Kazza, you being "treated terrible" by the doctors at the hospital is not your fault and is not the fault of your illness! It is the professionals FAILURE to provide the level of care you need. All the symptoms you describe are what many of us with BPD feel and wrangle with on a daily basis: emptiness, emotions that go "haywire", never feeling truly happy, uneven feelings about suicide or self-harm etc. You are not PATHETIC. You are suffering. YOu are feeling terrible, overwhelming emotions that professionals aren't able to understand or control . .. .so, they label us BPD and manipulative . . . they label us as drama/trauma queens. Guess what, it is their failure, their inadequacies that make our lives even more difficult. I sincerely hope that you are able to find a GOOD, CARING, COMPASSIONATE therapist who knows how to work with individuals with BPD/BPD traits. IT's amazing what happens when you find the right person.

I know that the UK is really doing some amazing stuff with BPD. Anthony Bateman, UK doc, has developed Mentalizing Therapy for people with BPD. THe reserach on this type of treatment is as good as DBT and Schema Therapy. Hopefully, your meeting with the personality disorder treatment team will lead to something

Someone mentioned reading up on BPD and the traits. Do that! Do it with an open mind and a willingness to learn. I was enraged when I was diagnosed with BPD. As a professional I KNEW how hated "we" are as a group by many of the professionals working with us.

I've read on the different boards here on PC how people insist that their therapists tell them that they are NOT BPD. . .it is a relief and sense of vindication for many people to be told that they are not BPD or "only have a few BPD traits?" I know from being in the profession that therapists HATE to diagnosis the clients that they enjoy working with as having BPD.

But you know what, Kazza? The MAJORITY . . .the vast MAJORITY of people who need psychological/psychotherapy assistance fit the criteria for BPD (most people think that they don't because they aren't "aggressive" or they don't self-harm--two criteria that aren't even part of the diagnosis). We are actually the biggest consumers of psychotherapeutic services. AND we aren't all the same. BPD presents in a wide variety of ways. And it is treatable. It is not the death sentence that many unskilled and untrained therapists and hospital staff thinks it is. Take care!