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alexandra_k said:
. But then there were these people who seemed part way between... They would mostly function normally but they could deteriorate with episodes (from a few hours to a few days). Borderline personality...

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For me such 'deterioration' tends to occur when stress levels get too much. It can be quite an acute and dramatic process.
For example can i go fairly quickly from being calm to being in rant and rave mode where my conversation is irrational, highly accusatory,paranoiacally excitable etc .Sometimes especially if the level of stress is maintained for long enough this can then evolve into what i call as a layman a 'after the mental fever has broken' state involving depersonalisation and derealisation.
At other times the stress can induce a somatic reaction which manifests in a short lived flu like reaction'

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alexandra_k said:
Yeah. It is odd, that. I have difficulty with the 'mood disorder' and 'psychotic disorder' distinction. While Kraeplin thought that his observations justified the distinction later research has called it into question. In particular, the number of people with 'schizo-affective' (who seem to fall somewhere between the two) problematizes the current distinction. I think that one unfortunate consequence of seeing borderline as mood and schizotypal as psychotic is that clinician's don't consider borderline personality disorder often occurs with avoidant personality disorder (which it does). avoidance... seems much more schiotypal. The presence of transient delusions for borderline personality similarly caused quite a disturbance...

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I read somewhere(a book but i can't remember the name of the author-? Bentall) that many studies of 'true breeding' meant to lend credence to the Kraepelinian dichotomy have been compromised by what is termed the 'fallacy of the excluded middle' ie excluding those who do not fit the classical picture of bipolar 1 or sz.

Also it said that using discriminant functional analysis there were indications of a continuum rather than two separate illnesses and that finding a neat dividing line between bipolar and sz symptoms had proved elusive

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alexandra_k said:
Personally... I don't think that mental disorders come in different kinds in quite the way that the DSM supposes that they do. I do wish they would trash them in favor of assessing the presence or absence of symptoms...

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I guess i favour a more dimensional approach than the current categorical approach of the DSM .
In my case i have had a smorgasbord of dx including schizophrenia, schizophrenia with disorder of gender identity ,schizophrenia with personality disorder,schizoaffective mixed type,bipolar, and currently stands at Personality disorder NOS qualified by comments such as 'with emotional and explosive traits' 'consisting of sensitive and explosive traits' 'mainly consisting of sensitive,compulsive,emotional,unstable,and impulsive behaviour'.

Then of course there's been the unofficial musings of various pdocs ie 'dependent personality disorder with probably some histrionic traits '. 'very dependant narcissistic disorder' and not forgetting years ago the very old fashioned 'nervous debility'.

My symptoms don't seem to neatly and conveniently fit into the dsm boxes
in that i have varying degrees of so called mood symptoms,emotion based symptoms, anxiety of a social/avoidant and also generalised nature plus some symptoms which could be seen as slightly schizophrenic in nature -paranoia, bouts of quite obsessively bizarre thoughts often of a sexual nature and last but not least cognitive problems.
Although deemed by several pdocs over the years as highly intelligent there is a marked verbal > performance with quite poor visuospatial skills and executive functioning problems involving organising and planning.