Hi WeaverBeaver,

I am sorry to hear about this. You didn't deserve this at all. My heart goes out to you. Good news is, you recognized this immediately and have taken action to protect yourself by reaching out to us! Recognizing your triggers is paramount to healing - pat yourself on the back for this.

I have a question: Are you diagnosed with BPD?

I know how diagnoses can be used against us to pathologize and potentially to abuse. One way you can get around this is to record your sessions (if that is legal where you live). In Canada, it is legal (under the one party consent law) and it is so very important to protect yourself in this regard as therapists can and do take advantage of their power from time to time. It can also aid us when we need to gain clarification after the fact, as the audio recordings will not lie. We are all fallible and sometimes we simply misheard and misinterpreted things. Recordings are a fail safe against this for both parties, I am surprised that therapy sessions are not recorded by policy as this would also protect clients against malicious material being authored into the health records when abuse happens.

In what context did your therapist say that your Borderline traits are disturbing?

Was it in support of you? Judging you? Was it to put your down or to blame you for a rupture between yourself and your therapist and or someone else?

Sometimes we are valid in our worries about particular phrases and words - but we are not always right about the intention for which it was made; therefore, it is our job to discern what it really means and avoid making assumptions. The only way to truly clarify something is to ask the person who said it. From what you have shared, it seems as though your therapist may have said it off the cusp (without thinking about the effects it could have on you). Everyone has personality disorder traits at times throughout their lives. Full-fledged Borderline Personality Disorder is common in society as it centers around attachment systems. Being that we are social beings and attachment is paramount to humanity's survival - it makes sense that we would make desperate attempts to salvage relationships.

**From the sounds of it, I would think your therapist meant that you have traits of Borderline Personality Disorder (which is does not surprise me at all, since everyone has some traits), but that you do not meet the criteria for a diagnosis of BPD. But that does not discount the fact that it hurt you, for which your feelings are valid and you were right in bringing it up with your therapist.**

On a side note: SCREW THE DIAGNOSTIC AND STATISTICAL MANUAL!!!

It is absolute hogwash. Most mental illness can be correlated with trauma - the rest is all a means for pharmaceuticals to make money off prescription drugs, which furthers research in healthcare and, "advances," how we treat those who need help. The ICD-11 just removed BPD from their manual and replaced it with Complex PTSD - which in and of itself is a necessary sign for change! Apparently there's a social movement in psychiatry and psychology where front-line workers believe Complex PTSD could replace MANY diagnosis's as it points to the CORE of the problem, rather than trying to pathologize behaviors that result from trauma for which diagnosis leads to additional traumas in the pursuit of recovery.

Thanks,
HD7970ghz