Do i have Borderline Personality Disorder?

Mental health
1

Hey, sorry I know I have posted on here a few times, but there is just so much I want help with, and because I am normally in a different frame of mind each time I post, something different I want help with pops into my head. So thanks in advance for taking the time to read this.

Here goes....

I have been diagnosed with OCD, anxiety and depression. I am on 200mg of sertraline and go to therapy and am waiting for my CBT and psychiatrist appointments. Recently Borderline Personality Disorder has been thrown my way, first my councillor (I don't go anymore though), and my best friend and my mum have all mentioned it. Ill list my symptoms and any advice would be greatly appreciated, Thank you.

Firstly my moods are so unstable and change a million times a day, with no known triggers as of yet.

I cut myself (although am trying extremely hard to stop, and so far nearly 2 weeks without!)

I am petrified of being left alone, abandoned. I fear when my boyfriend leaves the house I will never see him again. I think he is ether dead or left me for someone else.

I was sexually abused as a child by a very close family member. No one in my family know because if I say anything I know my mum wont believe me, my dad might, my little brother will be in between and WALAH....I have wrecked my family as usual. So I am torn between keeping this horrible secret in the box in my head and feeling like this forever, or I could try and live with the fact I have ripped my family to shreds and have no one. So this is kinda ruling my brain at the moment. My dad was also a heaver drinker, and got quite agrresive. I used to sit downstair with him so when he got angry I would get it rather than him going upstair to my mum or brothers. I have always been protective of my mum and little brother.

Sorry back to the point, I feel empty most of the time, and when I don't feel empty I feel anger or worry or guilt or panic or fear. I cant focus. I am always thinking people are out to get me and I deserve it, My boyfriend is the most fantastic amazing person one minute, then the next I despise him. I bang my head off of things, pull my hair, nip and scratch my skin and hit myself if I get worked up, this can be sudden change of plans, That I have overslept, I haven't cleaned everything properly, anything. I fear not being in control. I NEED to be in control of things or im a mess. Not like I have to control my boyfriends every move or anything like that, more like I have to be in control of MY life. I need to have things done in order, my towels have to be perfectly straight, I cant leave the house before IM ready, everything HAS to go to plan. If any of this doesn't happen I freak out. I literally freak out, I scream and shout or throw things or hurt myself or hit things or rip my hair out or bang my head off a wall, or, I will crawl into bed, curl up and cry myself to sleep.

I fear everyone will give up on me and I will end up alone.

I also sometimes think that people are watching me through cameras that have been planted in my house.

I always just thought this was part of my ocd anxiety and depression.

Does anyone have any advice?

Is it what I have or might I also have BPD?

Thank you x

2

The switching between regarding someone as positive then being dissappointed in them is a very common sign, as well as self harm. People with borderline tend to be impulsive as well. You also seem to have some paranoid delusions which could suggest a coexisting mental illness. Borderline disorder is notoriously tough to diagnose, becouse its often confused with other disorders and is still fairly new. You could possibly have it although I would avoid any self-diagnosise and speak with your doctor.

3

Hey thanks for your reply!

I have recently spoke to my therapist about bpd and explained the symptoms iv been experiencing and he thinks that it is just my OCD anxiety and depression that is causing this, and like you he also said it was a very hard thing to diagnose and although i have a lot of the symptoms he doesnt think its enough for a diagnosis (thankfully)

Thank you very much xx

4

Hello Rachael, I feel for you. Youv had it bad. Does your doctor/ therapist and boyfriend know about the abuse as a child? I am no expert but I do know of someone who suffers with bipolar disorder. She also has same kind of feeling that shes going to end up alone. at present she is stable with medication and regular therapy. The doctors say her trigger was child abuse.  My thpoughts are....would you feel better mentally if this was out in the open?  Would you feel better if this person payed for their crime? Would you feel better if you didnt have a secret?

Kelly x

5

Hi Rachael,

I was disgnosed with BPD last summer after reaching breaking point and making myself go to the doctors. I felt so empty and alone and again felt that my boyfriend was going to get sick of me and leave me. It got to the stage when I was put on anti-depressants (which I am trying to ween myself off of) I could not get dressed or tidy the house (think this was alot to do with my depression). The final straw for me was when I was nearly sacked from two jobs for as they descibed being strange which made me so paranoid, I would cry in the toilets at work because I felt like I was being watched all the time and I was so defensive. I really knew deep down for a long time that there was something wrong but I did not think that it could be a mental health issue. I really thought that I just had a bad tempter or was experiencing some hormonal difficulties. My life changed at 13 years old when my mother became an alcoholic and I am not sure that I have had many happy times since then. In the last year I totally distanced myself from everyone and prefered to stay at home alone as I thought that people were judging me or thinking that I was odd and not like everyone else. When I went to the doctors I total broke down and was given the anti-depressants but at the same time was refered to a councellor who diagnosed BPD. It was an actual relief to find out that there was something wrong that could be diagnosed and hopefully treated. I have never cut myself but during severe times I used to pull my hair out with tweezers until at about 14 I had bald patches on my head. I still get days when I feel the same as I used to but I am trying to think of things outside the box and try not to jump to conclusions. It is a horrible way to feel and no one will understand what you are going through but that is where I found the counsellor really helped me ... I could vent without directing it towards my boyfriend and he showed me there are other ways to look at/deal with things in a more rational way. If you have not been to speak to your doctor or a counsellor I would highly suggest it and it could be the best thing for you!

6

Hey, thank you so much for your reply. Im really sorry to hear what you have had to go through!! It is horrible. I know what you mean about feeling that you wer being watched in work, that is exactly how i feel, or i feel im asked things to catch me out ect. Thankfully after explaining to my manager what was going on (briefly) she has been very supportive and changes my hours for appointments ect, although i am still too worried about taking any time off as i dont want her to think im taking her for granted and i think i annoy her all the time. I have also been put on anti depressants, which i origanlly refused as i didnt want to have to rely on tablets to make me 'normal', however i ended up agreeing to try them and have now been on sertraling for about 7 months, 5 months being the highest dose of 200mg. So far i dont think they are helping and i feel i am getting worse but the dr said to keeo taking them for now. I have also been referred to therapy and have been attending since januray and have just got my CBT and phsyciatry (i cant spell it) appointemnts through. I have spoken to my therapist about BPD but he said although i have a lot of the symptoms he doesnt think its BPD and just my OCD depression and anxiety. Thank you so much for your help and i hope you continue to get better!! xx

7

Hi, thank you so much for your reply, i thought i had already replied so i am really sorry about such a late reply!! I could have had it worse and that is what i keep telling myself, so many people get it so much worse on a daily basis. My boyfriend knows briefly that i was sexually abused however i told him it was an old school friends brother that done it rather than the person who actually did it, as he sees this person reguarly and i know all hell would break lose if he knew the whole truth, however i very recently told my therapist brielfy about it and who it was and he explained that my phycologist will go into detail on this subject when i get my appointment so it would be best talking to her about it. I really dont know weather i would feel better letting it out or keeping it in, If i tell my secret it will rip my family apart, i dont think my boyfriend will unterstand why i kept it from him all this time ( we have been together almost 7 years now), and i dont blame him at all but i know it will really hurt him that i have lied all this time and he has spoke to my 'abuser' on many family occasions. My 'abuser', as i said, is a very close family member, as in immediate family and my boyfriend has met and spoke to him alot over these past 7 years. He knows i dislike this person but my reasoning is that he was an ass when we wer growing up, but obviously not to the extent he actually was, and my bf says things like 'he's not that bad' and 'give him a chance, he's trying' if i bitch about him ( somethimes he will text me to see how i am or how work is going and i will get angry and very often dont reply) i know this sounds pathetic, im hating this person and i dont even know if he knows i hate him for it or if he knows i even remember, but i do. If i tell people it will turn my life, and everyone i loves life, upside down. Also i cant remember if i said before, but he is getting married in 2016, and i have to be the happy sister who helps out and is so proud but i dont know if i can. I have already made a plan for the wedding though, and thought i could smash my head or 'fall' down the stairs and be in hospital so i wouldnt be able to attend, and that way i wouldnt have to explain to my family why i didnt go, but it is a while away so who knows what will happen. I dont know how i would feel if they payed for the crime, i think i would feel worse knowing that the rest of the people i love had to live with the fact that this went on right under their nose and i felt unable to talk about it. I honestly dont know, but hopefully my therapist and phycologist will be able to help with this. Fingers crossed! Also i am really glad to hear that the person you know suffering with bpd is stable with meds, hopefully things continue to look hopefull for them! =) xxx

8

The most dangerous thing I think anybody could ever do is self-diagnose, and it's because if you do - particularly if you have pre-conceptions of what you have - most won't treat you because you've already made up your own mind about what it is you have.

I convinced myself for ages that I had BPD because all of the symptoms matched mine and what I felt, and I said it to a therapist - I said, "there's a difference between finding things in a diagnosis that don't exist to finding symptoms that define how you already feel"

For instance, an ex-girlfriend who wouldn't make love with me was 'rejecting me'/'didn't love me'/didn't know how to physically convey her attraction to me etc etc. In the process of this, what I did was make her feel guilty about the way she treated me so as to manipulate her into getting what I wanted, which ultimately was a sense of not being left alone or abandoned.

Impulsivity was a massive thing; sex, drugs, buying things, random acts of violence - I lacked a sense of fulfilment in my life so I turned to these things as a) a way of finding some sense of fulfilment, and b) because I was hellbent on self-destruction as a reaction to the way my life was at the time.

Dissociation - to this day, I still suffer from this.

I won't go on but the point is, every single thing that "the internet" says about BPD genuinely applies to me in some way or another. But then... so does Dissociative Personality Disorder, so does Schizoaffective Disorder, and so on and so forth.

The reality of the situation is this - there are those of us in the world who calmly sail through life and not let a care in the world enter their minds and there are those who have time to ruminate over their thoughts and worry about the possiblities. 2000 years ago, there wasn't a name for what we have and it's because it didn't exist. Studies about human behaviour have taught us, if anything, to worry more and do less.

My problem isn't a mental disorder; it's an environment disorder caused by a toxic mixture of inactivity, being around the wrong people and not doing more of the things I enjoy, and having been a habit for so long, it's become all I know so I feel less inclined to change it. If people, like me, did more and less thinking, if people were exposed to more positivity in life, the thoughts they have (often when they are left by themselves) wouldn't exist, and I think the advice I'd give to anybody who says "I have BPD" or something similar is - examine your life and who you are; what is it that you are missing; find it; enjoy it. Change your environment if you find it unhelpful. Don't think about the past; think of the future. Wake up every morning knowing exactly what you want to do and how you're going to go about doing it.

The most difficult step is the first though. Trust me, I'm still umming and ahhing about making it.

9

Hello, I hope you are doing good. I’m Sarah. I feel you are so similar to me in so many ways and I never met anyone like me. I am also getting diagnosed with some of the Border Line Personality Disorder traits and trying to get some help. I would really like to talk to you and maybe it may come off strange but I really need someone to talk to. you can contact me anytime you want. It would be nice to speak to someone on the same level and shares the same PAST events. Hope you have a good day. Take care. Bye.

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