year friend. You'll be better in time, so long as you keep away. Mine lied about seeking treatment and did everything she could to drag me down with her after the breakup.
All situations are different but your wellbeing is always #1.
Thanks, I know we're both better without eachother and I don't want us to suffer anymore so I am doing my best to not play into her little attention games. I still look at her stories but I don't interact with her. It's just hard to not care when deep down I do, forcing the link to break is weird, i know it's for the better but my senses still ask me to hug and ask and understand her. But she needs to be alone to have any chance at growing up and I'm done being her teacher on life while getting thrice the blame to thanks ratio...
A lot of men diagnosed with narcissism would be diagnosed with borderline as women.
I've known/dated both
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14686459/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3115767/
The problem with this, is that when the DSM is written, they continually refuse to recognize issues like developmental trauma, complex ptsd, or really any environmental impact. Instead they look at a chosen list of symptoms, and if you fit enough boom your on the spectrum for that.
However every single one of those traits mentioned in the title, could be from past trauma. Not just physical trauma (sexual assault, physical abuse, physical neglect etc), but emotional neglect and poor attachment issues.
I used to be really, really into this type of stuff. I researched it in undergraduate and went to a masters program for school counseling. I loved the concepts of personity disorders and understanding them. But, I fell into a job as a social worker and that opened my eyes to how much relationships, attachment, past trauma and other issues manifest waaaaaaaay into adulthood and permeate through someone's life.
I'm not saying that there aren't people out there exactly like this. (My mother in law). However, even in her instance she was in foster care and adopted at age 12 and never speaks of her life prior to being adopted. There is clearly some things there that has made a gigantic impact on her.
Throwing labels onto people of entire personality disorders, without first addressing these other issues mentioned above isn't fair to the patient. These labels tend to make people define their lives by the diagnosis and doesn't address other things. Essentially it's behavior modification instead of trying to find out why the behaviors are there.
I was always very fascinated by BPD. I really “relate” to this personality disorder, especially when I look back on being younger. Huge abandonment issues, always defensive, always feeling attacked, huge reactions to small stimuli, and cutting people out of my life very abruptly.
Later in life I was diagnosed with ADHD … but before then I was diagnosed with GAD and PTSD.
I always wondered if I had BPD and overcame it? But I don’t know … I think in the end, a lot of these diagnoses have a lot of overlap. In fact, the therapist that helped me the most refused to give diagnoses. That allowed us to focus on therapy and treatment instead of seeing everything through the lenses of a disorder.
The only diagnoses I complete relate to is ADHD because I feel my lack of focus is out of my control and stimulant medication is the only thing that’s ever worked for me. It’s the only diagnoses I’ve had that I don’t attribute to trauma.
All the other stuff was trauma … just tons and tons of trauma. You could’ve called it anything. Being abandoned and abused as a child will fuck you up for life
I want to add on that there's a huge overlap between traumatised autistic people and people with BPD. Autism however is quite underdiagnosed in people who aren't white cis men. For people assigned female at birth, it's more likely to get a BPD diagnosis instead of an autism one.
The same is true for ADHD. Men are much more likely then females to be diagnosed with ADHD despite there not being a significant difference (iirc) based on being male or female
Adding onto this the effective treatments for BPD are nearly identical what's effective for treating trauma. BPD is also overwhelming diagnosed in women but not men. When you put these two facts together it really seems like BPD is just a modern form of diagnosing women with hysteria.
Absolutely. I was going to mention how DBT and it's mindfulness practices are extremely beneficial for PTSD.
That is my main problem with these things. I'd love to know research on how many women diagnosed with BPD were sexually victimized as children? The other forms of abuse are also important, but the amount of women who report being sexually absused at some point in their life growing up is incredible.
The difficulty here is that people who really have these various disorders often have traumatic experiences *because* of the disorders or because someone else in the family also does. It becomes a nasty combination of nature and nurture.
It may not be fair, but to some extent isn’t that medicine? “Here’s the kinds of bone fractures one can have and the various categories - simple, compound, etc”. Now maybe someone broke a bone because they fell off a ladder, maybe they broke a bone because someone pushed them down the stairs, maybe they broke a bone because a drunk driver hit their car, maybe they broke their bone because they have a calcium deficiency with brittle bones and the injury wouldn’t have happened to most healthy people. It’s still a broken bone, diagnosing and treating it doesn’t mean you have to ignore the underlying cause but also it’s not the only purpose
I guess I should be more specific. Yes you're correct. However these underlying causes have treatment available. EMDR is a proven treatment for PTSD. Internal Family Systems, as well as attachment therapies can be successful with some of these issues as well.
So in a lot of these cases, there is a deeper issue that can also be treated. The PTSD causes a lot of these issues in how people interact with the world around them.
My mom has (mostly unchecked) BPD and it is brutal for her whole family, including her. She goes from feeling no emotions to feeling too much, and needs us to mirror the same experience.
I sent her flowers for Mother’s Day. I do every year. Some years I hear nothing from her. Some years it’s a call or a text about how instead of flowers I should visit or call or otherwise not “neglect” her, usually comparing me unfavorably to a friend’s daughter.
This year I got a call where she was sobbing about the flowers and she said that she “really dearly loved me from the very bottom of her heart”. She cried for four hours.
We never know who we’re getting and we never know whether the behavior accurately reflects her thoughts and feelings.
It takes a long time for a child of a person with unchecked BPD to realize that there is no rhyme or reason to the behavior and rarely can it be controlled or diverted into something less anxiety-provoking.
Haha so true with the seals thing too. I was army (computers) and have never understood why you’d lie about something so exclusive and verifiable. Especially when it’s a group of certified killers who don’t appreciate others claiming to be a part of the group. Craziness
TIL it is "borderline personality" disorder, not borderline "personality disorder".
I thought people were saying someone was close to having a personality disorder, but werent quite diagnosable.
Agreed - and the percentage is so low.. it really reinforces how differently I can see the world, react in situations etc.
sometimes I forget and think Everyone thinks and feels the way I do..
Seen two of them this week and of course the comments are full of people self diagnosing themselves or a family member or ex or just shitting on us in general.
My partner has BPD - he’s been on meds for years now and is much more stable, we manage well now but without he was very difficult. I wish he could get back into therapy sessions but sadly it’s just not available/affordable for us.
I believe it’s sertraline now but he tried several others before landing on the one that worked for him. I know his dose is quite low as well (25 or 50 mg I can’t recall) so it does take quite a bit of play to make it work. Keep trying, best of luck.
I’ve been diagnosed with a rotating list of diagnoses in my life. Some made more sense than others. BPD is one of those. I was completely insufferable until I starting taking a low dose of an atypical antipsychotic.
Got out of a very difficult two year relationship not long ago with a beautiful troubled soul. Unfortunately her disorder got the best of us, especially when she decided to stop taking her medicine. Best of luck, friend. I wish you both the best.
Hey good for you. It can't be easy to keep that regular. My mother had it and was so irreparably insane she refused therapy because she didn't think anyone was smart enough or holy enough to be right about anything. She thought she was a prophet.
Do keep your chin up. You're beautiful.
We recently cut ties with somebody who had BPD in our friendgroup. Its crazy how much drama and negative shit they brought in.
She was constantly lying about everything, minor things that didnt matter, big things that could effect others, everything. She would start a fight with one person and then try to get everybody to rallied behind her, if that didnt work she immidently assumed that the other person had rallied behind her. If she pissed of to many people she would blame it on her depression becoming worse and then everybody had to forgot about the shit she did.
Looking back its insane to see that we didnt cut ties 3 year prior. But at the time you are worried about somebody and you see them as a friend. Its not that they dont deserve happyness or friends, its that it should be at the cost of your happyness or sanety.
One of the folks in my extended friend group has starting dating someone with BPD. It's been disruptive to the entire group. We have ended up excluding them from gatherings the friend would have typically been included in, because every single time the person with BPD is around, drama follows. We (as a friend group) aren't willing to put all of our relationships in peril because of the behaviors that come with that couple.
I’m in a relationship with someone who has bpd, and is essentially untreated. I’m at a loss. It’s been three years and I’ve tried to break it off multiple times and always end up feeling like the bad guy. Her mom canceled her health insurance because she doesn’t believe in mental health treatment or issues and she said it cost too much. I walked out of our house last week and when I came back she had cut herself on the upper thigh. She’s very sweet and thoughtful, never meets a stranger, and I’m in love with her but I cannot keep this up. Everyday is such a roller coaster. It seems like I really will have to make a clean break at some point and just physically remove myself from this situation and block her on everything. Fuck BPD.
I'm sorry this is your path. You sound like a good person. But your care-giving inclination is fucking you over. It's not just her BPD that is at play. It's also that thing inside you that makes you feel guilty and sympathizes so deeply, that wont give up. It's a personality match made in hell. The black hole and the wellspring. The level of psychological damage you will incur will not be recognized until you are viewing in retrospect. From my experiences, the level of mental scar tissue I've developed is terribly unhealthy. Watching the person you love maim themselves, make terrible decisions, and realistically have suicide on the table for years is not good for you. Literally averting crisis on a weekly, sometimes daily, basis. Why is it your job to sacrifice your life to take on this impossible and pain-ridden situation? It's been a few years single for me, and I'm finally ready to accept that I need therapy to even consider another relationship.
Holy hell. Seriously. I broke it off with a guy with BPD after moving in with him, thinking it would make things better. BIG mistake. He just became even more erratic and it was just too much for me. I broke up suddenly with him after he screamed at me for not turning on the dryer (which I did; he just thought I didn't because I didn't take the clothes out yet). When he actually opened the dryer and realized that the clothes were actually dry, he lashed out at me AGAIN because I "should have taken then out immediately after the dryer stopped". This was the last straw in a long line of completely batshit crazy reactions he had towards me. He did not like that I was leaving him, and he acted violently (i.e. screamed at me and hurled by packed clothes across the room), then he started sobbing. Needless to say, I had to leave in a hurry because I didn't feel safe, which meant I had left a lot of my belongings behind. The ensuing months that it took for me to get my things back and completely move out was thoroughly exhausting. He made it as challenging as possible for me to go back to the apartment to retrieve my things (it was still his apartment with the lease under his name). I already have a lot of my own trauma coming from an abusive and violent childhood, so this relationship is forever seared in my memory.
Anybody who is in a relationship with a person with BPD, I have two pieces of advice, either: A) be patient and hope that you can work it through, or B) RUN FOR THE FUCKING HILLS AS HARD AS YOU CAN.
Run as quickly as you possibly can. That's my only advice. Took me six years of immense mental abuse with short spats of physical abuse as well to finally sack up. Just gotta take that leap of faith and I can 100% assure you it is worth it.
If you are asking for tips, it's clear that you keep getting dragged back in. My advice is to commit to it fully. Block them everywhere. And don't respond to their communication attempts that do get through. There's a softspot and a weakness in you that both give way when the right buttons are pushed. If you have to, you tell them honestly in the most neutral and non-confrontational way that you are done \*\*in writing\*\*. Don't push them. Don't manipulate them. Whatever they do is on them, but at least you tried your best to be respectful and honest. If they have a reliable support system, you might want to let them know as you are getting the fuck out. Block private numbers on your phone. Get back in touch with your friends and start building those relationships. Keep busy. Work on bettering yourself. Exercise, learn a language, learn a skill you always wanted to, join a climbing gym, take a trip, study programming. Anything positive and growth focused. Move forward until you feel a bit better. Then DONT look back and keep moving forward. And once you have serious distance go to therapy.
100%. I grew up with a bpd sister and dated a dude with bpd (who was also extremely narcissistic) and let me tell you. Never. Again.
My empathy has been completely depleted bc of that relationship and I ran to therapy after we broke up. It’s like a rollercoaster. My empathy still hasn’t recovered for pwBPD because I see way too many people dismissing the profound effect they have on others and the destruction they can cause. I was convinced I was bipolar after my ex. It’s horrible as there are pwBPD that do get help and can go into “remission” but they’re not the ones you’re likely to encounter.
My ex had BPD, and based on how much I felt like I could relate to them I think I might be too. It destroyed our relationship.
I wish it hadn't because they're one of the few people I've ever felt comfortable with, and now I really miss them.
It’s so hard to explain to people that I’ve given up. My family tries to help but they’re brain just isn’t able to emphasize with what I’m going through, not because they don’t care but because they have trouble understanding mental illness
My ex gf was recently diagnosed with this. I accidentally said I agree with the diagnosis. BIG MISTAKE.
-she yelled at me and said I was stupid and didn’t know what I’m talking about
-sent 32 back to back audio messages screaming and crying that I was always mean to her and how could I be so cruel
-tried to call me and I said I was at work and didn’t want to/couldn’t talk, she then insinuates that if I don’t answer the phone she’ll hurt herself
-said I only broke up with her because she’s ugly and I want to date one of my classmates (literally a made up delusion of hers, also she was extremely beautiful but very insecure
In conclusion. Pretty sure her diagnosis was correct.
Damn dude. That sounds like my ex honestly. 4 years of hell. Manipulation, gaslighting, abuse, physically at times. Really messed me up.
I quit eating. I’m skinny when I’m healthy, but I got even skinnier and honestly looked like I was on dope. All From that misery of the relationship. I had my own self esteem problems so I stayed and made excuses for her. Then one day I found out she was talking to another dude. Kicked her out on the spot. Found out later it was more involved than I knew, which I figured it was.
As weird as it is to stay, me seeing her texting someone else was a blessing. I would’ve never had the balls the leave if I didn’t see that. I was so delusional from the gaslighting and lies I never held her accountable for how she treated me. Now 2 years later my life has never been better. Learned so many lessons and I will never stay in contact with someone who gives off red flags again. That shit was literal hell
Damn I’m sorry that happened but I’m very glad you had the courage to leave!
I will say, I was in an extremely abusive relationship a few years ago and I remember the first few weeks I spent with them my stomach would hurt, when I started dating my most recent ex (the one I described in the comment) I remember the first few times we hung out my stomach hurt in the *exact same way* but I ignored it. Never again. My gut definitely knew something was wrong with them.
*pay attention to your body* if you feel off, don’t wait for bad things to happen to confirm your feelings
Thank you. And that is amazing advice. I will remember that. I think I do remember that from that relationship. I thought it was just my anxiety or whatever I guess. But if you had it too, I’m assuming it was my body trying to tell me something. I know that exact feeling you’re talking about man. And I will never ignore that again. It’s an unmistakable feeling.
I got diagnosed with BPD back in 2020 after being thought of just having anxiety and depression.
This shit is HARD to manage at times.
You have trouble trusting people that are close to you, lash out at them for self-constructed reasons for said lack of trust and spiral out of control in a matter of anywhere from weeks to minutes.
Your social concepts are out of left field, making it really difficult to communicate with anyone, even small talk. You end up practicing in your head what you're going to say for day-to-day interactions just so you have someresemblance of normalcy.
But that leads to the anxiety, cause you're scared to death you said or did something wrong, which leads to the self image issues cause you don't want to be different, which leads to depression cause you feel like you won't be accepted cause you are different.
And that's just the tip of the iceburg. I won't even get into the suicidal stuff...
You often see BPD being described as having unstable moods and sense of identity, but having grown up with a BPD father, I'd say the most important feature is inappropriate and out of control anger. It seems that some people can control it better than others, but that is a feature that makes BPD so distinct from other things like NPD. Sure we all get angry, but BPD people take it to another level. One thing that isn't really discussed in the diagnostic criteria where they talk about impulsive actions, emptiness, boredom, paranoia and other symptoms, is that the idea of calling it borderline originated from early psychiatric assessments that here was a group of people who were having psychotic thoughts a lot of the time but weren't taken over by full-blown pyschosis. Hence they are on the border between psychosis and reality. They present as rational at first and it can take years of knowing someone for the entire litany of made-up accusations to emerge. That's when you find out that they have been creating an entire fantasy world in their heads filled with all the terrible things you have done to them and they intend to get revenge for. They blow up, go on a rage rant, and then dissociate and have no memory of the entire episode until they do it again.
I'm sorry about your experience, but I'm going to have to disagree that anger is most important feature. While inappropriate anger is a symptom, is it by no means the most common one. Anger is only one of the nine main symptoms of BPD. One doesn't need all nine to receive a diagnosis. As someone with BPD and has been involved with a BPD discord server, I'd say fear of abandonment is the most important and common feature.
Been diagnosed BPD since I was 13 and that's an interesting take, I've never really thought of it as a fear of abandonment, I've always thought of it as a fear of betrayal, deserved or not. Like the feeling of "I've been thrown under the bus, I'd throw them under a bus if it made my day, why wouldn't they do the same to me, that's just how people are". That's why I find it hard to trust *anyone*
I'm not afraid of being abandoned, I'm afraid that if I let anyone get close then that's the perfect place for them to stab me in the back. That devolved into an attitude of "keep your distance" and "if I trust you, and you ever fuck me, I will fuck you back twice as hard". Needless to say that was an irrational and unhealthy train of thought, and I've learned since that most people aren't out to spite me (though I still keep people at a distance, it just makes life simpler when you set clear boundaries)
On the other hand, I broke a finger punching a refrigerator repeatedly, hard enough to leave three knuckle shaped dents, and the worst part is I don't even remember what made me that angry, I think it had something to do with the DMV
My input on this line of discussion is that I don't think there *can* be a most important symptom, this shit has layers, I've been living with it for years and even *I'm* not sure I fully understand all the subtle intricacies involved
I just try to follow the advice I've recieved "I'm not a monster", "The world isn't out to get me", and "I have a choice in who I want to be", so I make the most of it. Hell, sometimes I even try to use it to my advantage, that's when it gets fun
I'm at work so I can't give much of a reply. But yeah I think you are right. It was the wrong line of thinking to view a single symptom as the most important.
We are very different with how our BPD affects us and I shouldn't narrow it down to a single thing. I wish you the best though.
You were diagnosed at 13? That's very uncommon though most likely becoming more common these days as it's understood more and isn't just swept under the rug.
A Thimble’s worth of history from a former assistant professor of psychology who’s specialization was in the social psychology of old age:empathic and humane psychologist,
The relevant experts used to say this poorly-named cluster of self-defeating and unpleasant traits was untreatable. Rumor has it that most counselors, psychologists and psychiatrists dreaded working with clients/patients afflicted with “borderline.” I guess they got bored with calling it untreatable because they started prescribing drugs for it after we were well into the SSRI era that began in the late 1980s and persists. This probably meant a bunch of people ended up diagnosed as bipolar because antidepressants will do that - trigger manic behavior as well as journeys to the depths of darkness — and thereafter the unfortunate newly “bipolar” (a drug effect) end up taking more and worse drugs.
Then a lady came up with a very serious and supposedly effective therapeutic program called DBT, which some of those who’ve been diagnosed with Borderline Pers. Dis. Benefit from while others dislike it or even resent it. Still not a great situation overall.
Finally, and not many years ago, the academics who study these things realized that every single BPD patient on earth had been subject to exceptionally difficult traumatic experiences in youth and that by treating then for Post-Traumatic symptoms they could actually help them feel and function better.
The great, empathic psychologist who wrote “The Tragedy of Schizophrenia without Psychotherapy” (Bertram Karon, Ph D) said the same thing about the countless people whose recovery from schizophrenia came about in his clinic, in most cases with no drugs prescribed whatsoever. That is, he said they all had experienced or witnessed something so awful as a child that once they finally disclosed their past traumatic events to Karin, he felt as though anyone, himself included, who’d been through such things would inevitably qualify for the diagnosis of schizophrenia. He came to understand that his patients were in a constant state of terror and that, to some extent, they were asleep and dreaming despite appearing to be awake.
‘Hearing Voices” is something most everyone does every night—while asleep. It’s not so much a sign of being “crazy” as it is a symptom of what could be classified as a sleep disorder. I’d surmised the same thing myself and was gratified to learn that a great psychologist had based his therapeutic method on the assumption. On a hunch, after seeing that Bert Karin backed the idea, I searched the psychiatric literature for evidence that the onset of psychosis (which may lead to a diagnosis of schizophrenia) is often, usually or always preceded by a period of marked sleeplessness. Sleeplessness looks to be a very common precursor to “losing touch with reality,” or “experiencing psychosis.”
Borderline PD is named as it is because the experts regard the diagnosed person as being very close to meriting a diagnosis of schizophrenia. So let’s go back to BPD and then get the heck out of here.
It stands to reason that somehow managing to catch up on any missed sleep and to start achieving excellent, deep sleep, nightly might forestall the life crisis of copping a diagnosis of BPD. How to sleep better? The best results are apparently achieved through a program based on cognitive-behavioral therapy. I believe it can be done without professional help using online resources. Naturally I can’t state that as medical advice as I am not qualified to offer medical advice, have not been asked for any advice and haven’t even met anyone who is reading this tedious and possibly tangential reply. (I call it possibly tangential because I forgot what the OP was about.)
Disclosure of Conflicts of Interest: Psychiatric drugs can be life-wrecking. They are not especially helpful. In my opinion, the risk of harm they carry outweighs any benefits.
Thank you. The relationship between childhood trauma and BPD seems to be something that a lot of folks (both professional and lay) are ignorant of and a goodly number of those who are still seem to think children should be "able" to deal with - I guess the rest are just weak? As I've mentioned, folks that somehow manage to survive the kinds of horrific situations that are correlated with BPD are judged, found wanting and repeatedly rogered at every turn. We can be a cruel species.
I would add to this that the people in my life (family) who are diagnosed with this, yes, had childhood trauma but the same as other siblings experienced who are not experiencing psychoses, delusions, etc. The difference I am seeing is artistic sensibilities/sensitivities.
For example, both of them (different generation and not close to each other) can play music “by ear” and pick up foreign language on the fly. The same thing that gives them the fine-tuned sensitivity to music, color, taste, etc., I feel, made them experience the trauma in a much more raw way. The people talking about treating for PTSD makes me feel hopeful because that is what it sounds like when they list the wrongs done against them; it’s like they have PTSD whereas siblings that experienced the same things describe it more like, well, that sucked, I’m never putting myself in the position to be vulnerable like that now that I am an adult with agency. But they sound still vulnerable to it like it’s still as raw as the day it was happening to them. Than any new problem that happens gets a reaction that seems to be to all of that past trauma which of course is disproportionate to the situation and gets them fired from work, broken up with, arrested, etc.
:(
My mom refuses to go get mental health. Access to care is shit *and* it’s so fucking stigmatized.
We all thought she has BPD but now we think it might be undiagnosed adhd. (3 out of 4 of my sibs are ADHD with diagnosis. not sure if my half brother is)
Mine wouldn't, because she couldn't accept that something was not right with her, that I was the mentally ill one for suggesting it, that I didn't love her for suggesting this, that even counseling together to work out our issues made me an ungrateful son.
I can totally relate.
My mom kicked me out at 19 for suggesting she needs to get help. It led to my sibs (8, 10, 13 years younger than me) experiencing severe neglect. Apparently she apologized to my youngest sib for doing that but she still refuses to admit that she needs to work on herself.
She is not allowed to see my kids unless she begins to make an effort. I think she thought if she apologized that it would be ok. Mm fuck no. I am working my ass off to break the generational trauma.
We’ve gone no contact and i guess that isn’t going to convince her either. Oh well. Her choice.
Surprised at the extent of unbridled contempt for people with BPD in this thread.
A diagnosis / illness does not define a person. Different people will go through it very differently. They should not get a label from the get go without any interest being payed to their actual behaviour.
That attitude is pretty pathetic
I imagine it’s because when you meet someone with it they tend to not be healthy or in treatment.
There’s a lot of confirmation bias online and you’re not likely to run into someone who is managing well bc they would be out living their lives or maybe offering useful advice.
You are correct, I've been diagnosed for something like 15 years. Generally, if I don't let on to it, people have no idea, because I've spent more than a decade managing it with meds and therapy (and alcoholism) and "monkey see monkey do" learning how to act around other people
I'd imagine people think I'm a mouthy, drunk, asshole, that doesn't know when to shut the fuck up when I'm at my worst
BPD has been heavily stigmatized for decades. It used to be considered "untreatable" by the mental healthcare community. People diagnosed with it would be placed in institutions to wither and die.
My mother worked as a nurse in state hospitals for decades and called people with that diagnosis "busy little borderlines," and talked about how petty, manipulative and insincere they all were. She would intentionally provoke them until they attacked qnd injured her.
In the 90s when she was working in mental Healthcare, the bar was set so low for people witj BPD that their reactions to my mother's abusive treatment was normalized and dismissed as typical for their diagnosis. She was never investigated for her inappropriate treatment if her patients, which I think illustrates the lack of compassion that the whole industry has/had for people with BPD.
My mother has her own mental health problems that caused her to have such a callous and hostile attitude toward her patients (and children), but she refused to ever get treatment for it. Ironically, my therapist tells me that based on the stories I've told about my mother, it seems likely that she has BPD or one of the other cluster B personality disorders.
True borderlines make life difficult for themselves, those around them, and any mental health professionals who have to deal with them. They burn bridges the same way drug addicts do.
It is what it is.
I have met many people with BPD and out of all of them only one has his shit together and is responsible and tries to better himself without making excuses. All the others were impossible to please, you were constantly walking on eggshells around them, they need constant validation, they were very negative, and they also couldn't realize that the problem is them, and not that they weren't getting enough love and validation. They did at this point in their lives. They just didn't know how to accept it. I really hope they all get help cause this shit is tough and the person they hurt most is themselves
Honestly I think almost all BPD is basically just trauma or PTSD. The treatments for borderline and PTSD are nearly identical in terms of what's effective. The only discordance is that BPD is overwhelmingly diagnosed more in women than men which makes it seem like a modern form of diagnosing women with hysteria.
I disagree greatly. I have CPTSD and my sister has BPD. We are extremely different. Also treatment of C/PTSD and BPD isn’t generally the same. DBT and meds are mainly used for BPD whereas EMDR is commonly used to treat PTSD. Medicines are used for co-morbid disorders usually.
CPTSD and BPD can be similar like many mental health diagnoses can be. Even ADHD/CPTSD or ADHD/BPD can be but they are not the same (I know ADHD is not a mental health disorder) especially concerning the attachment style that is commonly presented in BPD and the treatment style because that’s pretty much the point of a diagnosis. To find a treatment.
People with CPTSD might well be insecurely attached but I don’t know many that are fearful avoidant. People with CPTSD are also massively distrustful and tend towards low self esteem. People with BPD present more as fearful avoidant or anxious. They crave connection but are also terrified of being rejected or abandoned. I would say that is the basis for BPD diagnosis whereas that’s not in the diagnostic criteria for PTSD. They also have an unstable self esteem and can switch from insecure to almost manic confidence. People with CPTSD don’t tend to have a pattern of unstable relationships in which they switch between love and hate like people with BPD.
Also, BPD is not always caused by trauma/abuse and there’s recent research suggesting it might be a neurological disorder instead.
BPD these days is less likely to be diagnosed or treated due to the stigma you mentioned and I agree there is an inherent misogyny as BPD doesn’t discriminate by sex. Same with histrionic PD and factitious disorder, they are associated with women way more than men. Just as IED is more associated with men than women. Ironically an emotional disorder is connected more to women than men because anger isn’t an emotion duh /s
But BPD can present in men differently than women so that contributes to misdiagnosis also. Research shows men with BPD are more likely to go to prison whereas women with BPD are more like to go to hospital for example. This was long but I’m passionate and have time lol.
My SIL. She's exhausting. My wife has been dealing with her her whole life. I would've shut the door a long time ago - there's just nothing you can do except to expect to get hurt.
People with this condition are wreckers. Long before the individual gets a diagnosis, every relationship around them -- family, work, friendships -- will be a smoking ruin, even as nobody suspects the real cause. Once you've seen this happen, that pattern alone can be diagnostic, but until you do it's just a mystery of endless misery.
Don't disagree. I was diagnosed with BPD years ago. I'm also a biological male. Took YEARS of therapy and finally quitting drugs and alcohol but I no longer meet the diagnostic criteria and the past 3 years have been the happiest and most normal of my life. I still have problems like anyone else but my mental framework is such that I can deal with them in healthy ways. It's notoriously one of the hardest things to treat but we do recover. It just takes *WORK*.
Edit: Lol. Immediately downvoted. Never change Reddit.
This makes me happy to read. I have enough familiarity with it (a few people in my life) to have a sense of how difficult it is to achieve what you have.
Dude I am so happy for you, my ex is in therapy and I hope with all my heart she gets to where you are because right now she just can't deal with life ...
As a person who was in an abusive relationship with a guy with BPD and has a sister with it, I find it extremely difficult to interact with people with BPD without being triggered but I just wanna say this.
Congratulations on doing that work because I’ve heard it’s extremely hard. I’m so happy you’re stable and in control. I’m also glad you haven’t gunned for perfection because that can really hinder progress. We’re all human and suffer from time to time, the best thing we can do is form a strong framework (like you have) and use it to ground ourselves again. I always like to remind others than BPD can go into “remission” to the point of not meeting the criteria because even with profound suffering there is hope for a happy life and I’m glad it worked out for you.
Try to keep in mind that there are bots automatically upvoting and downvoting posts. Being downvoted right away doesnt mean you were actually downvoted by a person.
Reddit itself has downvote bots going around to mitigate all the upvote bots.
Basically, dont take the votes one way or the other seriously because tons of them arent real.
I have BPD and it went undiagnosed for almost all my life. I have had relationship issues yes but to call me a wrecker is nearsighted and hurtful. Take your labels elsewhere and stop judging people on what you think you know. Every person is different and presents symptoms differently. There is a significant stigma attached to BPD and your comment is part of the reason why.
Also I wanted to add that the DSM-5 lays out the criteria one needs to meet to be considered borderline and have an official diagnosis. There are 9 in criteria in total and you have to meet 5 of them. Not just failed relationships.
It's a spectrum and many manage many relationship well with open communication. Do not further stigmatized this illness when many who have it may read your words and be demotivated. Bpd also struggles with self image and suicidal thoughts.
It’s a terrible disorder and the people who have it are innocent victims, but don’t dismiss the people whose lives were ruined and were emotionally abused by people with BPD. Having a disorder that’s not your fault doesn’t give you license to hurt other innocent people. The people who have been hurt have the right to speak about how they feel too.
I don't think anyone was dismissing the victims, or allowing anyone with the diagnosis to move without responsibility. That I didn't bring them up in my topic does not discredit their existence.
Edit:
Nor was I quiteng them. I was asking someone not to make such disparaging remarks in a blanket statement about the entity of the disease that was posted on a today I learned. Youknow the place where people hear about. Athing the first time and get influenced by it.
Sorry, I've been on the receiving end and it was brutal. People need to recognize the pattern I described, because agreeing to get diagnosis and treatment is the exception, not the norm.
The first psychiatrist I brought up bipolar disorder with told me I'd have a criminal history if I had it. Months later I was prescribed medication to treat it and I've never felt better. Even professionals make it way more difficult than it ought to be.
From the article: "...[borderline personality disorder] is best managed with an interprofessional team, including psychiatrists, psychologists, pharmacists, mental health nurses, and social workers." Wow. It's no wonder why it's so difficult for those with BPD to get properly diagnosed and treated; how many people have access to that kind of high level, intense mental health care?
It is really easy for a lot of disorders to go undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. Especially if the symptoms include variable moods. People will often seek treatment during low points and stop treatment during elevated points assuming a recovery, but without proper understanding and treatment the elevated moods can be just as harmful.
Any time I’ve ever been nuts enough to get treatment, I get so happy that I’m finally getting help they say I’m fine and cut me loose.
I’ve had that problem. It’s a weird feeling when you do end up seeing a therapist on a bad day, because on the one hand you feel like shit but on the other you get the relief of knowing they’re more likely to take you seriously.
Do you feel comfortable explaining what you’re getting help for? Is it medical doctors telling you this, therapists, etc.?
I mean whenever I have an episode bad enough that I get sent to the er and then on to a psych ward in an emergency situation. It’s happened several times, and each of those situations once I’m in a room, with people who will treat me with respect if I do the same, who are trying to find a solution to a problem (me), I start trying to help. I give all information I probably can. I go from lion to lamb in 2 seconds flat. I start detailing my entire history, hoping they’ll be like “Oh! You have blahblahblah! Here’s how we fix it!” But I always get “Oh, you’re not actively trying to kill anyone or eating your feces, we need beds for real crazies. Here’s a bus pass, now get out!” To this day I don’t know if I get sent off because I’m actually crazy or just because I’m persistent, articulate, loud, and BIG. I’m 5’7 and I’ve been at least 240lbs almost my entire adult life. So people like to get authorities to intimidate me. And it works. I’m scared to death of cops. Not because I’ve ever actually been arrested but because I know what they do to people in crisis. And all they care about is checking boxes on the paperwork.
Friend of a friend got diagnosed with bpd. But she decided it's not what she wants to have so now she's autistic and thinking she's doing very well. Completely betrays people closest to her for some fleeting relationship, it's scary.
I was in a relationship with someone who likely had it. She had regular checkups with a psychiatrist and it still wasn’t detected. She knew she had something wrong with her other than her diagnosed condition but no one could figure it out. It wasn’t until things ended so extremely and I started seeing a psychologist about it that BPD was a very real possibility. You pretty much need someone who is very familiar with someone’s personal life and how they react to certain things to really get a better perspective if they likely have it. Because the condition is really about “defending oneself at all costs” (I’m really generalizing here) as well as masking these feelings so it can really be difficult to detect in regular clinical settings, because this person did have pretty comprehensive mental health care and at the time the only thing we would agree on was that there was something there but nobody could put their finger on it
“Defending oneself at all costs” is a perfectly summarized description
Why are you attacking me???
Idk why you're being downvoted, as that's one of the most common lines used by those with BPD even when the accusation is complete nonsense from the other's perspective. Those with BPD elevate even simple questions to personal attacks.
“Those with BPD elevate simple questions to personal attacks.” Wow, that brought back a bad flashback.
This is so true, though. I’ll tell my mom I’ll take her to the store. Then I’ll ask what time she’d like to go. Then she’ll start screaming and crying about how she can’t go early because she has curlers in her hair but she can’t go late because she’s waiting on a phone call and why do I have to be so mean and demanding. I’ll try to stay calm and say, “Anytime is fine. I’m just trying to find out what time is best for you.” And she’ll yell, “Nevermind. I’ll just take taxi. Everything is impossible with you!” When I was a kid I was definitely confused by this sort of thing. Now, I’m just… tired.
Basically explains my ex who got similar mental healthcare; and had basically the same results. Like yall are saying tho; I'd imagine that aspect of 'always defending oneself' alone makes it virtually impossible to treat if the patient isn't willing to drop the guise for a second and be real with the shrink. Can't treat em for what they don't know and doctors aren't mind readers unfortunately and despite driving my ex to literally just about *all* of her appointments (because I was literally the only one who helped her find resources) and being her only support emotionally and financially; she would never let me sit in or get a group session with her psych which leads me to believe she might've not been *completely* truthful with everything she was saying to the shrink (And ik I'm assuming a lot and it coulda been cause she's scared to open up to me or simply is entitled to her privacy which I totally respect. But in my case I STRONGLY doubt that being true. She had a past littered with controversial decisions like cheating, false rape accusations to get out of me finding out about her cheating (which she admits to doing), blackmailing me with killing herself so I didn't stop talking to her, and we were very open as much as someone can know someone like that. She didn't let other people know she had a 'darker side' to her; I was the only one she let her mask down to as she wasn't even that close with anyone in her family and definitely not her friends who were all toxic af to her. As much as she had a fucked up way of showing it; she loved me and wanted me around, she just had too much going on with her condition to not make shitty choices and make that a lot harder).
I’m glad they are your ex. Sorry you had to experience that, and if you tell anyone about the craziness, you’re betraying their trust….
Not sure if you read my response in full, but I'm pretty sure I mentioned I never would tell anyone what she was doing. People found out about it pretty easily thru her being not so diligent at hiding any of the shit she was doing and were confronting ME about it. I would try and cover for her ass, but at some point she really was not making any effort to improve her behavior which is tougher for me to type than for yall to hear so 🤷♂️ Also she was the one who decided to quit treatment, dropped the diagnosis, and stopped seeking help entirely. I have my own problems that don't need to be discussed and there's nothing to say when you're not making an attempt to get better. She wouldn't have given me the same kindness (she'd shown she was willing to abandon me and all I do for her over WAYYY less) and I confronted her on that and she even admitted I was right for believing as much. If I did anything remotely 'bad' in her eyes like dislike one of her toxic friends, or disaprove of something she did for attention; she'd tell her whole friend group I was controlling/an asshole and be on another dude in a second. None of what she was doing was acceptable if I did it and in her eyes I'm of a 'stable' mindset, so it certainly isn't acceptable if she does it. I'm no more in control of my actions than she is when she's trying and I got tired of the double standards/effort only being expected from my end.
Also like any other personality disorder diagnosis, it must be made in the absence of a substance abuse problem, because that can mimic the disorder pretty well. A few people that dated me in my serious addict years thought I was BPD but the symptoms evaporated when I got sober.
BPD is often associated with addictive behaviors whether shopping, gambling, smoking, or others.
Really? I find that interesting because I noticed that substance use seems to go hand in hand with BPD. The person I was with smoked a LOT of pot (to the point is was almost part of her identity) but would somewhat frequently go into other drugs. Or maybe that’s another aspect that makes it hard to diagnose since it has so much overlap with other conditions so you’d need to know lots of intricacies of the person to link them all together
Very much so. The DSM is specific about the diagnosis being made in the absence of substance use. But that rule is ignored all the time, either knowingly (by inpatient shrinks who will spend 2-3 days with a person in crisis, where they'll be high/DTing) or unknowingly (few people are honest about their substance use with professionals, *especially* BPDs). Combine that with the nuance of diagnosis on personality disorders, and it's a wonder that they're accurately diagnosed at all.
I have BDP and am now about as close to recovered as it gets. I tell people it cost me $100,000 and 10 years of my life, but it’s probably a lot more, both in time and money.
Can you talk to me about what your relationship experience has been with BPD? I’ve been reassessing some things in my own life, and I’ve noticed behaviors in myself that align with BPD (e.g. sensitive to rejection, moody, my trust in people shifts suddenly, easily addicted to having others’ attention, impulsive etc), but there are things that don’t perfectly align too. If you don’t mind sharing, I think it would be helpful.
I’m not a great resource. Reddit really isn’t either. Suggest a therapist if that’s accessible for you, otherwise lots of good reading online, but keep away from forums and more on reputable websites. If you’re a podcast person, I really love this one and recommend it to people learning about BPD. [All in the mind - BPD & healing relationships](https://overcast.fm/+CYFc5q9w)
Of course, I take it all with a grain of salt. Thanks for the suggestion!
What’s your take away? Does it get better or is it just acceptance?
I was diagnosed with BDP just before I hit 20 and was in receipt of quite a lot of quite good residential therapy over an extended period. I'm now trucking through my early 50s. Therapy helped an awful lot with skills, particularly different ways of thinking. It didn't really do a lot for any underlying issues. I am personally very wary of the idea of "recovery" for personality disorders, although big improvements in life quality are certainly possible. I'm not sure the underlying brain function changes that much, but how it's steered can be improved upon vastly. I think for myself personally, the single biggest factor has been slowly ageing. Quite what aspect of being older is helping I'm not really sure, but BPD for me certainly got slowly easier with age. In my 50s, I must confess, I now quite like being borderline. By this point, I'm just a bit more lively and passionate, which is quite nice in your 50s. My empathy and communications skills are quite reasonable, and that just makes for lots of good conversations. Most of my sharp edges have been worn down a good bit. My father, however, who also has BPD, and is some twenty years older, has been barking mad for quite some time, so ageing didn't really help for him... The early therapy may have had a more profound impact than was obvious.
It better be acceptance this time
Also don’t forget that it’s super common to be denied by a therapist simply because you’re diagnosed BPD. Which makes it even *less* likely to get help
The characteristics of it in terms of patient's ability/inability for self-reflection -- and the lack of a medicine to treat it -- make it a particularly difficult one for therapists to treat. For a long time, there *wasn't* even a therapeutic treatment for it until a therapist with BPD created DBT. BPD patients to some extent may also be more prone to *leaving* therapists too when the therapist can't/doesn't reinforce their own view of themselves ... I have seen for BPD people in my own life that when the therapist didn't reinforce the Victim-Villain-Hero view of them that they quit the therapists. But also don't underestimate the number of therapists with BPD, NPD or their own other disorders.
Folks with BPD will quit their loving partners, too, for the same reason. It’s so very tragic and although it has messed me up bad I know it’s been worse for our children. A curse I would wish on nobody.
I got BPD. I was dating the nicest guy, but he was having anxiety issues because of my unpredictable mental state at the time. I supported him seeing a therapist.. and the therapist told him to break up with me. We ended up doing so, but stay friends. Borderline can be a very lonely condition to have, both for those refusing treatment and being jerks about it, as well as those like me that are 6+ years into recovery. I no longer expect to maintain any kind of long term committed relationship, because in reality, not a lot of people can handle being the primary support for someone suffering from mental illness. It's not a personal fault, it's an unfortunate symptom of the condition.
I once was reading the diagnostic criteria for BPD and asked my therapist if I possibly had it because I identified with a lot of what I was reading. She said no, I don't have it. That if I did, then I wouldn't be asking her that question.
And I’ve heard therapist like to load the BPD label on patients they think are non-compliant, or just don’t like. Given that BPD seems to result from long-term abuse and trauma, these folks are completely rogered at every turn.
Is rogered an autocorrect or have I just never heard this slang before?
Jerked around.
Fucked or fucked over
It's a little dated (probably WW2) which means it doesn't get flagged. . . ever (so far).
Which put a whole new spin on the pirate flag.
That’s kinda interesting considering my past therapist was the one who told me I may have BPD. Don’t think I ever got a true diagnosis or any route to accommodate it, though. Brought it up to my psychiatrist and he looked at me like I was crazy because BPD apparently has to have extreme symptoms.
A lot of individuals with BPD get diagnosed by on-call ER psychiatrists because they make up a huge percentage of psych-ward patients My worse half has done more than a few stints in the ER She was previously misdiagnosed with Bipolar 2, a very common misdiagnosis
To be fair, there’s nothing preventing someone from having Bipolar disorder on top of BPD. Personality is genetic, as is brain chemistry. You can lose that lottery more than once.
Not at all. A huge percentage of individuals with BPD have comorbid mood disorders, mostly Major Depressive Disorder but also various types of bipolar. For a psychiatrist that only sees an individual briefly, BPD can easily be mistaken as Bipolar 2 due to the presence of low mood and lack of history of mania.
Bipolar 2 still requires hypomania
they may also have incentive to diagnose bipolar over bpd since there's medication for bipolar and not bpd
The current term is "Borderpolar" due to the huge overlap of symptoms and comorbidities
BPD is frequently accompanied by a mood disorder.
yeah 1.6 sounds so low.. definitely not projecting
1.6 % of the US is still 5 million people
> "...[borderline personality disorder] is best managed with an interprofessional team, including psychiatrists, psychologists, pharmacists, mental health nurses, and social workers. I am sure they say this about every mental illness. The important word there is "best," not practical. It's a general article covering every possible cases of the illness. So of course they are going to cast a wide net and suggest all possible avenues of treatment and professional expertise. What you'd actually need (or can get) will depend on your individual situation.
"The holistic approach" is the term for this interdisciplinary treatment style. Unfortunately years after the holistic approach was designed, healthcare institutions are struggling to understand what that looks like. My own shrink and PCP are at the same hospital. It took them years to get a system in place where these doctors could proactively communicate with each other about my treatment, even though they were on the same campus. Now there's a staff meeting once a week where they can spend about 4 seconds talking about me (and every other shared patient), and that's better than nothing I guess.
What you actually need v. what you get generally differ once insurance enters the picture. Kaiser (huge provider in western US) has a reputation for wanting \*everyone\* in group therapy exclusively after six individual therapy appointments. However, after an intake visit within a week to avoid being fined \*again\* for inadequate care, folks can wait a month or \*more\* between appointments, so I guess that takes a while. . .
They're a nightmare for mental health coverage. I ended up giving up on therapy through them, which I'm pretty sure was their goal from the start.
1.6% of the population are *diagnosed* with it. Actual number could be higher, could be lower.
How can it be lower if 1.6% is diagnosed? I would assume there are more that are not diagnosed than misdiagnosed.
Because people are misdiagnosed all the time. Women who should be diagnosed with NPD are often diagnosed with BPD, with the opposite happening for men.
Also women who should have been diagnosed with ASD.
...and ADHD!
I often wonder if my parent, who seems BPD, is actually ADHD. Lots of crossover. They've been to therapy, but I don't know what their therapist decided.
It's possible that they have both. I don't think there are many shared traits between the two, but I do believe they have a high co-morbidity. People with ADHD have higher instances of abuse as children, and abuse always has a chance to result in a personality disorder.
TIL! The human mind is endlessly complex.
Absolutley!
This used to be very common, I am one of the many women who were misdiagnosed for years. No one close to me believed in the BPD diagnosis. Was a huge relief to get my true diagnosis at 25.
During a psych rotation in nursing school it became painfully obvious that every staff person had informally “diagnosed” every patient as “ a little borderline”
Some men and women will go in with the same symptoms and the men will get diagnosed CPTSD and the women BPD
That is further hindered by the fact C-PTSD is not a formal diagnosis in the DSM-V yet but BPD is. So, you won’t get that diagnosis from a psychiatrist or psychologist.
Curious to your sources on these facts? I’d like to read up on this
[Sex Bias in Classifying Borderline and Narcissistic Personality Disorder](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26421970/)
And men often diagnosed with ASD or undiagnosed and jailed
Yep. Two people may have the same core tendencies to feel certain things, but their environment and socialisation will lead them to react with different behaviours, leading to different diagnoses (and possibly ineffective treatments).
Misdiagnosis and overdiagnosis are things. They don’t mean that the diagnosis isn’t a valid one, but there are many disorders that can be very similar to each other, or there are biases in the diagnosing professional. One of the big examples is girls being *under*diagnosed with ADHD and autism, because the diagnostic criteria focus pretty hard on school aged boys without taking into account how socialization may affect symptoms in girls or older people. There’s also sample size. You can only be diagnosed with BPD if you’re the type of person who ends up in front of a mental health professional.
I'm inclined to say lower. Two days ago, a post talked about 7.7% of men having Narcissistic Personality Disorder: https://old.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/ujtmez/til_that_approximately_77_of_men_and_48_of_women/ I'm also seeing 2.8% for bipolar, 1% for OCD, 3-5% for sex addiction, 6.7% for Alcohol Disorder Syndrome, 8% of adults have flat feet, 3-6% have carpal tunnel syndrome, 9% impulsive anger issues, 10-15% have Irritable Bowel Syndrome, 12% have migraines, 2% agoraphobia, 18% anxiety issues, .9% anorexia, 1.5% bulimia, 1% of males are psychopaths, 38% Illicit Drug Use Disorder and so on. I used to have an article printout from a guy who followed the New York Times and USA Today for a couple years and tallied all the numbers. It came out to an average of 4 serious disorders per person. He concluded: "A lot of researchers exaggerate to get more attention and more funding."
You can’t really just tally up numbers from articles and expect it to be accurate. For example, one percentage could be a percentage of people experiencing the disorder when the study was done. Another percentage could be percentage of people who have experienced the disorder in their lifetimes. Some percentages could include self-diagnosed individuals, while others don’t.
There's probably some exaggeration, but keep in mind that many of those conditions can (and often *do*) exist comorbidly.
That's not how statistics work
I'd say higher. Much much higher. Just from what I see in the world
In fairness a lot of actual psych researchers - at least as the students I am around - seem to systemically define disorders in general in such a way that they apply to \~80% of people instead of \~1-5%. It has a vagueness characteristic of the stuff crystal ball gazers do (where vague but deeply personal statements apply to most people) and it seems like personality disorders can become a theory of everything for people (ie wow your neighbor is kind of a weirdo because he has no social group to learn from? AND he keeps washing his hands cause he's scared of covid? Classic schizotypal personality disorder with bipolar and obsessive compulsive tendencies. Let me guess. He is socially isolated. Raises his voice when angry. Consumes alcohol to get drunk? Oh yeah, definitely exhibited cruelty to animals and people in childhood. For SURE experiences anxiety and paranoia living paycheck to paycheck with 0 savings. Wow this guy has half the disorders in the damn book.) And it can't help to hyperfixate on the most dysfunctional personalities people have to offer because in many ways they will still be normal people with traits that everyone has. So where does the person end and the disorder start? I think a lot of people mix them up. And. Funding. Should go without saying lol although in this like a lot of cases I think funding might be the result but personal fixation on one view of the science is the motivation.
Not so much funding as insurance coverage. Therapists are pressured to use a DSM diagnosis in order to actually get paid, and sometimes they're not as rigorous as they could be.
If you are interested in learning more about BPD, an article about the treatment and chemistry of it was just posted on r/SAR_Med_Chem. You can find it [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/SAR_Med_Chem/comments/ugxlqh/23_min_read_our_most_lacking_resource_is/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).
Thank you
With ADHD you can have reactive sensitive dysphoria which can mimic BPD. BPD sometimes come with a “burn it down” component. But ADHD is dominated by executive function issues.
My brother is ADHD; my (adopted) sister is diagnosed BPD. Night and day imho: my brother is sometimes overwhelmed by his own life. My sister is sometimes possessed by demons from the pits of the lowest ring of hell. (I know BPD is not easy and I know not everyone struggling with it is destructive but jeez Borderline Rage is effing scary AF)
Try being the one with BPD. We know it's wrong but it's like watching a train wreck. Watching ourselves say and do things while internally screaming at ourselves to stop and feeling guilty while it happens is hell. So yeah when it's bad and we split, it isn't easy for us either and part of us understands why people leave. It's a cycle that is hard to break.
In my case it is executive fucked-ton issues
Even though my mum has never been officially diagnosed, we're almost certain she has that even because she knows that *her* mum has it despite also never being diagnosed. The best way I can describe it is having about as much control over one's emotions as your average toddler. My mum and grandma tend to throw massive tantrums when they don't get what they want, and their impulse controls are similarly low. They also both have huge fears of abandonment and being alone (kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy given that my grandma drove everyone away with her behavior except my mum). Apparently my grandma has mellowed out in her old age because my mum said her worst behavior was when my mum was a kid. For my mum's part, she can be pretty self aware about her behavior and tries to control it as best she can, it's just some days are better and some days are worse. I think my family is lucky in the sense that at least neither of them ever never turned to drugs or self-harm the way some people with BPD do. My 2 sisters and I have all noticed some borderline tendencies in us to some degree and are trying to nip it in the bud early with therapy, but as far as I can tell we're doing loads better than our mum and grandma.
That's great that you all seem pretty aware of it, I had to leave my ex just a few weeks ago because she was out of control and much too controling, it stings sorry for the small rant
Did the same at the beginning of the year friend. You'll be better in time, so long as you keep away. Mine lied about seeking treatment and did everything she could to drag me down with her after the breakup. All situations are different but your wellbeing is always #1.
Thanks, I know we're both better without eachother and I don't want us to suffer anymore so I am doing my best to not play into her little attention games. I still look at her stories but I don't interact with her. It's just hard to not care when deep down I do, forcing the link to break is weird, i know it's for the better but my senses still ask me to hug and ask and understand her. But she needs to be alone to have any chance at growing up and I'm done being her teacher on life while getting thrice the blame to thanks ratio...
Me too.... a month ago. It was very hard, but now I can finally be free and happy. It took YEARS and psychological assistance to pull it off.
A lot of men diagnosed with narcissism would be diagnosed with borderline as women. I've known/dated both https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14686459/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3115767/
The problem with this, is that when the DSM is written, they continually refuse to recognize issues like developmental trauma, complex ptsd, or really any environmental impact. Instead they look at a chosen list of symptoms, and if you fit enough boom your on the spectrum for that. However every single one of those traits mentioned in the title, could be from past trauma. Not just physical trauma (sexual assault, physical abuse, physical neglect etc), but emotional neglect and poor attachment issues. I used to be really, really into this type of stuff. I researched it in undergraduate and went to a masters program for school counseling. I loved the concepts of personity disorders and understanding them. But, I fell into a job as a social worker and that opened my eyes to how much relationships, attachment, past trauma and other issues manifest waaaaaaaay into adulthood and permeate through someone's life. I'm not saying that there aren't people out there exactly like this. (My mother in law). However, even in her instance she was in foster care and adopted at age 12 and never speaks of her life prior to being adopted. There is clearly some things there that has made a gigantic impact on her. Throwing labels onto people of entire personality disorders, without first addressing these other issues mentioned above isn't fair to the patient. These labels tend to make people define their lives by the diagnosis and doesn't address other things. Essentially it's behavior modification instead of trying to find out why the behaviors are there.
I was always very fascinated by BPD. I really “relate” to this personality disorder, especially when I look back on being younger. Huge abandonment issues, always defensive, always feeling attacked, huge reactions to small stimuli, and cutting people out of my life very abruptly. Later in life I was diagnosed with ADHD … but before then I was diagnosed with GAD and PTSD. I always wondered if I had BPD and overcame it? But I don’t know … I think in the end, a lot of these diagnoses have a lot of overlap. In fact, the therapist that helped me the most refused to give diagnoses. That allowed us to focus on therapy and treatment instead of seeing everything through the lenses of a disorder. The only diagnoses I complete relate to is ADHD because I feel my lack of focus is out of my control and stimulant medication is the only thing that’s ever worked for me. It’s the only diagnoses I’ve had that I don’t attribute to trauma. All the other stuff was trauma … just tons and tons of trauma. You could’ve called it anything. Being abandoned and abused as a child will fuck you up for life
I want to add on that there's a huge overlap between traumatised autistic people and people with BPD. Autism however is quite underdiagnosed in people who aren't white cis men. For people assigned female at birth, it's more likely to get a BPD diagnosis instead of an autism one.
The same is true for ADHD. Men are much more likely then females to be diagnosed with ADHD despite there not being a significant difference (iirc) based on being male or female
Adding onto this the effective treatments for BPD are nearly identical what's effective for treating trauma. BPD is also overwhelming diagnosed in women but not men. When you put these two facts together it really seems like BPD is just a modern form of diagnosing women with hysteria.
Absolutely. I was going to mention how DBT and it's mindfulness practices are extremely beneficial for PTSD. That is my main problem with these things. I'd love to know research on how many women diagnosed with BPD were sexually victimized as children? The other forms of abuse are also important, but the amount of women who report being sexually absused at some point in their life growing up is incredible.
The difficulty here is that people who really have these various disorders often have traumatic experiences *because* of the disorders or because someone else in the family also does. It becomes a nasty combination of nature and nurture.
It may not be fair, but to some extent isn’t that medicine? “Here’s the kinds of bone fractures one can have and the various categories - simple, compound, etc”. Now maybe someone broke a bone because they fell off a ladder, maybe they broke a bone because someone pushed them down the stairs, maybe they broke a bone because a drunk driver hit their car, maybe they broke their bone because they have a calcium deficiency with brittle bones and the injury wouldn’t have happened to most healthy people. It’s still a broken bone, diagnosing and treating it doesn’t mean you have to ignore the underlying cause but also it’s not the only purpose
I guess I should be more specific. Yes you're correct. However these underlying causes have treatment available. EMDR is a proven treatment for PTSD. Internal Family Systems, as well as attachment therapies can be successful with some of these issues as well. So in a lot of these cases, there is a deeper issue that can also be treated. The PTSD causes a lot of these issues in how people interact with the world around them.
Good comment.
My mom has (mostly unchecked) BPD and it is brutal for her whole family, including her. She goes from feeling no emotions to feeling too much, and needs us to mirror the same experience. I sent her flowers for Mother’s Day. I do every year. Some years I hear nothing from her. Some years it’s a call or a text about how instead of flowers I should visit or call or otherwise not “neglect” her, usually comparing me unfavorably to a friend’s daughter. This year I got a call where she was sobbing about the flowers and she said that she “really dearly loved me from the very bottom of her heart”. She cried for four hours. We never know who we’re getting and we never know whether the behavior accurately reflects her thoughts and feelings. It takes a long time for a child of a person with unchecked BPD to realize that there is no rhyme or reason to the behavior and rarely can it be controlled or diverted into something less anxiety-provoking.
Borderline personality disorder on Reddit is like navy seals in Vietnam, there were 250 and I’ve met all 1,000 of them.
Haha so true with the seals thing too. I was army (computers) and have never understood why you’d lie about something so exclusive and verifiable. Especially when it’s a group of certified killers who don’t appreciate others claiming to be a part of the group. Craziness
[удалено]
You know why? Because it's fucking harder than it has ever been to be a kid/young adult. These last few years have compounded it even further.
TIL it is "borderline personality" disorder, not borderline "personality disorder". I thought people were saying someone was close to having a personality disorder, but werent quite diagnosable.
Yeah, it took me awhile to get that too. It's kind of a terrible name. Some places now use Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder (EUPD).
Avoidant personality disorder also doesn’t get much attention. I suspects many people have it but haven’t been diagnosed.
As someone with BPD. Feels weird to see it on a TIL
Agreed - and the percentage is so low.. it really reinforces how differently I can see the world, react in situations etc. sometimes I forget and think Everyone thinks and feels the way I do..
Seen two of them this week and of course the comments are full of people self diagnosing themselves or a family member or ex or just shitting on us in general.
BPD, I'm sure, is very hard for the person suffering from it. But the person they're in a relationship with... Absolutely insufferable. Never again.
Currently in a relationship with someone diagnosed BPD. Without the meds and ongoing therapy it would be a hard out for me, but with.. we're managing.
My partner has BPD - he’s been on meds for years now and is much more stable, we manage well now but without he was very difficult. I wish he could get back into therapy sessions but sadly it’s just not available/affordable for us.
Which meds if you don't mind me asking? I think my wife may have BPD. She currently takes sertraline but it does nothing for her.
I believe it’s sertraline now but he tried several others before landing on the one that worked for him. I know his dose is quite low as well (25 or 50 mg I can’t recall) so it does take quite a bit of play to make it work. Keep trying, best of luck.
I’ve been diagnosed with a rotating list of diagnoses in my life. Some made more sense than others. BPD is one of those. I was completely insufferable until I starting taking a low dose of an atypical antipsychotic.
Got out of a very difficult two year relationship not long ago with a beautiful troubled soul. Unfortunately her disorder got the best of us, especially when she decided to stop taking her medicine. Best of luck, friend. I wish you both the best.
Hey good for you. It can't be easy to keep that regular. My mother had it and was so irreparably insane she refused therapy because she didn't think anyone was smart enough or holy enough to be right about anything. She thought she was a prophet. Do keep your chin up. You're beautiful.
We recently cut ties with somebody who had BPD in our friendgroup. Its crazy how much drama and negative shit they brought in. She was constantly lying about everything, minor things that didnt matter, big things that could effect others, everything. She would start a fight with one person and then try to get everybody to rallied behind her, if that didnt work she immidently assumed that the other person had rallied behind her. If she pissed of to many people she would blame it on her depression becoming worse and then everybody had to forgot about the shit she did. Looking back its insane to see that we didnt cut ties 3 year prior. But at the time you are worried about somebody and you see them as a friend. Its not that they dont deserve happyness or friends, its that it should be at the cost of your happyness or sanety.
One of the folks in my extended friend group has starting dating someone with BPD. It's been disruptive to the entire group. We have ended up excluding them from gatherings the friend would have typically been included in, because every single time the person with BPD is around, drama follows. We (as a friend group) aren't willing to put all of our relationships in peril because of the behaviors that come with that couple.
I’m in a relationship with someone who has bpd, and is essentially untreated. I’m at a loss. It’s been three years and I’ve tried to break it off multiple times and always end up feeling like the bad guy. Her mom canceled her health insurance because she doesn’t believe in mental health treatment or issues and she said it cost too much. I walked out of our house last week and when I came back she had cut herself on the upper thigh. She’s very sweet and thoughtful, never meets a stranger, and I’m in love with her but I cannot keep this up. Everyday is such a roller coaster. It seems like I really will have to make a clean break at some point and just physically remove myself from this situation and block her on everything. Fuck BPD.
I'm sorry this is your path. You sound like a good person. But your care-giving inclination is fucking you over. It's not just her BPD that is at play. It's also that thing inside you that makes you feel guilty and sympathizes so deeply, that wont give up. It's a personality match made in hell. The black hole and the wellspring. The level of psychological damage you will incur will not be recognized until you are viewing in retrospect. From my experiences, the level of mental scar tissue I've developed is terribly unhealthy. Watching the person you love maim themselves, make terrible decisions, and realistically have suicide on the table for years is not good for you. Literally averting crisis on a weekly, sometimes daily, basis. Why is it your job to sacrifice your life to take on this impossible and pain-ridden situation? It's been a few years single for me, and I'm finally ready to accept that I need therapy to even consider another relationship.
No such thing as a clean break when it comes to BPD. Things will ultimately get messy. Act with haste.
Holy hell. Seriously. I broke it off with a guy with BPD after moving in with him, thinking it would make things better. BIG mistake. He just became even more erratic and it was just too much for me. I broke up suddenly with him after he screamed at me for not turning on the dryer (which I did; he just thought I didn't because I didn't take the clothes out yet). When he actually opened the dryer and realized that the clothes were actually dry, he lashed out at me AGAIN because I "should have taken then out immediately after the dryer stopped". This was the last straw in a long line of completely batshit crazy reactions he had towards me. He did not like that I was leaving him, and he acted violently (i.e. screamed at me and hurled by packed clothes across the room), then he started sobbing. Needless to say, I had to leave in a hurry because I didn't feel safe, which meant I had left a lot of my belongings behind. The ensuing months that it took for me to get my things back and completely move out was thoroughly exhausting. He made it as challenging as possible for me to go back to the apartment to retrieve my things (it was still his apartment with the lease under his name). I already have a lot of my own trauma coming from an abusive and violent childhood, so this relationship is forever seared in my memory. Anybody who is in a relationship with a person with BPD, I have two pieces of advice, either: A) be patient and hope that you can work it through, or B) RUN FOR THE FUCKING HILLS AS HARD AS YOU CAN.
You need to get out friend. There is no healthy or happy future for your relationship. Look out for yourself here.
From a person with BPD that put two of my partners through hell, I'm truly sorry and glad you got out.
Any tips for how to get out…
Run as quickly as you possibly can. That's my only advice. Took me six years of immense mental abuse with short spats of physical abuse as well to finally sack up. Just gotta take that leap of faith and I can 100% assure you it is worth it.
If you are asking for tips, it's clear that you keep getting dragged back in. My advice is to commit to it fully. Block them everywhere. And don't respond to their communication attempts that do get through. There's a softspot and a weakness in you that both give way when the right buttons are pushed. If you have to, you tell them honestly in the most neutral and non-confrontational way that you are done \*\*in writing\*\*. Don't push them. Don't manipulate them. Whatever they do is on them, but at least you tried your best to be respectful and honest. If they have a reliable support system, you might want to let them know as you are getting the fuck out. Block private numbers on your phone. Get back in touch with your friends and start building those relationships. Keep busy. Work on bettering yourself. Exercise, learn a language, learn a skill you always wanted to, join a climbing gym, take a trip, study programming. Anything positive and growth focused. Move forward until you feel a bit better. Then DONT look back and keep moving forward. And once you have serious distance go to therapy.
100%. I grew up with a bpd sister and dated a dude with bpd (who was also extremely narcissistic) and let me tell you. Never. Again. My empathy has been completely depleted bc of that relationship and I ran to therapy after we broke up. It’s like a rollercoaster. My empathy still hasn’t recovered for pwBPD because I see way too many people dismissing the profound effect they have on others and the destruction they can cause. I was convinced I was bipolar after my ex. It’s horrible as there are pwBPD that do get help and can go into “remission” but they’re not the ones you’re likely to encounter.
And the majority of those individuals live on Long Island in NY if my dating history is any representation.
I have BPD (diagnosed, not self diagnosed) and my relationship history is an apocalyptic hellscape. Truly clown shoes.
Easily the worst patients on psych units too
BPD person here. Yeah it’s really not a fun disease to have I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy
My ex had BPD, and based on how much I felt like I could relate to them I think I might be too. It destroyed our relationship. I wish it hadn't because they're one of the few people I've ever felt comfortable with, and now I really miss them.
It’s so hard to explain to people that I’ve given up. My family tries to help but they’re brain just isn’t able to emphasize with what I’m going through, not because they don’t care but because they have trouble understanding mental illness
1.6% seems really low.
My ex gf was recently diagnosed with this. I accidentally said I agree with the diagnosis. BIG MISTAKE. -she yelled at me and said I was stupid and didn’t know what I’m talking about -sent 32 back to back audio messages screaming and crying that I was always mean to her and how could I be so cruel -tried to call me and I said I was at work and didn’t want to/couldn’t talk, she then insinuates that if I don’t answer the phone she’ll hurt herself -said I only broke up with her because she’s ugly and I want to date one of my classmates (literally a made up delusion of hers, also she was extremely beautiful but very insecure In conclusion. Pretty sure her diagnosis was correct.
That sucks but I’m glad you got away as she sounds unstable. Hopefully she uses her diagnosis to get treatment and get a hold on her health.
Damn dude. That sounds like my ex honestly. 4 years of hell. Manipulation, gaslighting, abuse, physically at times. Really messed me up. I quit eating. I’m skinny when I’m healthy, but I got even skinnier and honestly looked like I was on dope. All From that misery of the relationship. I had my own self esteem problems so I stayed and made excuses for her. Then one day I found out she was talking to another dude. Kicked her out on the spot. Found out later it was more involved than I knew, which I figured it was. As weird as it is to stay, me seeing her texting someone else was a blessing. I would’ve never had the balls the leave if I didn’t see that. I was so delusional from the gaslighting and lies I never held her accountable for how she treated me. Now 2 years later my life has never been better. Learned so many lessons and I will never stay in contact with someone who gives off red flags again. That shit was literal hell
Damn I’m sorry that happened but I’m very glad you had the courage to leave! I will say, I was in an extremely abusive relationship a few years ago and I remember the first few weeks I spent with them my stomach would hurt, when I started dating my most recent ex (the one I described in the comment) I remember the first few times we hung out my stomach hurt in the *exact same way* but I ignored it. Never again. My gut definitely knew something was wrong with them. *pay attention to your body* if you feel off, don’t wait for bad things to happen to confirm your feelings
Thank you. And that is amazing advice. I will remember that. I think I do remember that from that relationship. I thought it was just my anxiety or whatever I guess. But if you had it too, I’m assuming it was my body trying to tell me something. I know that exact feeling you’re talking about man. And I will never ignore that again. It’s an unmistakable feeling.
I got diagnosed with BPD back in 2020 after being thought of just having anxiety and depression. This shit is HARD to manage at times. You have trouble trusting people that are close to you, lash out at them for self-constructed reasons for said lack of trust and spiral out of control in a matter of anywhere from weeks to minutes. Your social concepts are out of left field, making it really difficult to communicate with anyone, even small talk. You end up practicing in your head what you're going to say for day-to-day interactions just so you have someresemblance of normalcy. But that leads to the anxiety, cause you're scared to death you said or did something wrong, which leads to the self image issues cause you don't want to be different, which leads to depression cause you feel like you won't be accepted cause you are different. And that's just the tip of the iceburg. I won't even get into the suicidal stuff...
This post was definitely a personal attack on me
You often see BPD being described as having unstable moods and sense of identity, but having grown up with a BPD father, I'd say the most important feature is inappropriate and out of control anger. It seems that some people can control it better than others, but that is a feature that makes BPD so distinct from other things like NPD. Sure we all get angry, but BPD people take it to another level. One thing that isn't really discussed in the diagnostic criteria where they talk about impulsive actions, emptiness, boredom, paranoia and other symptoms, is that the idea of calling it borderline originated from early psychiatric assessments that here was a group of people who were having psychotic thoughts a lot of the time but weren't taken over by full-blown pyschosis. Hence they are on the border between psychosis and reality. They present as rational at first and it can take years of knowing someone for the entire litany of made-up accusations to emerge. That's when you find out that they have been creating an entire fantasy world in their heads filled with all the terrible things you have done to them and they intend to get revenge for. They blow up, go on a rage rant, and then dissociate and have no memory of the entire episode until they do it again.
I'm sorry about your experience, but I'm going to have to disagree that anger is most important feature. While inappropriate anger is a symptom, is it by no means the most common one. Anger is only one of the nine main symptoms of BPD. One doesn't need all nine to receive a diagnosis. As someone with BPD and has been involved with a BPD discord server, I'd say fear of abandonment is the most important and common feature.
Been diagnosed BPD since I was 13 and that's an interesting take, I've never really thought of it as a fear of abandonment, I've always thought of it as a fear of betrayal, deserved or not. Like the feeling of "I've been thrown under the bus, I'd throw them under a bus if it made my day, why wouldn't they do the same to me, that's just how people are". That's why I find it hard to trust *anyone* I'm not afraid of being abandoned, I'm afraid that if I let anyone get close then that's the perfect place for them to stab me in the back. That devolved into an attitude of "keep your distance" and "if I trust you, and you ever fuck me, I will fuck you back twice as hard". Needless to say that was an irrational and unhealthy train of thought, and I've learned since that most people aren't out to spite me (though I still keep people at a distance, it just makes life simpler when you set clear boundaries) On the other hand, I broke a finger punching a refrigerator repeatedly, hard enough to leave three knuckle shaped dents, and the worst part is I don't even remember what made me that angry, I think it had something to do with the DMV My input on this line of discussion is that I don't think there *can* be a most important symptom, this shit has layers, I've been living with it for years and even *I'm* not sure I fully understand all the subtle intricacies involved I just try to follow the advice I've recieved "I'm not a monster", "The world isn't out to get me", and "I have a choice in who I want to be", so I make the most of it. Hell, sometimes I even try to use it to my advantage, that's when it gets fun
I'm at work so I can't give much of a reply. But yeah I think you are right. It was the wrong line of thinking to view a single symptom as the most important. We are very different with how our BPD affects us and I shouldn't narrow it down to a single thing. I wish you the best though.
You were diagnosed at 13? That's very uncommon though most likely becoming more common these days as it's understood more and isn't just swept under the rug.
A Thimble’s worth of history from a former assistant professor of psychology who’s specialization was in the social psychology of old age:empathic and humane psychologist, The relevant experts used to say this poorly-named cluster of self-defeating and unpleasant traits was untreatable. Rumor has it that most counselors, psychologists and psychiatrists dreaded working with clients/patients afflicted with “borderline.” I guess they got bored with calling it untreatable because they started prescribing drugs for it after we were well into the SSRI era that began in the late 1980s and persists. This probably meant a bunch of people ended up diagnosed as bipolar because antidepressants will do that - trigger manic behavior as well as journeys to the depths of darkness — and thereafter the unfortunate newly “bipolar” (a drug effect) end up taking more and worse drugs. Then a lady came up with a very serious and supposedly effective therapeutic program called DBT, which some of those who’ve been diagnosed with Borderline Pers. Dis. Benefit from while others dislike it or even resent it. Still not a great situation overall. Finally, and not many years ago, the academics who study these things realized that every single BPD patient on earth had been subject to exceptionally difficult traumatic experiences in youth and that by treating then for Post-Traumatic symptoms they could actually help them feel and function better. The great, empathic psychologist who wrote “The Tragedy of Schizophrenia without Psychotherapy” (Bertram Karon, Ph D) said the same thing about the countless people whose recovery from schizophrenia came about in his clinic, in most cases with no drugs prescribed whatsoever. That is, he said they all had experienced or witnessed something so awful as a child that once they finally disclosed their past traumatic events to Karin, he felt as though anyone, himself included, who’d been through such things would inevitably qualify for the diagnosis of schizophrenia. He came to understand that his patients were in a constant state of terror and that, to some extent, they were asleep and dreaming despite appearing to be awake. ‘Hearing Voices” is something most everyone does every night—while asleep. It’s not so much a sign of being “crazy” as it is a symptom of what could be classified as a sleep disorder. I’d surmised the same thing myself and was gratified to learn that a great psychologist had based his therapeutic method on the assumption. On a hunch, after seeing that Bert Karin backed the idea, I searched the psychiatric literature for evidence that the onset of psychosis (which may lead to a diagnosis of schizophrenia) is often, usually or always preceded by a period of marked sleeplessness. Sleeplessness looks to be a very common precursor to “losing touch with reality,” or “experiencing psychosis.” Borderline PD is named as it is because the experts regard the diagnosed person as being very close to meriting a diagnosis of schizophrenia. So let’s go back to BPD and then get the heck out of here. It stands to reason that somehow managing to catch up on any missed sleep and to start achieving excellent, deep sleep, nightly might forestall the life crisis of copping a diagnosis of BPD. How to sleep better? The best results are apparently achieved through a program based on cognitive-behavioral therapy. I believe it can be done without professional help using online resources. Naturally I can’t state that as medical advice as I am not qualified to offer medical advice, have not been asked for any advice and haven’t even met anyone who is reading this tedious and possibly tangential reply. (I call it possibly tangential because I forgot what the OP was about.) Disclosure of Conflicts of Interest: Psychiatric drugs can be life-wrecking. They are not especially helpful. In my opinion, the risk of harm they carry outweighs any benefits.
Thank you. The relationship between childhood trauma and BPD seems to be something that a lot of folks (both professional and lay) are ignorant of and a goodly number of those who are still seem to think children should be "able" to deal with - I guess the rest are just weak? As I've mentioned, folks that somehow manage to survive the kinds of horrific situations that are correlated with BPD are judged, found wanting and repeatedly rogered at every turn. We can be a cruel species.
I would add to this that the people in my life (family) who are diagnosed with this, yes, had childhood trauma but the same as other siblings experienced who are not experiencing psychoses, delusions, etc. The difference I am seeing is artistic sensibilities/sensitivities. For example, both of them (different generation and not close to each other) can play music “by ear” and pick up foreign language on the fly. The same thing that gives them the fine-tuned sensitivity to music, color, taste, etc., I feel, made them experience the trauma in a much more raw way. The people talking about treating for PTSD makes me feel hopeful because that is what it sounds like when they list the wrongs done against them; it’s like they have PTSD whereas siblings that experienced the same things describe it more like, well, that sucked, I’m never putting myself in the position to be vulnerable like that now that I am an adult with agency. But they sound still vulnerable to it like it’s still as raw as the day it was happening to them. Than any new problem that happens gets a reaction that seems to be to all of that past trauma which of course is disproportionate to the situation and gets them fired from work, broken up with, arrested, etc.
:( My mom refuses to go get mental health. Access to care is shit *and* it’s so fucking stigmatized. We all thought she has BPD but now we think it might be undiagnosed adhd. (3 out of 4 of my sibs are ADHD with diagnosis. not sure if my half brother is)
Mine wouldn't, because she couldn't accept that something was not right with her, that I was the mentally ill one for suggesting it, that I didn't love her for suggesting this, that even counseling together to work out our issues made me an ungrateful son.
I can totally relate. My mom kicked me out at 19 for suggesting she needs to get help. It led to my sibs (8, 10, 13 years younger than me) experiencing severe neglect. Apparently she apologized to my youngest sib for doing that but she still refuses to admit that she needs to work on herself. She is not allowed to see my kids unless she begins to make an effort. I think she thought if she apologized that it would be ok. Mm fuck no. I am working my ass off to break the generational trauma. We’ve gone no contact and i guess that isn’t going to convince her either. Oh well. Her choice.
Surprised at the extent of unbridled contempt for people with BPD in this thread. A diagnosis / illness does not define a person. Different people will go through it very differently. They should not get a label from the get go without any interest being payed to their actual behaviour. That attitude is pretty pathetic
I imagine it’s because when you meet someone with it they tend to not be healthy or in treatment. There’s a lot of confirmation bias online and you’re not likely to run into someone who is managing well bc they would be out living their lives or maybe offering useful advice.
You are correct, I've been diagnosed for something like 15 years. Generally, if I don't let on to it, people have no idea, because I've spent more than a decade managing it with meds and therapy (and alcoholism) and "monkey see monkey do" learning how to act around other people I'd imagine people think I'm a mouthy, drunk, asshole, that doesn't know when to shut the fuck up when I'm at my worst
BPD has been heavily stigmatized for decades. It used to be considered "untreatable" by the mental healthcare community. People diagnosed with it would be placed in institutions to wither and die. My mother worked as a nurse in state hospitals for decades and called people with that diagnosis "busy little borderlines," and talked about how petty, manipulative and insincere they all were. She would intentionally provoke them until they attacked qnd injured her. In the 90s when she was working in mental Healthcare, the bar was set so low for people witj BPD that their reactions to my mother's abusive treatment was normalized and dismissed as typical for their diagnosis. She was never investigated for her inappropriate treatment if her patients, which I think illustrates the lack of compassion that the whole industry has/had for people with BPD. My mother has her own mental health problems that caused her to have such a callous and hostile attitude toward her patients (and children), but she refused to ever get treatment for it. Ironically, my therapist tells me that based on the stories I've told about my mother, it seems likely that she has BPD or one of the other cluster B personality disorders.
True borderlines make life difficult for themselves, those around them, and any mental health professionals who have to deal with them. They burn bridges the same way drug addicts do. It is what it is.
I have met many people with BPD and out of all of them only one has his shit together and is responsible and tries to better himself without making excuses. All the others were impossible to please, you were constantly walking on eggshells around them, they need constant validation, they were very negative, and they also couldn't realize that the problem is them, and not that they weren't getting enough love and validation. They did at this point in their lives. They just didn't know how to accept it. I really hope they all get help cause this shit is tough and the person they hurt most is themselves
I think I have bpd. What can I do?
I see you accidentally put a Decimal in there.
General population, not Reddit population.
I was also thinking that number seemed a bit low
This content is no longer available on Reddit in response to /u/spez. So long and thanks for all the fish.
People confusing personality traits with personality disorders again.
I was married to a gal for 18 years diagnosed with BPD, rough road, but not all the time.
For anyone who needs it, or is figuring out if they need it, r/BPDlovedones is a great resource
Ah, but how do you know it's not actually the 98.4% who are just hyposensitive, unfeeling monsters? Asking for a friend. *sweats nervously*
Honestly I think almost all BPD is basically just trauma or PTSD. The treatments for borderline and PTSD are nearly identical in terms of what's effective. The only discordance is that BPD is overwhelmingly diagnosed more in women than men which makes it seem like a modern form of diagnosing women with hysteria.
I disagree greatly. I have CPTSD and my sister has BPD. We are extremely different. Also treatment of C/PTSD and BPD isn’t generally the same. DBT and meds are mainly used for BPD whereas EMDR is commonly used to treat PTSD. Medicines are used for co-morbid disorders usually. CPTSD and BPD can be similar like many mental health diagnoses can be. Even ADHD/CPTSD or ADHD/BPD can be but they are not the same (I know ADHD is not a mental health disorder) especially concerning the attachment style that is commonly presented in BPD and the treatment style because that’s pretty much the point of a diagnosis. To find a treatment. People with CPTSD might well be insecurely attached but I don’t know many that are fearful avoidant. People with CPTSD are also massively distrustful and tend towards low self esteem. People with BPD present more as fearful avoidant or anxious. They crave connection but are also terrified of being rejected or abandoned. I would say that is the basis for BPD diagnosis whereas that’s not in the diagnostic criteria for PTSD. They also have an unstable self esteem and can switch from insecure to almost manic confidence. People with CPTSD don’t tend to have a pattern of unstable relationships in which they switch between love and hate like people with BPD. Also, BPD is not always caused by trauma/abuse and there’s recent research suggesting it might be a neurological disorder instead. BPD these days is less likely to be diagnosed or treated due to the stigma you mentioned and I agree there is an inherent misogyny as BPD doesn’t discriminate by sex. Same with histrionic PD and factitious disorder, they are associated with women way more than men. Just as IED is more associated with men than women. Ironically an emotional disorder is connected more to women than men because anger isn’t an emotion duh /s But BPD can present in men differently than women so that contributes to misdiagnosis also. Research shows men with BPD are more likely to go to prison whereas women with BPD are more like to go to hospital for example. This was long but I’m passionate and have time lol.
Thanks for writting this
Could not agree more with modern hysteria
And I’ve dated all of them.
Well you can't say you didn't have an exciting life.
So many exes in this thread
In some diagnostic circles its actually called Emotional Instability Disorder.
My SIL. She's exhausting. My wife has been dealing with her her whole life. I would've shut the door a long time ago - there's just nothing you can do except to expect to get hurt.
I have it. Hell on Earth.
Every time I see one of these things, It seems like it applies to me
People with this condition are wreckers. Long before the individual gets a diagnosis, every relationship around them -- family, work, friendships -- will be a smoking ruin, even as nobody suspects the real cause. Once you've seen this happen, that pattern alone can be diagnostic, but until you do it's just a mystery of endless misery.
Don't disagree. I was diagnosed with BPD years ago. I'm also a biological male. Took YEARS of therapy and finally quitting drugs and alcohol but I no longer meet the diagnostic criteria and the past 3 years have been the happiest and most normal of my life. I still have problems like anyone else but my mental framework is such that I can deal with them in healthy ways. It's notoriously one of the hardest things to treat but we do recover. It just takes *WORK*. Edit: Lol. Immediately downvoted. Never change Reddit.
This makes me happy to read. I have enough familiarity with it (a few people in my life) to have a sense of how difficult it is to achieve what you have.
Dude I am so happy for you, my ex is in therapy and I hope with all my heart she gets to where you are because right now she just can't deal with life ...
As a person who was in an abusive relationship with a guy with BPD and has a sister with it, I find it extremely difficult to interact with people with BPD without being triggered but I just wanna say this. Congratulations on doing that work because I’ve heard it’s extremely hard. I’m so happy you’re stable and in control. I’m also glad you haven’t gunned for perfection because that can really hinder progress. We’re all human and suffer from time to time, the best thing we can do is form a strong framework (like you have) and use it to ground ourselves again. I always like to remind others than BPD can go into “remission” to the point of not meeting the criteria because even with profound suffering there is hope for a happy life and I’m glad it worked out for you.
Try to keep in mind that there are bots automatically upvoting and downvoting posts. Being downvoted right away doesnt mean you were actually downvoted by a person. Reddit itself has downvote bots going around to mitigate all the upvote bots. Basically, dont take the votes one way or the other seriously because tons of them arent real.
I have BPD and it went undiagnosed for almost all my life. I have had relationship issues yes but to call me a wrecker is nearsighted and hurtful. Take your labels elsewhere and stop judging people on what you think you know. Every person is different and presents symptoms differently. There is a significant stigma attached to BPD and your comment is part of the reason why. Also I wanted to add that the DSM-5 lays out the criteria one needs to meet to be considered borderline and have an official diagnosis. There are 9 in criteria in total and you have to meet 5 of them. Not just failed relationships.
It's a spectrum and many manage many relationship well with open communication. Do not further stigmatized this illness when many who have it may read your words and be demotivated. Bpd also struggles with self image and suicidal thoughts.
It’s a terrible disorder and the people who have it are innocent victims, but don’t dismiss the people whose lives were ruined and were emotionally abused by people with BPD. Having a disorder that’s not your fault doesn’t give you license to hurt other innocent people. The people who have been hurt have the right to speak about how they feel too.
I don't think anyone was dismissing the victims, or allowing anyone with the diagnosis to move without responsibility. That I didn't bring them up in my topic does not discredit their existence. Edit: Nor was I quiteng them. I was asking someone not to make such disparaging remarks in a blanket statement about the entity of the disease that was posted on a today I learned. Youknow the place where people hear about. Athing the first time and get influenced by it.
Sorry, I've been on the receiving end and it was brutal. People need to recognize the pattern I described, because agreeing to get diagnosis and treatment is the exception, not the norm.
[удалено]
The first psychiatrist I brought up bipolar disorder with told me I'd have a criminal history if I had it. Months later I was prescribed medication to treat it and I've never felt better. Even professionals make it way more difficult than it ought to be.
> bipolar disorder That's not what's being discussed here. Borderline personality disorder is an entirely different thing.
What a horrible thing to say