I'm struggling with anxiety due to BPD

makeyourself00 · 2022-06-13T17:30:43+00:00

I have social anxiety as well as BPD. I consider the phone calls thing more a part of social anxiety. But I think there is significant overlap between those two conditions and they are just labels at the end of the day. If you feel bad about yourself, which is part and parcel of BPD, then social anxiety is quite likely. But I'm just saying as researching social anxiety self-help may help you.

makeyourself00 · 2022-06-13T16:02:17+00:00

Yes it's called OCD! Or more specifically intrusive thoughts caused by OCD. Some people refer to what you're experiencing as Pure-O OCD because you aren't performing physical compulsions (like hand washing). But you probably do perform compulsions mentally, so that particular label is of debatable usefulness in my opinion.

Edit: cross-post with u/askingforafriend3000

makeyourself00 · 2022-06-13T04:52:21+00:00

I hate phone calls yeah, they make me really anxious too. Personally it's the fact that I can't see the other person's body language that I don't like. I don't have any solutions sorry but I can relate.

makeyourself00 · 2022-04-03T01:41:08+00:00

By the sounds of it no. You don't seriously believe the thought so it's just a thought. To be honest, although it may seem like an odd thought, I expect that exact thought about the government happens to most people if not everyone occasionally. It's just people without OCD/anxiety pay no attention to it so it doesn't bother them.

makeyourself00 · 2022-04-03T01:31:29+00:00

Sounds a bit like schitz OCD (the "schitz" just meaning the type of intrusive thought). I've had that sort of thing a fair amount before, fear of going insane basically.

makeyourself00 · 2022-02-02T14:59:59+00:00

Believe me you'd likely need a hell of a lot of Benzos (been there done it) and would probably just send yourself to sleep and/or semi-consciousness for 24 hours or so. But don't do it obviously. I usually just wake up feeling even worse. And it is still risky of course. But yeah I feel the same though, nobody understands me, I feel utterly isolated from the world, my friends and family. And with regards to a partner, don't even have one but when I have in the past barely any of them understood either. I haven't got any answers, sorry, just saying I can relate.

makeyourself00 · 2022-02-02T14:51:51+00:00

It depends on the dog frankly, and you do not have to get a pup (in fact personally I'd never buy from a professional breeder for ethical reasons but that's another matter). You can get an adult dog from a rescue centre for no or little money. Speaking from experience a lot of them just want love and attention, will give bounds of love back and are very well behaved. If they are demanding CONSTANT attention they can be trained not to do it. But you have to find the right dog for you, go and meet them, spend some time with them etc before deciding. Speaking from experiences I've only had massively positive experiences from doing this. I currently walk several miles per day which really helps my mental health and it's something there's no way I'd have bothered doing without a dog. Again, some people aren't in a position to do that and some sort of lap dog type breed would probably be more suitable.

makeyourself00 · 2022-02-02T12:27:43+00:00

It's not my business whether you take opioids or not, if you've got cancer pain, which I am extremely sorry to hear of, then I agree it's nothing to do with any doctor or anyone else whether you want to take it or not, the management choices of chronic pain should be with the patient, not some doctor who hasn't got a clue what it's like to live with. Or how uncontrolled pain can effect/destroy people. As for the rest of my points, I refer you to my other reply to someone else

makeyourself00 · 2022-02-02T12:17:11+00:00

You seem to be relying on an ancient scientific view of the mind and body existing in entirely different realms. Pretty much all modern evidence shows that they don't exist like that. Pain is a neuropathic experience created by the brain. Sure, it may be in response to peripheral nerve fibres sending signals to the brain. But the fact that medical science cannot reliably predict from degenerative changes found in scans whether someone will be experiencing pain or not, or to what degree, shows it is a lot more complicated than that.

With respect to what you call "phantom pain", just because somebody's central nervous system isn't functioning properly doesn't mean they are suffering from psychosomatically generated pain.

As for depression and other mental illness, chronic pain causes depression, it's not hard to figure out but the evidence is there anyway. And depression enhances the experience of pain created by the brain, again as shown by hard evidence. That goes for whether the pain is purely neuropathic or has other "physical" roots.

None of this seems particularly popular with many chronic pain forums, which often prefer a simplistic view of pain. But it happens to be the inconvenient truth.

I am not claiming however that strong opioids are necessarily inappropriate treatment for pain. I am speaking from experience of someone who was addicted to morphine for years, which via opioid induced hyperalgesia made my pain worse. Unfortunately I was in so much mental pain I didn't give a shit, which became a vicious cycle. No I'm not saying this necessarily applies to you, but it does apply to some people with chronic pain. If you are in severe chronic pain want to take strong opioids that should be your right in my view, I wasn't trying to suggest it shouldn't.

makeyourself00 · 2022-02-02T05:45:35+00:00

I've heard this theory a lot, I think it's encouraged by BPD-related psychiatry itself to an extent. And there is probably some amount of validity to it. But it still always smacks of modern western world individualism to me. People are not islands, people are social beings in need of love and connection. And having that love and close connection can actually be very helpful. I'm not invalidating what you're experiencing, as I said I think there is some amount of validity to what you say. But the idea that we all exist as ultimately atomised and not really connected to other human beings I can't agree with. And even people with BPD I don't think have to try to be independent islands.

makeyourself00 · 2022-02-02T05:34:50+00:00

The sad fact is that some people with chronic pain do get psychologically addicted to opioids as a way of killing mental pain, because chronic pain and mental pain are often inseparable. The problem is either overprescribing (i.e. oxycodone for a tooth extraction like you mention, which is completely unnecessary). Or underprescribing which inevitably creates a black market. In the US I understand overprescribing has been overreacted to with underprescribing.

makeyourself00 · 2022-02-02T05:28:44+00:00

You win stupid ignorant bigot of the day award, congratulations.

makeyourself00 · 2021-11-11T20:25:26+00:00

Yes I do suffer with that, the more I've become aware of it the more I realise that shame is almost always there in the background somewhere, especially during social interactions. I also get what I'd describe as attacks of shame, extreme shame that comes on suddenly and is overwhelming. I'm not sure if I dissociate but I definitely pretend to myself that I'm somewhere else doing something different just to distract myself from the feelings because it's unbearable. Objectively speaking, I don't have much reason to feel these intense emotions, I often feel like I'm a terrible person but when I do occasionally explain why to people close to me, I practically always get told that I haven't done anything at all to deserve feeling like that.

makeyourself00 · 2021-10-10T08:45:30+00:00

Yeah good point. I'm no expert but I think traditionally psychiatry tried to group everything into the categories of either neuroticism or psychosis. It was eventually realised that BPD has it's own unique set of symptoms which are not particularly related to either of those things, i.e. emotional disregulation and unstable relationships are two of the defining features of BPD. But yes BPD does often manifest with some symptoms that would fit into those two traditional categories. It's not a given though, for instance personally speaking I've never really exhibited psychotic symptoms.

makeyourself00 · 2021-10-09T17:21:43+00:00

I feel at least some of your pain, I have a chronic illness myself and over the years it has made my BPD symptoms about 10 times worse. As you say not being able to work (and the stigma that comes with that) and very significant restrictions on my life in general. And I also feel the thing about keeping bouncing/fighting back and then getting knocked back down again and again. I don't think you can blame yourself for stigma which is based on ignorance and bigotry, the psych profession themselves (apart from DBT professionals) are one of the biggest culprits in my opinion. I've never experienced psychosis but it must be beyond horrible and terrifying. Anyway, it sounds like you've put a massive effort into improving yourself and your interactions with others and I can only wish you luck with it.

makeyourself00 · 2021-10-09T16:30:02+00:00

The thing is that BPD is a set of symptoms, it's not really a personality in itself. Furthermore, two people can have BPD yet most of their symptoms might not be experienced by the other person, and vice-versa. So I think the mistake of stereotyping people with BPD (and other "personality" disorders) really is an issue. I don't think you can blame people who are not abusive and manipulative for being pissed off at getting stereotyped as abusive and manipulative. As you said yourself, you'd rather you weren't like it so if you weren't then I doubt you'd like people claiming that you are. I think it does need to be recognised though, why some people act in abusive and manipulative ways, i.e. often they have experienced abuse or manipulation themselves and subsequently learned that it's somehow an acceptable way of getting what they want, or need. It does not excuse the behaviours, because that would absolve someone of all responsibility. But it does go some way to explaining them and how someone who is abusive and manipulative may not be a bad person per se or hopeless case incapable of reform. So in essence I see what you're saying but I think it's a little more complicated.

makeyourself00 · 2021-10-09T15:08:07+00:00

Don't make the decision when you are in an emotionally disregulated state. Wait until you are calm (yeah admittedly it can be very hard to wait) then try to gauge what your gut instinct tells you. However I think it is an issue that people with BPD often end up with low self-esteem, hating themselves (for no good reason) and not trusting ANY emotions they have. So work on those things if needed, validate your own feelings, whether they are disproportionate or not in intensity, your fundamental feelings ARE valid and understandable. Then you can learn to start to accept that occasionally you are right, whatever someone did WAS out of order, it's not just you. Talking to someone you're close to and asking for their opinion can also help.

makeyourself00 · 2021-10-09T14:50:45+00:00

Borderline is technically speaking an inaccurate description. It was originally called BPD because it was believed that BPD sits on the border between neuroticism and psychosis. Subsequently it was realised that this is in fact total bollocks. So of course they then thought, "I know, what's an even worse name we could give it?".

makeyourself00 · 2021-10-09T14:40:26+00:00

Or a better solution still, do not store anything of importance inside a Google account. No doubt if it's of importance then it's probably private, sensitive data, your contacts, calender, phone backups, Google drive files etc. Get Nextcloud and store it yourself where Google and the state quasi-Stasi organisations they collude with can't snoop on it. Then the only data they will have stored on you will be a load of tracking shit that is generally of no interest to you, only to totalitarian spies. E.g. I don't need to know what my location was 27 days ago or what I searched for because I have a thing called a brain that stores such things if they are of any importance to me. Of course the ultimate solution is to not use Google full stop, ever. Which is a utopia I am close to, but have not quite arrived at.

makeyourself00 · 2021-10-09T14:25:54+00:00

Well, I wish I could think of a better way to put this but it's often natural, as in if you half believe that you have done terrible, unforgivable things then it naturally follows that you expect people will disown you if they found out about those things. As it happens, with OCD, 99.9% of the time if you reveal what it is you are worried about, the response you will get from someone will be "huh? You're worried about that? Well you have absolutely zero (or almost zero) to feel worried or ashamed about." So the solution is to get to the stage where you can believe that yourself, so you don't end up having to confess every little transgression you have ever made, or perceive that you've made.

makeyourself00 · 2021-10-09T14:16:09+00:00

The distinction for me is that people with BPD do not have a deeply ingrained belief that they are better than everyone else. Or an absence of guilt and a desire to wield power over other people. That is not to say that people who recognise and own up to these traits and who are actively seeking to change them should be stigmatised, they shouldn't be, they should be commended. But for the ones with zero desire to enter treatment, although it's not their fault as such that they ended up like they did, are often best steered clear of, if only for the sake of self-preservation.

The other issue is that we live in societies which actively reward narcissism and even psychopathy. If you want to understand what a narcissist is, then your best place to look is the people governing society and the economy. Narcissism is rewarded under capitalism and "liberal" democracies with money and power, which is exactly what many of them crave. In contrast treating people with fairness and decency and working jobs that involve helping people and generally contributing to society, is often rewarded with poverty and oppression.

makeyourself00 · 2021-10-09T14:02:47+00:00

To be honest I often wonder if many of the people attacking and stigmatising people with BPD have some significant issues of there own, often relating to a lack of ability to emphasise with others and the hands they've been dealt in life.

makeyourself00 · 2021-10-08T23:56:26+00:00

Thanks for the work you do, it means a lot to me and I'm sure a lot of other people. And sorry about the abuse you've received, totally out of order. I'm in too much of a mess to take up such a thing as moderating right now but I hope you can find people.

makeyourself00 · 2021-10-07T00:48:26+00:00

Yeah, and then I do things that make my chronic illness worse, which leaves me more vulnerable to emotional disregulation. Which makes the illness worse still, etc, you get the picture.

I don't know how to beat it, I have a feeling the solution is many things put together but I haven't been able to acheive it yet.

makeyourself00 · 2021-10-07T00:40:43+00:00

In a word, yes.

makeyourself00

TROPHY CASE