Hi, I'm a newbie here. I signed up primarily for this BPD section. I've been diagnosed with BPD and AvPD, and dysthymia. I first started suspecting that I may have BPD around age 18, but the diagnostic criteria sounded too extreme. 6 years later, after many more pdocs, 2 suicide attempts (one serious) and 2 hospitalisations, more self-mutilation, inability to keep a job or study, numerous car accidents, much indiscriminate casual sex, many more regretable actions, years wasted doing pretty much nothing, etc, I was being discharged from hospital for the 2nd time -- and they'd written those three diagnoses on a medical report I needed. Never did anyone tell me... it might have made a difference when I was younger... but probably not. I guess as a teen it's easier for people to write off BPD symptoms as "typical teenage" stuff, but when it drags into your mid-20s it starts to become obvious something is wrong.
Over the years things have improved, and right now is probably the best I've been in a very long time. I no longer self-injure, my social anxiety has mostly disappeared, I'm doing something with my life and doing well at it, and my relations with my family are good and they are supportive. The hardest part for me now are the transient negative feelings which I'm sure everyone is familiar with. For me, as the social anxiety is much better now, the discomfort and negativity I experience when amongst others (particularly, amongst strangers, as we all are in our modern societies) arises from my BPD. I'm hyper-sensitive to peoples' expressions and actions, and probably detect more disapproval from them than is real, and it really affects me still. So being in crowds or anywhere busy is not fun.
Along with that it's just the loneliness. I deal with the interpersonal hypersensivity by avoiding people mostly, "especially" relationships. It's in that sense that I'm lonely. I do have supportive family who I appreciate very much (I occassionally think that they should've just disowned me years and years ago), but that's it pretty much, besides a few faculty at school.
So pretty much, I'm just wondering how BPD has progressed for you over the years.