Posted by Dinah on September 25, 2002, at 8:54:12
In reply to therapist is digging...I'm terrified, posted by madison88 on September 24, 2002, at 19:29:30
I can understand your reluctance to be diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, because there are doctors and medical professionals who will see you differently if you have that diagnosis. I suppose the useful part is that you can be treated appropriately by the *good* doctors and therapists, with meds and treatment programs that are proven to be efficacious with those with BPD.
However, I wouldn't worry to much about being aware (as opposed to being diagnosed) that you have borderline personality disorder. I'm not at all convinced, and in fact think it is highly unlikely, that there is a single illness known as borderline personality disorder (or any other personality disorder either). Personality disorders describe a constellation of behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. Personality disorders are, in my view, a person's dysfunctional way of responding to the underlying problems, not the problem in and of itself. Have you ever seen the statistics for "comorbidity" of personality disorders? It's quite high. I imagine people who respond dysfunctionally to internal triggers do so in a lot of ways.
So it would probably be more accurate to say that either due to a biological problem with mood, or a set of traumatic life circumstances, you are left with moods that are terribly unpleasant to you. You try to cope with these moods in ways that fit the borderline profile, as opposed to those who cope in a schizoid manner, for example.
It's not that bleak a prospect for treatment, either. Many mental health practitioners have found to their amazement that when the underlying mood disorders were properly treated with meds (such as mood stabilizers, AD's, or AP's) that the "personality disorder" miraculously disappeared.
Also, since borderline personality disorder is mainly defined by behaviors, therapies that teach you to learn other behaviors (such as Marsha Linehan's Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) can help quite a bit.
Incidentally, I've studied BPD as much as I have because I have the internal characteristics of someone with BPD, although I only have a few of the behavioral characteristics. So I review the treatments for it in hopes of helping my own situation with mood instability.
Hope some of this long winded post can be of use. :)
Dinah
poster:Dinah
thread:1133
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20020829/msgs/1135.html