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Originally Posted by ripley
Maybe you haven't been seeing your T for long enough to be able to trust her when she says something like this, but it seems like a compassionate thing to say. The DSM is deeply flawed in that it looks mostly at very superficial behavioural indicators. I am much more than my behavour and I suspect you are too.
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I think she meant it compassionately, too. I've been seeing my T for 5 1/2 months. I like her a lot but my trust of her wavers. Sometimes I feel like I trust her completely, and other times I am sure she thinks terrible things about me and hates me and wants me to stop being her patient. I know that's the irrational part of me but that doesn't change anything.
I'm more than my behavior because the stigma of BPD, the hard-to-work-with client part of it, the ragefulness part of it, the "quit therapy in awful disappointment" part of it, does not apply to me. I work HARD on my mental health and I take my T's suggestions to heart and I do the hard things, the exposures, the disclosures, the homework. I do it. I try.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ripley
I have been told by three professionals that I have BPD. I did not want to hear this, because I know it is a diagnosis that carries enormous stigma, and I was afraid no-one would want to help me.
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That's my fear. Well, I'm afraid that someone I know, in the mental health field, is going to figure out I have BPD from my behavior, and gossip about me and how I have BPD and etc etc. I'm not afraid no one will help me because my T does help me and does want to help me and cares a whole lot. But the possibility of coworkers gossiping... That stuff happens. I'm not just being paranoid. It's scary to think that my issues might be out on display because the people I surround myself with are therapists and therefore intuitive people who notice things. My behavior indicates BPD and I hate it. They are good-hearted people, but they do gossip.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ripley
The bottom line is that I have some serious problems. How those problems are conceptualized is really not as important as how am I going to overcome them, and who is going to help me.
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That's what my T says. She says, "I don't even have a diagnosis written for you. Nothing in your file says anything about a diagnosis. It's just, 'Jexa feels this way,' and 'Jexa thinks this.' I work with symptoms, not a diagnosis."
I hope she can help me. Looking at this from another angle, I think she really cares and has my best interest in mind. It just drives me crazy not to KNOW.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ripley
I think you should definitely talk to your T about your concerns. But I think it will be pointless to try to get her to label you if that is not something she does. I guess what is more important is to ask yourself what it would mean to you if you had BPD?
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I would be ashamed.
And I wouldn't want anyone I know to be able to guess it.
I would try even harder to make sure no one ever found out.
My T's right. I shouldn't know.
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Originally Posted by ripley
A little knowledge can be a hard thing to deal with!
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YES it CAN! I am so frustrated and thinking I shouldn't become a psychologist! What if this "picking up symptoms" keeps happening?!?
Quote:
Originally Posted by ripley
Whatever you are struggling with, I know for sure that there is nothing 'wrong' with you. But it sounds like you need some help...like me. I hope you will let your T help you in ways she can.  |
I will let her help me the best I know how. I have tried so hard to be vulnerable with her, I have tried so hard to be honest with her, I am trying, I am trying SO HARD but it is SO HARD to get my head around all these things she's trying to get across.. I feel like a hopeless, impossible case.