[Icare dixit]

Ok, I realise not everyone can answer these questions, but that's not unusual here, us all being different. Bear with me.

Those with BPD, do you ever feel like you just have a borderline personality and your BP is just a form of self-damaging behaviour and maybe you even buy in to the "attention seeking" explanation for that?

I don't know honestly. But that's just my current state. It's just when I think about my behaviour, my personality, the disordering disordered part.

I do believe that it's not just BPD and that a psychotic disorder underlies BPD (which is a reaction, a coping/defence mechanism for it), I'm just not sure whether it would be BP without BPD, whether BP (or schizomania) underlies BP or something more "formless", more potent, undifferentiated, more malleable, pliable. Maybe (even) schizophrenia rather than BP.

[Icare dixit]

Does really no-one ever think it's just the BPD? Just for a moment.

What about the other way round?

[Gabyunbound]

Originally Posted by Icare dixit

Does really no-one ever think it's just the BPD? Just for a moment.

What about the other way round?

I don't have BPD but have wondered about the overlap between it and ultra rapid cycling BP, seems so similar I wonder how people tell the difference, but I guess it has to do with other traits you have to have for BPD dx.

Originally Posted by Gabyunbound

I don't have BPD but have wondered about the overlap between it and ultra rapid cycling BP, seems so similar I wonder how people tell the difference, but I guess it has to do with other traits you have to have for BPD dx.

i think BPD has clear triggers, while BP does not.

[Trippin2.0]

No I don't wonder.


When I got the official BP dx and I was doing "everything right" things still didn't add up.


More help, more research and glass shatters,I have BPD too..


Suddenly the puzzle pieces aren't missing, its two very different puzzles.


My symptoms are different, cause, duration, reactions, so no, there's no reason for me to think it's "just" anything, as its two very different experiences for me.


As far as I am concerned the only commonality is the size of the emotional scale.

[Icare dixit]

Originally Posted by Trippin2.0

No I don't wonder.


When I got the official BP dx and I was doing "everything right" things still didn't add up.


More help, more research and glass shatters,I have BPD too..


Suddenly the puzzle pieces aren't missing, its two very different puzzles.


My symptoms are different, cause, duration, reactions, so no, there's no reason for me to think it's "just" anything, as its two very different experiences for me.


As far as I am concerned the only commonality is the size of the emotional scale.

I completely relate! For me, it's what's left. What resurfaces (or maybe just seems to resurface) when I'm (BP) stable. But, I can't tell which is the underlying syndrome. I can't be sure really.

There is something underlyingly that one might call BP or something less differentiated, like a BP/SZ subdrome.

My personality developed before my BP, so I wonder whether this underdeveloped, undifferentiated, somewhat non-/immaterial subdrome (and its endophenotype), wasn't shaped by my personality, and to what extent.

It's borderline schizophrenia, but it's more expressive and emotional, like BP. Couldn't it be an escape, into BP? The best it can do is let you be BP-I in most cases, but if your subdrome is milder, maybe BP-II or no BP worth speaking of (arguably, but at least milder still).

Expression is good. Any expression. That's so extremely paradoxical and viciously circular that no-one understands.

No appropriate expression is possible. Just a defensive offensive and substituting the actual reasons (or "irrationality") by validating/justifying reasons for failure and expression of pain, to make the intangible tangible.

It's like a mixed state, but with more rationalised expression and reaction as intermediates. Mixed states are reactive too, just differently, less rationally, less complex, less visible, less tangible.

I hope it can be approached as one puzzle. But maybe it's (indeed) more like a simultaneous exhibition game. We might be the grandmasters of BP or SZ (or dysreductia, the subdrome).

[Icare dixit]

Originally Posted by bluebicycle

i think BPD has clear triggers, while BP does not.

Clearer, I'd say. Clearer. Not clear. And just maybe. But maybe some really have a clear picture. I don't. BP is easier in comparison: when I say clearer, it's (mostly) just clearer for others, but even that's a façade.

I find it horribly confusing. I can't think about it without feeling overwhelmed and angry, wanting to express the inexpressible, complex, irrational.

[Icare dixit]

It's like fighting an army in trenches, once you succeed in defeating the first wave of soldiers, the first line, you advance, some far more skilled soldiers emerge. Maybe fewer, but more deadly, you withdraw and they reinforce their troops and regroup.

And those skilled soldiers are defectors: the better you train your troops, the stronger the opposing side.

I need more loyalty!

[Icare dixit]

Originally Posted by Trippin2.0

No I don't wonder.


When I got the official BP dx and I was doing "everything right" things still didn't add up.


More help, more research and glass shatters,I have BPD too..


Suddenly the puzzle pieces aren't missing, its two very different puzzles.


My symptoms are different, cause, duration, reactions, so no, there's no reason for me to think it's "just" anything, as its two very different experiences for me.


As far as I am concerned the only commonality is the size of the emotional scale.

Ok, but what didn't add up, what is the other puzzle you need to solve? How would you describe the dynamics? Just any description and how you approached it. Is DBT the only or most important thing you did to (be able to) solve it?

I'm out of my depth on this one. I can't even see the puzzle clearly, just problems. I know they aren't isolated, I think I know how they aren't, but I wouldn't know for sure.

Do you think there is some interaction between your BP and BPD? I think so, but I'm not even sure about that: one may really just be superimposed on the other.

Any insight is greatly appreciated.

Edit:
Do you think BPD and BP can or should be treated "at the same time", like holistically?

[Trippin2.0]

Originally Posted by Icare dixit

Ok, but what didn't add up, what is the other puzzle you need to solve? How would you describe the dynamics? Just any description and how you approached it. Is DBT the only or most important thing you did to (be able to) solve it?

I'm out of my depth on this one. I can't even see the puzzle clearly, just problems. I know they aren't isolated, I think I know how they aren't, but I wouldn't know for sure.

Do you think there is some interaction between your BP and BPD? I think so, but I'm not even sure about that: one may really just be superimposed on the other.

Any insight is greatly appreciated.

Edit:
Do you think BPD and BP can or should be treated "at the same time", like holistically?

Main thing was this: I was medicated, practicing self care, good routine, sleep hygiene, the works. My bipolar settled into an almost predictable pattern, regarding length of mood states and symptoms.


BUT, my relationships were still causing me a huge amount of stress. I was always in some kind of emotional turmoil and it always had something to do with someone else. Whether it be my bf, my daughter, brother, friends or who ever... Chaos.


So even though my BP seemed to be behaving, ppl still had a huge impact on me.


Browsed the BPD forum and finely found folks who understood what I was experiencing. Nearly a year later, T and Pdoc agreed I qualified for the dx.


I did some research on my own before my official dx and implemented some coping skills I came across and adapted to suite my needs. Thereafter, DBT, and still doing it.


These two dxs definitely fuel each other, which can make the puzzles even harder to discern from each other.


I believe they should he treated simultaneously although separately, because no amount of meds can rewire a borderline mind. And that's essentially what a borderline mind needs. Rewiring.

[Icare dixit]

Thanks for the explanation.

Do you think (and I've been meaning to ask this from the very first time I saw your signature) that your OCPD developed in reaction to your BPD or vice versa, or your BP, or just (mostly) separately, in "isolation" or due to other factors, or as an expression of the same thing?

Would you agree it has some overlap but also (and maybe mostly) counteracting parts/behaviour?

Edit:
Would you say being confused and angry at others is a form displacement together with "just" expression, any expression, and the displacement (and for some also the expression bit, but not like it, more "practical"/"useful") is something that is something that is also a characteristic of delusions. Could the speed, the need to rationalise and express be what causes this overlap. Hope you get what I mean.

Not to disprove what you said or anything. I am seriously confused about/by my personality and I have some theories and insight, but if it were it should surely be easier to deal with. But maybe not.

[Trippin2.0]

If I'm understanding you correctly, the answers are "no".


My OCPD started at a young age, presented itself first, but definitely gets fueled by an episode of my primary or secondary dx. Other than that it doesn't really cause me much problems.


Idk what you mean by form displacement, but it's not always about being confused and angry. It's usually feeling hurt and rejected. Also its not a delusion, delusions have no basis. It's actually mostly misinterpretation.

Intonation, facial expressions, something that was said, how it was said, something that was done.... That's interpreted as "you don't want me anymore, I'm worthless after all" and BAM! Reaction.

Also, this doesn't happen with random people, only my nearest and dearest, which I guess explains the internal agony, as well as the DBT module "Interpersonal Relationships"

That's one of the big problems with BPD,not only is our perceptions and thought patterns very very off, but there's no time between thought, emotion and reaction.


DBT however teaches us to create a little window of time, and I guess with practice the window becomes bigger, even if it never becomes fully natural.


Question,I understand being confused, but isn't developing your own theories just adding to your confusion?

[Icare dixit]

Sorry for the late response. I couldn't read and process much the last few days and before that I might've been slightly manic or mixed. Probably mixed: my memory is extremely bad lately. Ah, well.

Thanks for the answers.

Delusions are also misinterpretations (or they may cause them, rather) and of course not all misinterpretations are delusional, but the way there is a quick interpretation and quick response, having jumped to conclusions too quickly, which is, albeit mildly, maybe somewhat delusional, I think.

The bases for the delusions (which are also more or less delusional; I don't agree they have no basis, at all) may be being undeserving or seen as different or doing things differently and being unable to explain them but knowing they are right and believing all one's behaviours and one's very core of one's being are very much one. Any criticism is seen as complete rejection of oneself and it causes such confusion and helplessness that one fears abandonment.

All that is just slightly delusional. It's mild thanks to expressive and (almost) intentionally self-damaging behaviour, I believe.

I think theorising has helped me with many problems already. Self-damaging behaviour is still a problem, but the problems with fear of rejection and frustration and confusion are a lot less severe thanks to analyses and theories and all that. It allowed me to be a like Stoic, a Buddhist, mindful and rational, to not interpret and express emotions too quickly. To be more nuanced (mainly about people, which is what matters most).

[Icare dixit]

The displacement is seeing/treating one person or a few as causing all the distress, all anxiety, associated with rejection, based on some criticism of one's behaviour.

The underlying delusion(s) are not just based on something, but based on a truth (like all delusions, I believe): that one's behaviour is very much one, interdependent, necessary, limited set of (complex) behaviours that reflects the core of one's being, far more so than is the case for most people.