What Is Borderline Personality Disorder

[lonewolf07]

What is borderline personality disorder?  I am seeing a psychiatrist and have been in therapy on and off for years for depression and anxiety.  Some time ago, a "friend" who has borderline personality suggested I had it too.  I "googled" but found the information somewhat unclear and contradictory.

I know this all sounds rather clinical.  Trust is difficult for me and I've seen some really harsh comments made by folks in some of the other forums.

[althepal39]

I've been trying to figure that out myself.  It's kind of a strange diagnosis, right?  It's like - there are mental illness - like depression/anxiety disorders/bi-polar disorder etc.. and then there are "Personality Disorders".    And from what I'm reading about them - it's like people with PDs having this unyielding underlying belief system about themselves that taints everything they do.  Borderline Personality people have a strong sense of worthlessness, and a terrible fear of abandonment.  It  is usually caused by abuse in childhood or being separated from their parents at an early age. (which then - really - is it a real mental disorder??  Or is it just a reaction that someone is having to being treated badly?  I think its just a reaction personally.  I think most mental disorders are caused by extreme stress - especially stress in childhood. )

[lonewolf07]

Your comment was really interesting.  I've heard that borderline personality is somewhere between psychotic and neurotic.  Your description seems more fitting - the sense of worthlessness and fear of abandonment.  I wonder if it becomes a vicious circle?

[althepal39]

Yeah - I guess it does become a vicious cycle.  My opinion on this - and I can be totally wrong but I don't think I am - is that it is a learned behavior.   Somehow, someway - the person with this disorder learned  that they were not good enough - and this was probably taught to them  by someone else who was far from right and probably caught up in their own personal drama to even think of the effect their actions were having on anyone else.  So this person - usually a child - who is trying to figure out themselves and is just developing a sense of self is getting all the WRONG messages. And there is an internal tape that plays in all of us - our underlying belief system - and this persons belief system is so negative that it affects everything they do.   These beliefs are ingrained in the person - and they have to get them un-ingrained..which I believe is hard work but definitely possible.  It would be like trying to learn to write with other hand - awkward, weird, doesn't feel right - but eventually they would learn how.  This would be the same when trying to convince themselves that they are worthy, good people - they would not believe it because they are not used to believing it.  To say that they have a "Personality Disorder" is kind of .. I don't know .. it makes it sound like they were just born bad or something, doesn't it?  

[1vision]

Yes
i was diagnosed 2 years ago wiyh it, but now i have PPP paranoid disorder, not yet diag but know

[lonewolf07]

If a tape or a computer program is made it's possible to re-program the tape or program - that's what one therapist told me and I trusted her.  I think the difficulty is that when we're stressed out we "revert" to our most "comfortable" behaviors which, in many cases, is not a particularly good behavior.  But it's known, it's familiar so it's comfortable.  Yes, like learning to write to our other hand.

Don't want to google it because there is TOO much information - we'd all be borderline people  = )

What is PPP?

PS:  Yes, I inadvertently posted the same question "what is BPD" in response to another post  = P

[Liz50]

My 24 yo daughter was recently dxed as BPD..which upon reading about it and really thinking about her behavior..makes such sense!! She has been treated for depression only and it always poops out on her, any med she takes becasue her actual thought processes are skewed so severely. She CAN be perfectly appropriate and fine in any given situation BUT she can also be a total b*tch. You just never know who is going to show up in a day. I like the idea of a loop of tape going around...that makes a kind of sense. She has her good days where she is productive, happy, upbeat, but mostly she's a miserable, angry hateful person. The angry person is the one who hangs around the most these days. She has almost no friends, she hates her condo, her neighborhood, her neighbors, her inlaws, the fact her hubby has to study all the time (he's an  MD/Phd student and of COURSE he has to study a lot!)..she is a non stop complainer.
Saw her Psych doc last week who gave her three options:  1 or 2 new meds to try, along with dialectical therapy or hospitlization. She was livid, but she'd made suicide threats and he had no choice. I am so worn out by this kid--wait, WOMAN..I actually kicked her out of my home last Sunday becasue she was just so darn nasty to me.The day before she'd been perfectly fine, the next day she was bawling and whining about being fat. (She's not, of course, she's a size 8, for crying out loud).
But, like any other disorder, she's gotta wanna get better. I kind of despair and don't know if she'll ever be ok. She's always been a drama queen. Her poor hubby---married only two years and I see the look in his eyes....wow, did I marry a high maintenance woman...and how is she going to handle my residency and fellowships...do I even want to stay with her? I can see this all going thru his head.....and I wouldn;t blame him if he left her....I hope & pray she accepts some help. Do people ever get better from this?
Liz

[Sammie4258]

Borderline Personality Disorder is not as bad as it sounds.  It just means that The stressors you have had to deal with in life have made life a little more difficult for you to deal with. For example,  you may have more difficulty with relationships, handling stress more effectively, handling work situations more productively.  It just means you will have to try harder to make situations and relationships in life work for you.  Good luck.  Many of us have this,

[jo929]

yes, she can be helped, if she really wants the help, but if she does not then, she will go on the way she is, i have known some people, that say they are ok, and refuse the help, but she has to be williing to help herself a bit  luck  jo

[lonewolf07]

I cracked and did a google search.  All the responses here were part of what I found, particularly rejection and abandonment.  It isn't necessarily a psychosis/neurosis.

Liz - your daughter is acting a bit like my estranged daughter did before she became estranged.

Thank you all for your comments.

[Jessie7580]

This is hard for me to talk about or even admit, but I was told I have slight borderline personality disorder and I myself am really trying to figure it out. I was given all these brosures about what it is and what I should do. It was all very confusing. My issue is that no one seems to want to believe that I have this, but the one psychologist who has said I might have manic depression and slight borderline personality disorder. I had grown to be very ashamed of myself for having it and not liking myself. I was growing to hate myself for having it and pretend I didn't or never tell anyone that I had it. I get mood swings and I am on Paxil. I am not sure what else I should do to control the mood swings. I get grumpy sometimes when I am tired and say things I don't mean. I am just not myself sometimes. People around me sometimes don't know what it wrong and blame me or get angry at me and so often I end up hating myself even more for not responding to them better. How do I answer thier questions and not be so hard on myself? How do I forgive myself for being the way I am?

[althepal39]

I think you are putting too much emphasis on your diagnosis.  Everything seems to revolve around you have this "illness" - you feel bad about having it, you want a doctor to confirm you have it, you want the people around you to confirm you have it.   Don't worry so much about it.  Just concentrate on how you feel - and on what you feeling about yourself.  Chances are you are putting yourself down an awful lot - saying very mean negative things to yourself - this is what is causing this "illness".  (I put it in quotes because I honestly believe this is just an ingrained way of thinking - not an actual mental illness)  I did the same thing all my life - I wanted someone to recognize what was wrong with me - I wanted them to validate me  - tell me there is a REASON for all this craziness in my head.  And I probably would have been diagnosed with A.D.D., Anxiety Disorder, Bi-Polar, Borderline PD.. everyone of them.  I honestly believe that the number one culprit behind all these disorders is stress - and the inability to cope with the stress - which causes terribly negative thinking and leads to bad decisions.  The second thing I think causes this is hormones, and the third is food allergies (especially caffeine - which can cause all kinds of horrible mental symptoms).    

[lonewolf07]

A friend of mine refused to accept that she was depressed.  Her father had been depressed and it had such a negative stigma.  She couldn't deal with her depression until she admitted she was depressed.

Would you have to forgive yourself if you had arthritis?  (no sarcasm intended)

Some of what you said in your post sounds like things most of us experience - mood swings, being in a bad mood.  IMHO it sounds a lot like frustration but I'm not an "expert".

Hugs to you ....

wolf