Hi. I was just wondering if anyone one here could relate to certain symptoms as being part of their Borderline personality disorder.

I am currently in therapy for BPD as I've been told I have traits of it, though not enough to qualify for an actual diagnosis. However, I'm not sure that what I'm struggling with even is BPD related as I don't have any experience of the symptoms other patients in my therapy group describe such as the self harm, drug/alcohol abuse, threats/attempts at suicide, intense and unstable relationships.

I've seen a three psychiatrists over the last few years and the only diagnosis that has been made is generalized anxiety disorder which I do strongly identify with but the following symptoms are becoming unbearable and I just wondered what the hell is wrong with me. Are these symptoms typical of BPD, or am I dealing with something else here?

Whenever I'm with other people, I feel like my own sense of identity is lost. Sometimes it feels like someone's presence is so strong that it invades my own so that I become them. Taking on other people's mannerisms, style of speech and style of clothing etc is something I have done since childhood. If I saw something I liked, I mimicked it. However, in the last couple of years, I have started to feel like it's become involuntary and I'm taking on attributes I don't want. Even when watching a movie, I would feel like I was absorbing the personality of certain characters, regardless of the fact I didn't wish to emulate them. Other times, I feel like I become crushed, which causes me a lot of anger and anxiety, or I'm invisible and nothing more than a ghost. I have no idea who I am in these situations and it's frightening because I feel like I have stopped existing.

Another thing that bothers me constantly is I only know who I am when I'm with other people. They create a role for me which gives me a sense of security. In relation to others, I will be whoever I need to be and almost feel as though I am becoming an extension of them. For example, if I hit it off with a new acquaintance who's into reading, I will start to become more interested in reading and as the relationship I have with them progresses, they quickly become my new best friend. I will be in touch with them constantly: to me it's all or nothing.

When I become really attached to somebody emotionally in the context of a friendship, again I forsake my own identity and become like them. Depending on the nature of the relationship, sometimes I feel like I want to be so close to them that I become them and just disappear, sort of merging with them. This is especially bad in relation to female authority figures like teachers and therapists. It's almost like I want to undo the act of having been born into the world as a separate person.

I often lose sight of the bigger picture in all areas of life and have short-lived intense obsessions. For example, at the moment I'm obsessed with card games and will only listen to one song on repeat for several days/weeks thinking how amazing it is before tossing it to one side and moving on, denying the fact of how much I liked it. My friendships run similarly.

Conversely, I really struggle to connect with other people and have had very few friendships in my life and no intimate relationships whatsoever. I have always kept people at a safe distance, including my family. Rejection is something I always anticipate and even when someone accepts me for who I am, I feel the need to sabotage the relationship. I have had many shallow and short-lived friendships, rarely the real thing and when I do form any kind of connection with someone, after so long I will cut them out of my life, deciding that one or both of us has changed or moved on and we have nothing in common anymore. Again, it's all or nothing.

All my life I have also formed strong and perhaps irrational attachments to authority figures other than my parents. I have never had an open and honest dialogue with my parents. I don't feel that we are emotionally close and have never felt I could talk to them about my difficulties. Whenever I have needed comfort and emotional support, I never felt their response satisfied my need or that they have ever really understood me and my emotions. I guess I project all of this onto authority figures, idealizing them as the perfect parent figures that I always wanted but never had and want them to meet my emotional needs from childhood. However, when they fail me in some way, my admiration for them turns to hatred and I feel completely rejected and betrayed.

I never feel I can be myself to others because I don't know who I am. I have a constant influx of false selves which help get me by day to day and deal with different people in different situations. I know some level of this is normal and everybody wears different hats or masks, but I don't know who the real me is underneath. I latch onto one aspect of myself, like my profession for example, or my mental illness, and that will define me entirely in all aspects of my life. Despite this, I feel like I'm broken up into different parts. Sometimes I feel like a child, especially when I feel vulnerable or I'm around teachers or therapists. Sometimes I feel male, sometimes female, other times gender-less. I can't work out my romantic orientation because my feelings/attractions are so tied up with my emotional needs from childhood that I'm still trying to meet. However, I had a very happy childhood without trauma and it was only when I started on the road to becoming a teenager that things started to get difficult with bullying and realizing I was attracted to the same sex.

I am also overly sensitive to criticism and have been my whole life.

Does anyone relate this to BPD?