I have been seeing my therapist for 3.5 years. I was diagnosed with severe anxiety and severe social anxiety and we also talk a lot about emotional regulation, self-harm, binge drinking, dissociation, etc. Last week I went to see a psychiatrist for the first time as I have been feeling much worse in the past couple of months. She diagnosed me with Borderline Personality Disorder and C-PTSD as well. She said I needed to change quite a few things in my treatment plan. I am just feeling very uncertain and frightened.
I don’t know why my therapist never brought it up, especially after the psychiatrist showed me the DSM for BPD and it was very similar to what I had read in the letter my therapist wrote to my doctor, and I assume the letter she wrote to my psychiatrist though I didn’t read that one. She had pretty much written out the criteria for BPD applied to me in the letter. I had heard of BPD before and thought maybe it fit but I assumed it wasn’t the right diagnosis because my therapist never mentioned it.
Why wouldn’t she have mentioned this possible diagnosis to me? I know psychologists can’t/don’t usually diagnose but it feels as though she was keeping something from me. I’m not even sure I agree that these diagnoses fit me, even though I do have to admit I fit the criteria. I’m also not sure why neither my therapist nor my GP referred me to a psychiatrist. I only went because my mother could see I was getting a lot worse and recommended it.
I’m also angry because my psychiatrist said a whole lot of stuff about medication – basically that I was on nowhere near the dose I need – that my GP had never told me, just left me on the same medication for 2 years. I feel like I was just left for 3.5 years in therapy with not enough information about my illnesses. I have a lot of feelings about my therapist that I can’t sort through, but basically confusion and fear and hurt. Why do you think my therapist kept such things from me?