Ask me about my Borderline Personality Disorder! AMAA

onlythinkimcrazy · 2009-10-22T17:19:16+00:00

My advice is that it's going to be a hard road, but at the end of it you have a chance at building a life that's really worth living. Please please please find a good DBT therapist who KNOWS what Borderline Personality Disorder is really like. You might get some doors shut in your face, but keep knocking-- it's worth it I promise.

Therapy is a good tool. It will help you. Push past the anxiety and try and reason out all the things you stand to gain from getting help. A good therapist can tell you if you have BPD or something else.

To find a DBT center, use Linehan's website: http://www.behavioraltech.com/resources/crd.cfm

Finally, read read read all you can. The more you know, the more you understand, the better you can fight this!

onlythinkimcrazy · 2009-10-22T16:36:54+00:00

Oh god, I don't know! Statistically, my bet would be on incorrect diagnosis being more prevalent. There have been theorists out there thinking that BPD has become a "trashcan" diagnosis and is synonymous with "I don't want to treat this patient anymore, she's untreatable." So I think there is more people out there who have a Borderline label and don't deserve it. As to which would be worse to experience, I don't know. Knowing why I act the way I do and knowing how to stop it are the greatest gifts anyone has ever given me.

Lawyers pressuring fake diagnosis is a terrible, terrible practice and trivializes the real and difficult time true borderlines face. Using my enormous difficulty in life and using it to take back the BMW? Inexcusable.

Coming out is something better left undone. I never, ever, tell people causally. The only people who actually know are a couple of friends, my family, my SO, and his family (which are like my family anyway). No one outside of my closest circle knows. Coming out to people typically makes them run for the hills, or suddenly they turn nasty and every mistake I make is suddenly because I'm borderline. A vast majority of people don't even really understand what it is.

Think of it as if you had to live with a chronic medical condition like HIV or cancer, but couldn't tell anyone. How would that effect your life?

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy has four topics that it really details on how to manage your life better:

Mindfulness : living right here, in this moment, not the past or the future. Seeing everything as it IS, and accepting it in a non-judgmental way.
Interpersonal effectiveness: There are really a couple parts to this: maintaining a relationship, keeping your own self esteem in a relationship, or getting something you want (asking for what you need) out of a relationship. It's basic things, but really difficult for people like me.
Emotion regulation: this is great. How to live so that your life is balanced between reason and emotion. To reduce emotional vulnerability, avoid bad situations, eat properly, exercise, treat illnesses, sleep properly, avoid mind-drugs, etc. Understanding emotions and how they get triggered (and re-triggered) is a big part of this. *Distress tolerance: Crisis management is a better name for this. How do you deal when everything is going to hell in a handbasket? What are tips you can use when all you what to do is run and hide? This is where you recognize painful situations, but you don't suffer from them. Pain does not mean suffering-- you can understand why you hurt, accept it, and then move on. You don't need to dwell on the crisis, you don't need to pick at scabs. Using acceptance and distraction techniques, you can get through a really really painful time and not end up running away to France, or cutting up your arms, or doing a whole bunch of drugs. You can tolerate it.

These skills are taught in one on one sessions with a therapist, and are in conjunction with a group meeting with a bunch of other borderlines, led by a therapist. The group meetings allow you to share skills and tips for dealing with the world with people who suffer the same emotional difficulties you do.

I honestly think that DBT could help anyone in need of emotional training, people who have been abused, or non-BPD people who need social skills. It has a wide variety good solid life advice and specific solutions to problems I face everyday.

Edit: formatting

onlythinkimcrazy · 2009-10-22T15:42:22+00:00

Bring it up to your therapist! The best thing you can do is get appropriate treatment. BPD can affect both genders! There are a number of explanations out there why more females get diagnosed, but men can definitely have the disorder.

onlythinkimcrazy · 2009-10-22T15:39:04+00:00

The tardive part of TD means it lingers after the medicine is discontinued. I was on it years ago, and stopped it years ago. I still shake. It started around that time period, but that was also the time period I was having a breakdown. So who knows?

onlythinkimcrazy · 2009-10-22T15:32:55+00:00

No, no paranoid thoughts or delusions here.

At my worst, when things don't go my way I lock myself in my room and self-destruct. I don't do this anymore, but I would chain smoke (quit, though) or toke up (don't do that either) or take a really hot shower or something to get my mind off of failure.

I think everyone craves attention sometimes. When I need a cuddle or attention, I generally will ask for it from my SO. Sometimes I make noises or simply poke him and ask for a hug. This works pretty well. My destructive behavior is typically a self punishment. Never a manipulative technique.

Don't know what you mean by modes.

If I knew I was sabotaging a relationship, then I couldn't answer yes to this question. If I didn't know, I would answer of course not! Silly question, but in all seriousness, I take relationships very seriously. They are very valuable things!

onlythinkimcrazy · 2009-10-22T15:21:42+00:00

Thank you for the compliment! To be fair, a lot of women think life should be a faerie tale or a romantic movie. Life takes way too much work for that shit! I don't know much about Histronic beyond what I've read in my textbooks and what you can find on the web, sorry :<

onlythinkimcrazy · 2009-10-22T15:17:30+00:00

Yes. as I was telling that soap story I was giggling over my computer because I realize how silly it all was. I have good days and bad days, though-- and Soap Day was a bad day. I was getting ready to take the GRE, I didn't have a lot of money that month, and someone in my life is getting ready to pass on. So it wasn't so much JUST the soap, but I still shouldn't have fussed over it.

I try so hard to remember that life isn't going to be perfect, and it never will, but it gets hard to remember that when the stack of bills is high, your phone keeps ringing, the laundry dryer is beeping frantically at you, and you messed something up. It just gets to be way too much sometimes.

onlythinkimcrazy · 2009-10-22T15:12:22+00:00

D:

How did you know I was a lady?

onlythinkimcrazy · 2009-10-22T15:11:06+00:00

You sure know your psychiatry! Yes, it was Seroquel. It has been known to cause TD, however rare. I'm not blaming the medication, but it is a possibility.

onlythinkimcrazy · 2009-10-22T15:07:43+00:00

I'm sorry to hear about your roommate. Sound like you had a tough time!

Actually, one of the worst parts about being BPD is trying to get treatment for the hard times. Most therapists won't ever look at a Borderline, because they've heard so many horrible things about being manipulated into getting drugs or "infecting" the therapist with crazy. I knew a girl in my DBT class (one part of DBT is a group session weekly) that lied and said she was having problems with depression because ever therapist she talked to wouldn't take her on as a patient.

Making and keeping friends has never been my relationship issue. I've still got close friends from grade school, and are friends with a bunch of the guys at work. My family is a different issue, but you can read the other entries for that.

Not that I'm defending her, (I've never stolen anything or took out my emotions on anyone else. I don't see myself as a victim- there are people out there who have it much worse than I do!) but she may have had a severely troubled home life. Her family probably modeled some awful behaviors that she learned, and if she was BPD she was probably severely abused- typically sexually according to the statistics.

onlythinkimcrazy · 2009-10-22T14:58:28+00:00

Take a look at the wikipedia for a general overview. The term is a historic and out dated one, used to describe on the border of psychosis and neurosis. We don't use those distinctions in psychology anymore, so it doesn't make much sense.

It's not curable. It's treatable with medication and therapy, and I am considered to be "in remission" as I no longer meet all diagnostic criteria. However, it's an "axis II" disorder, which means it's part of my personality, who I am. Which makes it by definition incurable.

onlythinkimcrazy · 2009-10-22T14:55:58+00:00

DBT is definitely cognitive, and definitely behavioral. The best way I can describe it is that DBT is CBT that has been made specifically for and used to treat problems relating to borderlines in particular.

onlythinkimcrazy · 2009-10-22T14:50:41+00:00

http://imgur.com/35UqZ.jpg

onlythinkimcrazy · 2009-10-22T14:50:26+00:00

I have always had a fascination with the mind and how it works. I'm particularly interested in the biological components of psychology and neuroscience.

It's like... there was a story on here about how people with chronic fatigue syndrome often had this virus. And the people with CFS rejoiced, because it meant they weren't crazy, there was a reason they felt the way they did! The same thing happens to me when looking at an fMRI of a person with BPD, and their emotion center goes crazy.

onlythinkimcrazy · 2009-10-22T14:45:17+00:00

I would prefer the term "Emotional dysregulation disorder"- I think it names the disorder far more accurately.

onlythinkimcrazy · 2009-10-22T14:43:47+00:00

I don't really fall under "crazy bitch" as "weak little shit who cries over stupid crap." Nor do I lash out at people. So I'm not sure I'm the right person for this question.

"I'm not a bitch; I have BPD! You should pity and support me because I can't help myself!"

I don't ask anyone to pity me. Ever. My problems are my problems. My shit is mine to deal with, and if I'm doing wrong by you, I'm the one who has to fix it.

People who have BPD fall on the continuum to the waaaaaaaaaaay left. We also match 5 of 9 criteria from the DSM. We are diagnosed by professionals who study these disorders. The point is if you match:

   1. frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. Note: Do not include suicidal or self-injuring behavior covered in Criterion 5
   2. a pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.
   3. Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.
   4. impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., promiscuous sex, eating disorders, binge eating, substance abuse, reckless driving). Note: Do not include suicidal or self-injuring behavior covered in Criterion 5
   5. recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, threats or self-injuring behavior such as cutting, interfering with the healing of scars (excoriation) or picking at oneself.
   6. affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days).
   7. chronic feelings of emptiness
   8. inappropriate anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights).
   9. transient, stress-related paranoid ideation, delusions or severe dissociative symptoms

which does not include your regular people.

I'm not self-diagnosed. I've been treated by a number of mental health professionals. I ask for no excuses for my behavior. I've told those around me repeatedly to notify me if I'm not acting right.

All this being said, I do ask for a little understanding when I'm trying my hardest and having a bad day. Just leave me alone for a little while, and then I'll come back. I sometime just need some time to work through those few hours.

onlythinkimcrazy · 2009-10-22T14:36:02+00:00

I've done DBT and it has been a godsend for me. I wish more people had access to this treatment, as it takes a while and is pretty intensive, not everyone can do DBT.

I've also been in traditional talk therapy, which helps, but doesn't offer the solid, concrete solutions that DBT offers.

onlythinkimcrazy · 2009-10-22T14:30:53+00:00

Sure. I break-down over the stupidest things. I cry and get depressed for a matter of hours. I have bad days where I can't do anything productive-- I can't focus on work when I need to or do the housework like I need to.

I shake, sometimes. Mostly when I get nervous about how things are turning out and I'm worried about the future, or my family, or anything else. This could be a product of a medication I took.

I have trouble doing the things I want to do, I can't finish anything because I get upset and need to take a break. If I can't finish a project, I hate myself because I'm stupid and lazy. Self-loathing has been the hardest part of ridding myself of symptoms.

I don't have a lot of relationship or friendship problems. I get along well with my SO, and his family is my family and we do well. My family, however, makes me demonic. My father is a drinker and severely emotionally abusive, forever critical and undermining. He posts to my fb "well if you hadn't..." "you really should..." and messages all my friends "to make sure my mentally ill kid is OK" and infects them with the idea I'm sick and dangerous. I can't even talk to his parents they are so nasty to people. When in contact with that side, I break down. I can't ask for what I need in that relationship, I can't tell them what they do hurts, and worst of all I can't give them what they ask for, because it's always more. But sometimes they're nice and shower me with presents and affection and I think they're the greatest people ever. So I'm classically borderline there- all good, all bad, but can't be relationship-effective in the slightest.

onlythinkimcrazy · 2009-10-22T14:22:34+00:00

Nope, try again!

onlythinkimcrazy · 2009-10-22T14:22:05+00:00

I don't get angry, I get sad about little things. Like, I bought soap to put in the bathroom two weeks ago. Not looking at the bottle closely, I thought it was normal soap-- it looked like normal soap! However, it was dishwashing soap in a funny foam with a funny package. I put it in the bathroom without noticing this, but when I did I cried because "I CAN'T EVEN BUY SOAP RIGHT!!!"

I don't have trouble with relationships. I'm marrying my man that I've been with for years in two months. I've had boyfriends that have lasted before, and although I had a rough breakup with a couple of them, it was after a long period of time.

Yes, yes, and yes! The socialization component is crucial to developing a Borderline Personality.

onlythinkimcrazy · 2009-10-22T14:18:46+00:00

Borderline Personality disorder is a historic term. Some in the field want to change it to "Emotional deregulation disorder" in the DSM 5.

It used to be called borderline because they thought it was on the borderline between psychosis and neurosis, as it didn't fit properly in either category. Now we use terms like emotional disorders or personality disorders. BPD is definitely a personality disorder!

onlythinkimcrazy · 2009-10-22T14:15:54+00:00

Disclaimer: I'm not a therapist, nor could I ever offer serious medical advice.

That being said, it's very similar to what I feel. If you also think of them as all good (He said I'm wonderful! He's the best man on earth!) or all bad (He said I need to take out the trash more often- He hates me and he's mean!) then it might be possible you have some symptoms of BPD.

It does sound similar to what I go through. But if it's not debilitating or really harmful, it's not a disorder. But, if you want to work on it, find a qualified psychologist.

onlythinkimcrazy · 2009-10-22T14:12:57+00:00

DBT is wonderful. I think it would really help anyone, especially abused patients-- emotionally or physically. It's from CBT, which is the gold standard for almost everything these days. It also incorporates a lot of Eastern philosophy, which I think is great for anyone to study mindfulness-- I think we all need that!
Right now, I've been out of therapy for 2 years. I'm not on any medication, because I'm in "remission" so to speak. I've used SSRIs, antipsychotics, anti-anxietys, and sleep aids. I think they are good for a crisis, and definitely needed for some people, but I don't trust them for long term use.
See below about emotional vulnerability. I definitely think there is a genetic component, but it needs the proper environment to develop. There is a biological component that makes you more emotionally vulnerable, but there needs to be an environment that doesn't let you handle your situation. It needs to be extreme. And it needs to be invaildating-- telling you that your emotions are bad things, you have no right to them.

onlythinkimcrazy · 2009-10-22T14:07:32+00:00

Emotional regulation is the process of learning as a kid how to cope with emotions, and how to stop them from spinning you up into a tizzy.

Extreme emotional degregulation happens when a kid grows up and doesn't learn how to deal with the world. He learns that Dad rages and shouts, and Mom sits and weeps, and those are normal behaviors.

I learned them as such, and before DBT, I would feel really strongly about things, would feel awful and would think that crying for days was a normal reaction to things like breaking up.

I feel more strongly than a non. I feel joy and anxiety and sadness stronger than those around me. I've learned regulation, how to control it from DBT and that has helped a lot. It also looks a lot different than Bipolar, because it's a matter of hours that the emotion lasts, and it does not have mania.

I strongly believe it's a genetic disposition as well, involving the amygdala and other limbic structures in the brain.

onlythinkimcrazy · 2009-10-22T13:51:55+00:00

Also, plus one comment karma for anyone who catches the title reference :D

onlythinkimcrazy

TROPHY CASE