newly labeled BPD male

[mcleebers]

Hello all who are listening. I was just diagnosed with BPD. It actually answers a lot of questions for me and others in my family tree. My wife just seperated from me 6 weeks ago, 9 months after giving birth to my only child. I truthfully didn't see it coming. The only answers I could get from her was that i didn't handle things right. I had mood swings a lot, bouts of depression ocassionally. I would get interested in personal hobbies and drop them like nothing a week later. Once I got something in my head it would consume me, but then.. pass away as fast as it came. I had times where I was paranoid as hell about fictional things, anxiety attacks, worthlessness. Failed suicide attempts or thoughts, cutting y arms up and so on. I love my wife so much and just want a normal life for me, her and my poor baby boy. I am trying everything in my power to fix this situation. I found a counselor that supposedly is a specialist on BPD but he strikes me more as a money grubbing moron. He found out I cut myself ocassionally so labeled me a BPD just from that at first. Is it true that only BPD's cut themselves?? Anyways, I am tryiong to find more info on the subject of BPD and if there is groups I could attend that don't cost $135 per session like this couselor. I have a psychiatrist appt. on thursday to find out about meds. I have NO health insurance as I work as a sub-contractor and the insurance companies won't give me ins. due to "pre-existing" conditions. I am new to this board and am looking to find fellow people with this disorder. I do not agree with a lot of peoples methods to thos loved ones that have a BPD in their life to just leave them behind. We are sick and need help, it's as simple as that.. well, not simple but we need help just like anyone else.

[Zenji]

Not only people with BPD cut.

Borederline Personality Disorder is often used as a "garbage can diagnoses".

The criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder according to the DSM - IV which is the Diagnostic Statistics Manual version 4 is as follows:



A pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:  

  1. frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating 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., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating). Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5.

  5. recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior

  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, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights)

  9. transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms

The DSM IV goes on to say:

The essential feature of Borderline Personality Disorder is a pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity that begins by early adulthood and is present in a variety of contexts.

Individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder make frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment (Criterion 1). The perception of impending separation or rejection, or the loss of external structure, can lead to profound changes in self-image, affect, cognition, and behavior. These individuals are very sensitive to environmental circumstances. They experience intense abandonment fears and inappropriate anger even when faced with a realistic time-limited separation or when there are unavoidable changes in plans (e.g. sudden despair in reaction to a clinician’s announcing the end of the hour; panic of fury when someone important to them is just a few minutes late or must cancel an appointment). They may believe that this "abandonment" implies they are "bad." These abandonment fears are related to an intolerance of being alone and a need to have other people with them. Their frantic efforts to avoid abandonment may include impulsive actions such as self-mutilating or suicidal behaviors, which are described separately in Criterion 5.

Individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder have a pattern of unstable and intense relationships (Criterion 2). They may idealize potential caregivers or lovers at the first or second meeting, demand to spend a lot of time together, and share the most intimate details early in a relationship. However, they may switch quickly from idealizing other people to devaluing them, feeling that the other person does not care enough, does not give enough, is not "there" enough. These individuals can empathize with and nurture other people, but only with the expectation that the other person will "be there" in return to meet their own needs on demand. These individuals are prone to sudden and dramatic shifts in their view of others, who may alternately be seen as beneficent supports or as cruelly punitive. Such shifts often reflect disillusionment with a caregiver who nurturing qualities had been idealized or whose rejection or abandonment is expected.

There may be an identity disturbance characterized by markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self (Criterion 3). There are sudden and dramatic shifts in self-image, characterized by shifting goals, values, and vocational aspirations. There may be sudden changes in opinions and plans about career, sexual identity, values, and types of friends. These individuals may suddenly change from the role of a needy supplicant for help to a righteous avenger of past mistreatment. Although they usually have a self-image that is based on being bad or evil, individuals with this disorder may at times have feelings that they do not exist at all. Such experiences usually occur in situations in which the individual feels a lack of meaningful relationship, nurturing and support. These individuals may show worse performance in unstructured work or school situations.

Individuals with this disorder display impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (Criterion 4). They may gamble, spend money irresponsibly, binge eat, abuse substances, engage in unsafe sex, or drive recklessly. Individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder display recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior (Criterion 5). Completed suicide occurs in 8%-10% of such individuals, and self-mutilative acts (e.g., cutting or burning) and suicide threats and attempts are very common. Recurrent suicidality is often the reason that these individuals present for help. These self-destructive acts are usually precipitated by threats of separation or rejection or by expectations that they assume increased responsibility. Self-mutilation may occur during dissociative experiences and often brings relief by reaffirming the ability to feel or by expiating the individual’s sense of being evil.

Individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder may display affective instability that is 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) (Criterion 6). The basic dysphoric mood of those with Borderline Personality Disorder is often disrupted by periods of anger, panic, or despair and is rarely relieved by periods of well-being or satisfaction. These episodes may reflect the individual’s extreme reactivity troubled by chronic feelings of emptiness (Criterion 7). Easily bored, they may constantly seek something to do. Individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder frequently express inappropriate, intense anger or have difficulty controlling their anger (Criterion 8). They may display extreme sarcasm, enduring bitterness, or verbal outbursts. The anger is often elicited when a caregiver or lover is seen as neglectful, withholding, uncaring, or abandoning. Such expressions of anger are often followed by shame and guilt and contribute to the feeling they have of being evil. During periods of extreme stress, transient paranoid ideation or dissociative symptoms (e.g., depersonalization) may occur (Criterion 9), but these are generally of insufficient severity or duration to warrant an additional diagnosis. These episodes occur most frequently in response to a real or imagined abandonment. Symptoms tend to be transient, lasting minutes or hours. The real or perceived return of the caregiver’s nurturance may result in a remission of symptoms.

I will pm you the site I got that off of because these boards sometimes act up when you post sites.

I honestly don't know if that will help but if you don't feel that you should be diagnosed with this them maybe you should find someone else.

[mcleebers]

Hello, Thankyou for your in depth post. I do believe that I actually am BPD after further research and a psych. appt. I got 9 out of 9 on the assesment. Some of those were just slightly me at times and some are me all the time.
  It really feels odd to me because I will do good  for days at a time and then sit back and say nothings wrong with me. Then the bad times come and my world is crashing in around me.
  I know when my wife left a few weeks back I was a mess. i was cutting myself wanting to die, scared, mood swings from hell. I was just so full of rage, despair you name it. I went back to taking oxycodone, drinking and just trying to make those feelings go away. I was/am full of anxiety with panic attacks out of no where. I know my brother was bi-polar and I say was because he died at the early age of 29 because of a drug overdose. When he died I was locked up in the county jail and missed his funeral. I think this still haunts me even after 4 years.
   I do go from hating myself so badly to thinking everything is great and grand and not a care in the world. I would get pissed at something my wife did and hurt her feelings then be fine an hour later and wonder why she held on to being mad for so long. I guess I just always thought I got over things faster then others. This really *****, and I am trying to get my family back together. I believe she wants too but told me I need to get help and show her a stable me first. I never called her names or physically abused her.. never would have done that. But my actions were not something she could handle. She never knew how i was going to react to things or what my mood would be from one minute to the next.

  I spent a lot of time mad or sad or something and not really have a reason why. I suppose a lot of questions have now been answered. So, hopefully I can get my life under control and live a "normal" life.
Thanks for listening.

[Zenji]

Relationships are the hardest thing when you have bpd. I guess i kinda just goes with the territory. Do lots of research. I will help you figure out what thoughts and feelings are coming from the disorder. I do hope you guys can work it out. Family is very important. Encourage her to do research too. then maybe she can also better understand what is going on.

I really like to listen i have always been good at it so any time you need to just vent or talk or whatever just let me know