I have been sitting with this for a couple of weeks now, without any therapeutic support (one is MIA and the other is on vacation) and I need to get it out before it consumes me entirely.

I have been diagnosed with BPD and AvPD on separate occasions. I have read a lot about both of these, trying to understand what the diagnoses mean, and trying to see how they fit me. I do have a hard time socially, but not because I fear ridicule. And I do avoid a lot of social opportunities. I often attribute this to low self-esteem and lurking depression.

As for the BPD, that was first pegged to my forehead three and a half years ago when I decompensated and ended up in the short stay unit a couple of times. The behaviours that I exhibited when 'in extremis' fit the DSM list pretty well. But I have never had a problem with anger, and I do not have unstable relationships. And under normal circumstances I don't exhibit the other behaviours.

Getting to why this is posted in this forum, in reading about those two PD's I of course encountered some information about SPD. For a while now I have been thinking maybe the right label would be BPD with SPD features. (if there is such a thing!) But recently I read the 'Self-in-Exile' page referred to in another thread here. It all sounded painfully familiar. I then got a copy of the Disorders of the Self book in which SPD is discussed at length, form the "Masterson" perspective. I had it sent halfway across the country from a university library.

So, now I have found a complete description of my internal life. In black and white, in a book. Beginnning with the conditions in whch I was raised, and going through pretty well all of my emotional development, and on into an entire adult life trying to feel connnected, being afraid of intimacy and wanting to die so many times because of the conflict between those two. Even the way I struggle in therapy is described, including the fact that my therapist is usually a lifeline for me, the only semblance of a real connection I can handle.

I know it is not a good idea to self-diagnose, but I also know that no-one knows my life, my emotions, my struggle as well as I do. Except apparently the authors of this book. And in the end it is not about getting the label right. It is about feeling like I have finally found the reason why, in spite of trying and trying and trying to fix myself by any means I could think of (including exiling myself to a BUddhist monastery for three years), nothing has ever shifted. I remain as alone as ever, and in as much pain as ever. I have a myriad of defenses against awareness of that pain. The strongest of which has always been to just blame myself. There's something wrong with me, or I'm lazy, or a coward or some kind of grinch or whatever.

Today I know that my life fits a pattern that others have experienced, that it is not my fault. I suppose there is some measure of relief in this, but mostly it is very heartbreaking. And somehow frightening, as it seems I have a long long road ahead of me. And it really is a huge disaster that the therapist I had begun to trust has been torn away from me. And I don't know how to begin to talk to any of the three non-professional people I have tenuous connections to about this. I keep ending up locked in my room with the lights out, curled up on the bed, waiting for help to arrive. I needed to get this out somewhere where someone might understand. Sorry it's such a long post. I hope it makes sense.