[Secretum]

I hope you guys don't mind me posting here, even though I've been hanging out in the schiz forum the past several months. I still love you guys!

I just got back from seeing my therapist today. She thinks I might not have bipolar. She thinks I might not even have ADD. She thinks I just have a "sensitive personality" and that is why my life is hell. I think she might think that I have some low-level form of BPD, which breaks my heart. I was so worried that I was borderline for years, but every professional I've seen until today has assured me that I don't, that I definitely was bipolar. I guess they were all wrong. I have nothing against people with personality disorders, I just can't take that kind of prejudice and stigma. I really, really, really do not want to have a personality disorder, even a subclinical one.

I almost started crying in the session, and I never cry in front of people. I just feel so worthless. So I don't have MI...I'm just a loser who has never had a lover, who has extreme social difficulties, and who cannot, for the life of her, get above the class average on an exam.

I just feel like I shouldn't exist if I'm this worthless and broken. There is nothing wrong with me biologically. I have a defective personality, and that is why I can't get my life together.

[hamster-bamster]

I think she is wrong in that you clearly have an Axis I dx. I remember your posts from last year. I remember how you were sent home from Europe. People with a "sensitive personality" do not get sent home from Europe.

As for ADD - if you do not have ADD, how does that reconcile with that you do not perform above average on the exams? You are clearly way smarter than average, and yet you perform below average on exams, so something must be at play. How a low level BPD or a sensitive personality can make a person consistently perform below her ability on exams is beyond my understanding, but that ADD can cause it is easily possible.

The T is not making sense and is contradicting herself - if she thinks that you have a sensitive personality, whatever that means exactly in her mind, then she should not be delivering such news (or, to be more precise, her hypotheses masquerading as diagnoses) to you in the way she does.

[Love&Toil]

You are not a worthless person with a defective personality. You are a human being with complexity and nuance.

[Victoria'smom]

I have to disagree with your T. You had to fly home because of a strong hallucination. I urge you to go back through and read your threads you posted. Sign up for Scema, DBT and see if it helps. You've been working on a BP book for years.

[hamster-bamster]

BPD is characterized by black-and-white thinking and things like that. Extremes. Love hate.

Your posts are always so well-reasoned, balanced, this and that, well aware of the nuances and very perceptive... a lot of self-reflection...yes, with a good helping of self-doubt, but no extremes.

So I would totally agree with the judgment of every professional you had seen before you started seeing this T, in that you clearly do not have BPD.

[~Christina]

Great posting and advice ^^^^^^^^

Yeah I think your T is way off, way off,

Your an amazing human !

[hamster-bamster]

Just to refresh your memory, Secretum... this is along the lines of Axis I something and not a PD:
http://forums.psychcentral.com/bipol...-thoughts.html

[Secretum]

Thanks for all the responses and encouragement! I'm still a little upset about it. I'm questioning everything that happened to me, wondering if maybe I was misdiagnosed. Like being sent home from Italy...I was delusional (and part of my delusion was thinking that I was talking to dead people who wanted me to kill myself), but I didn't get really suicidal until I felt like several people mistreated/abandoned me. So that makes me seem borderline. :/

Your posts were the only thing keeping me sane today when I got really upset about this, so thanks!

[hamster-bamster]

Originally Posted by Secretum

Thanks for all the responses and encouragement! I'm still a little upset about it. I'm questioning everything that happened to me, wondering if maybe I was misdiagnosed. Like being sent home from Italy...I was delusional (and part of my delusion was thinking that I was talking to dead people who wanted me to kill myself), but I didn't get really suicidal until I felt like several people mistreated/abandoned me. So that makes me seem borderline. :/

Your posts were the only thing keeping me sane today when I got really upset about this, so thanks!

I can see how "abandoned" might make you suspect borderline, but since you felt that you were "mistreated", it is leaning towards a delusion more than towards borderline. Given that by then you had already become delusional, I would be drawn to arguing in favor of the delusion / Axis I than in favor of BPD.

Another thing is that you felt that

[Victoria'smom]

So that makes me seem borderline. :/ or it was then that your depression worsened around that time. It kinda "proved" to you that you should kill yourself. It is possible to have both conditions combining to make a super sucky combination. Have you read this

[hamster-bamster]

If I understand how BPD plays out in reality correctly, the fear of abandonment is usually felt with respect to one person at a time - maybe many in a series, but one at a time. Since you felt that SEVERAL people abandoned you, it would seem paranoid (delusional) rather than borderline.