She never said so directly, but my therapist really does seem as though she wishes I only had bipolar (original diagnosis) and not BPD. She does treat BPD surprisingly...but seems very against the diagnosis itself and is even a bit judgemental about common symptoms of the disorder like frequent suicidal ideation. My first session with her when I told her I'm diagnosed with BPD she said "I don't really like that diagnosis" and when I admitted to being suicidal she said very firmly "Ok you are NOT suicidal. I can't have you being suicidal. I'm a very happy go-lucky person and if you were to kill yourself, it would throw me into a funk. You have to PROMISE me you won't. Can we make that agreement?"

I get that she is worried about me, but it honestly came off more as her being really afraid of treating a suicidal patient. I was afraid to say "I can't promise you that" or "I'll try not to" for fear of being untreated. Why even treat BPD patients if you can't handle suicidality? Anytime I mention being suicidal, which is a large struggle of mine, she asks "Why are you suicidal?? You have a great boyfriend, a lot going for you in life, you're attractive, etc. You feel this way just from your thoughts??" Yeah, I do. Imagine that. Unheard of in BPD!

Today (even though I already told her this...) I mentioned my previous diagnosis, Bipolar II, because it was relevant when talking about a past situation and she immediately almost-excitedly says "Oh you were diagnosed with Bipolar!" as she proceeds to write it down. After that, as she went over my DBT homework, she began saying "Yes I can see the BPD in this but also Bipolar" when before I mentioned Bipolar she said no such thing (and what I wrote really had nothing to do with any of my Bipolar symptoms.)

What really aggravated me was when she said "It seems your emotions lead to your suicidal ideation, but there is also the biological component, because you have a biological disorder: bipolar. And BPD is your personality so we're going to make that go away. I interrupted to say "Actually, BPD is also biological, and you can't make it go away...you can learn to live with it." She agreed with me, so I don't understand why she had to single out bipolar as my biological disorder...almost as if that's the real problem and BPD is just me literally having a ****ed up personality.

I really don't get why BPD needs to be singled out at all, or why my bipolar needs to be hyper focused on even when I told her my hypomania has since been taken care of thanks to Lamictal. BPD is my main problem right now, not Bipolar. It really does seem like she wishes I only had Bipolar since therapists aren't as intimidated by it. Ugh!