Borderline personality disorder....a stigmatised diagnosis...but there is hope

I did a blog on avoidant and dependant personality disorders but wanted to do a separate one on Borderline personality disorder (bpd). Borderline is border between neuroses (a mental health condition that causes distress but you have a grip on reality such as anxiety and depression) and psychosis (a mental health condition where you lose grip on reality and may see or hear things that arent there or have delusions of thinking or dissociate).I have borderline  personality disorder but scored higher for dependant and avoidant personality disorders but do recognise bpd in myself too, but I think the stigma that goes with bpd makes me more reluctant to accept the diagnosis but I also believe my avoidant and dependant personality disorders affect my life negatively the most because they cause me the most anxiety and loneliness and social isolation that feed my depression). Bpd is a stigmatised and controversial diagnosis...some psychiatrists don't believe it exists others believe it exists but is untreatable. In a therapy session yesterday a good quote came up that was supposed to be be between 2 therapists, one said I have a problem with my patient who has personality disorder, the other one said why do you think they have personality disorder and the first one says because I have a problem with them. Phrases such as manipulative and attention seeking are often used to describe patients with bpd. Mental health conditions such as bipolar, schizophrenia, anxiety and depression are caused by chemical imbalances in the brain therefore can be treated with medication.(someone can have those conditions as well as bpd).However personality disorders are more complex they are often caused by trauma, neglect, abuse, and attachment issues in childhood. (the first 2 years of a childs life affect how they emotionally attach as adults...if a caregiver isn't emotionally attached to the child in those years it affects them throughout life. The caregiver could have multiple children to look after, the mum could have postnatal depression or the caregivers could be neglectful or abusive in those years.(my birth mum died, I was in hospital a while after I was born, then was fostered then adopted. I always say my adoptive parents have been amazing and I can't blame them for any of my problems...circumstances meant that my mum and dad adopted me as a baby and my sister who is 4 years older. Understandably my sister would have demanded attention at that age, she would have been struggling to understand why her mum had died then had to call someone else mum and dad at 4 years old. My sister was always louder than me I was always quieter so felt I disappeared into the background. When my mum and dad adopted we didn't have a social worker my mum and dad were just expected to bring us up as their own even though adopted children need more support which didn't happen then. We had one a4 sheet of paper about our birth family, now children get a life book and updates from their biological families (some of my nieces were adopted.)There can be a genetic predisposition towards having a personality  disorder if a parent also has mental health problems (my birth mum had mental health problems). There is also evidence that the brains of people with personality disorders are different to peoples brains who don't have personality disorders. There are 9 symptoms of borderline personality disorder and I can see where my bpd overlaps with my other personality and eating disorders.

1. Fear of abandonment...I fear getting close to people because they either leave or die...
2. Unstable relationships...often people with bpd push people away before the other person rejects them, again it ties in with the fear of abandonment...some people can do that with aggression others can do it by avoidance...for me I am more avoidant of relationships...if you don't get close to people they can't hurt you. I also got bullied alot throughout school so that backed up my mistrust of people. 
3. Unclear or shifting self image...you can feel confident one day and hate yourself the next...this ties in alot with my anxiety...on my most anxious days I feel I'm not good enough...I've often been told I'm inconsistent as in for example one day I could be really good at teaching horse riding another day I might have so much self doubt that I'm too emotional to teach.
4. Impulsive...for me this ties in alot with my eating disorder I'm impulsive when I binge eat which involves impulsively spending money on food you don't even need or want....also I have been known to impulsively spend money and get into debt...
5. Extreme emotional swings....again for me this also ties in with my eating disorder as unbalanced blood sugar affects mood so often I have depression,anger and irritability due to low blood sugar but also people with bpd feel emotions very strongly you can have highs and lows similar to bipolar but bipolar moods last longer and are caused by chemicals in the brain whereas bpd moods are triggered by the environment and relationships....therefore someone could genuinely be happy in the morning in one situation and then something like someone not turning up to an appointment for example could trigger the feelings of abandonment that then can make you feel suicidal later on.
6. Self harm and suicide when you feel a negative emotion so strongly it can lead to self harm as a release of those emotions or you can feel so overwhelmed and distressed by your negative emotions that you feel the only option is suicide.
7. Chronic feelings of emptiness.
8. Explosive anger...some people with bpd can outwardly show anger but there are also quiet borderlines who inwardly feel anger and that can also be a trigger for self harming.
9. Feeling suspicious or out of touch with reality....at times of stress I dissociate....when I was in hospital I could feel it happening but couldn't control it...I would end up staring into space and act on self destructive thoughts...at the time I would bang my head on walls and tie ligatures..again it tied in with my eating disorder and I would have thoughts I was fat and deserved to die...also my biggest crises was triggered when my parents couldn't cope with me at home anymore so I became classed as homeless on the mental health ward....in the emotional mind of someone who has bpd it triggered the fear of abandonment...and rejection....I'm still really close to my parents....but at times of crises you go into an emotional mind that is out of control.

The therapeutic community I go to is to treat borderline personality disorder and teach us how to manage these strong emotions with new skills and "to find a life worth living" dialectical behavioural therapy (DBT) is the most used and supposedly effective therapy for bpd as is mentalisation based therapy (MBT)....