[jexa]

My T won't tell me my diagnosis. Or rather, she says she doesn't label, the DSM is flawed, etc etc. But I think she thinks I have BPD. I'm scared I have BPD. I don't want to have BPD, but I want to KNOW. I heard in one of my psych classes that therapists will oftentimes avoid telling borderline patients their dx because labelling can be bad for someone with a fuzzy sense of self. So maybe that's why my T won't tell me.

So I don't go into rages or have a problem with promiscuity or anything.. in fact, I'm pretty high functioning, working in my field, doing well enough at my job.. but here are some things that make me think I'm borderline.

Should I keep bugging my T about this?

- sudden onset of OCD symptoms happened when I started working at an OCD clinic -- I "picked up" on symptoms I heard about. WTF? HATE THIS. Fuzzy sense of self problem?
- And, I do have a problem with lack of sense of self.
- extremely low self-esteem, self-hatred
- big mood swings, crying, random meltdowns
- used to cut, still do minor SI - pinching, scratching, dermotillomania
- get crazy obsessed with friends, boyfriends, especially mentors (used to stalk "mother figure" teachers in the past, when I had less self-control)
- stopped trying to make friends at all because I'm afraid I will lose control, get obsessed, cause myself shame.
- there's always the "new greatest thing" - hobbies, ideas, philosophy of life - which I will suddenly forget about. Begged my parents for a guitar, tried to learn to play for about a week, haven't tried again in a year..
- stopped being a Christian when I moved and wasn't around other Christians. Feels like it never existed, like I never believed that stuff, even though I was totally obsessed with being a "perfect Christian" back in the day.
- used to smoke way too much pot, even when I knew smoking too much would make me paranoid
- other self-destructive tendencies - making bad choices on purpose
- broke up with my boyfriend of 2 1/2 years after considering it for a day or two.
- impulsive.. once shaved my head because I just "decided to do it"
- history of CSA, physical abuse, dysfunctional home
- all or nothing, black and white, perfectionism to an extreme..

I'm in psychology... I give diagnostic assessments.

I know I must be borderline.

[billieJ]

Well, whatever you "are", it sounds like me too. Of course, a lot of what you describe sound like OCD symptoms, as well. I know it's comforting to have a Dx, but the diagnostic definitions overlap so much, that it's very hard to make a definite clinical picture fit one set of symptoms. Just try to deal with the symptoms and consider some therapy such as CBT or DBT, where we work on responses and attitudes and never mind the labels. Particularly in your case, since you come to see yourself in the presenting symptoms of another, as do I btw, the T might be wise not to label you, as this could turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy, and you might tend to turn you into the label. I can identify with "fuzzy sense of self" and it's probably true of many diagnoses and personality types - depression, social anxiety, people pleasing, and so forth. Just work on the thoughts and behaviors that stand in the way of your functioning, and know that you are JEXA, not BPD!!! Even people with the same dx present radically differently, and it is so easy to identify with what you google or read about some condition. I was convinced I had MS after reading that dx - convinced - every symptom fit. People just looked at me and shook their heads, wondering where my walker was. You are JEXA, with some symptoms that you will be working on, and I am ~ billieJ [whoever that fuzzy person is ] Caring About You ~

Originally Posted by jexa

My T won't tell me my diagnosis. Or rather, she says she doesn't label, the DSM is flawed, etc etc.

Maybe you haven't been seeing your T for long enough to be able to trust her when she says something like this, but it seems like a compassionate thing to say. The DSM is deeply flawed in that it looks mostly at very superficial behavioural indicators. I am much more than my behavour and I suspect you are too.

I'm scared I have BPD. I don't want to have BPD, but I want to KNOW.

I have been told by three professionals that I have BPD. I did not want to hear this, because I know it is a diagnosis that carries enormous stigma, and I was afraid no-one would want to help me.
But at the same time, there were moments, when I would read something about BPD that did fit, that I would feel glad to finally have a name for what I have been struggling with for so many years.

In the past year and a half, I have read a lot of books about PD's. I have a bachelor's degree in Psychology from about a hundred years ago, but I feel like I have put myself back in school in order to learn for myself what I am up against.

I haven't kept track of them all, but a very good one is:

Another Chance to Be Real: Attachment and Object Relations Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder

At this point, I have read a lot about all of the personality disorders (not self-help stuff or "how to handle your BPD relative" stuff, but university textbooks), and I can see how bits and pieces of most of them fit me. The bottom line is that I have some serious problems. How those problems are conceptualized is really not as important as how am I going to overcome them, and who is going to help me.

Should I keep bugging my T about this?

I think you should definitely talk to your T about your concerns. But I think it will be pointless to try to get her to label you if that is not something she does. I guess what is more important is to ask yourself what it would mean to you if you had BPD?

The most helpful thing I ever read about PD's (and this may actually come from the DSM) is that they are ways of being that begin in adolesence, endure over a lifetime and cause significant distress and /or impairment in work, social or other areas of life.

I was so relieved to know that there were actually enough people like me, who had suffered for years and years without being able to change on their own, that there were books about it!

I'm in psychology... I give diagnostic assessments.

All those years ago, when I was studying psych, I completely wiped out in one course: Abnormal Psychology. I am not alone in having been convinced that I had just about every problem described in the textbook!! A little knowledge can be a hard thing to deal with!

Whatever you are struggling with, I know for sure that there is nothing 'wrong' with you. But it sounds like you need some help...like me. I hope you will let your T help you in ways she can.

[ECHOES]

When we know we are lost, but that's all we know, more information is helpful and can give us a place from which to begin again.

[jexa]

Originally Posted by billieJ

Well, whatever you "are", it sounds like me too. Of course, a lot of what you describe sound like OCD symptoms, as well. I know it's comforting to have a Dx, but the diagnostic definitions overlap so much, that it's very hard to make a definite clinical picture fit one set of symptoms. Just try to deal with the symptoms and consider some therapy such as CBT or DBT, where we work on responses and attitudes and never mind the labels. Particularly in your case, since you come to see yourself in the presenting symptoms of another, as do I btw, the T might be wise not to label you, as this could turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy, and you might tend to turn you into the label. I can identify with "fuzzy sense of self" and it's probably true of many diagnoses and personality types - depression, social anxiety, people pleasing, and so forth. Just work on the thoughts and behaviors that stand in the way of your functioning, and know that you are JEXA, not BPD!!! Even people with the same dx present radically differently, and it is so easy to identify with what you google or read about some condition. I was convinced I had MS after reading that dx - convinced - every symptom fit. People just looked at me and shook their heads, wondering where my walker was. You are JEXA, with some symptoms that you will be working on, and I am ~ billieJ [whoever that fuzzy person is ] Caring About You ~

Thanks billie.
It sucks so much to be fuzzy. Sorry you go through the same. I've got the hypochondriasis problem, too -- always thinking I have diseases. Gah, my T is right probably. Just drives me crazy that I don't know. I think so categorically.. it would be comforting to have the dx.

I guess I've spent a long time looking for my "self" in my diagnosis, which is just a silly way of doing things. I am Jexa, not BPD, not OCD, not social phobia, NOT my diagnosis? Well, what in God's name is Jexa? She doesn't exist. She's not anything.

Ugh. And I expect to be a T one day?

You were a psych social worker? Did you do therapy?

[jexa]

Originally Posted by ripley

Maybe you haven't been seeing your T for long enough to be able to trust her when she says something like this, but it seems like a compassionate thing to say. The DSM is deeply flawed in that it looks mostly at very superficial behavioural indicators. I am much more than my behavour and I suspect you are too.

I think she meant it compassionately, too. I've been seeing my T for 5 1/2 months. I like her a lot but my trust of her wavers. Sometimes I feel like I trust her completely, and other times I am sure she thinks terrible things about me and hates me and wants me to stop being her patient. I know that's the irrational part of me but that doesn't change anything.

I'm more than my behavior because the stigma of BPD, the hard-to-work-with client part of it, the ragefulness part of it, the "quit therapy in awful disappointment" part of it, does not apply to me. I work HARD on my mental health and I take my T's suggestions to heart and I do the hard things, the exposures, the disclosures, the homework. I do it. I try.

Originally Posted by ripley

I have been told by three professionals that I have BPD. I did not want to hear this, because I know it is a diagnosis that carries enormous stigma, and I was afraid no-one would want to help me.

That's my fear. Well, I'm afraid that someone I know, in the mental health field, is going to figure out I have BPD from my behavior, and gossip about me and how I have BPD and etc etc. I'm not afraid no one will help me because my T does help me and does want to help me and cares a whole lot. But the possibility of coworkers gossiping... That stuff happens. I'm not just being paranoid. It's scary to think that my issues might be out on display because the people I surround myself with are therapists and therefore intuitive people who notice things. My behavior indicates BPD and I hate it. They are good-hearted people, but they do gossip.

Originally Posted by ripley

The bottom line is that I have some serious problems. How those problems are conceptualized is really not as important as how am I going to overcome them, and who is going to help me.

That's what my T says. She says, "I don't even have a diagnosis written for you. Nothing in your file says anything about a diagnosis. It's just, 'Jexa feels this way,' and 'Jexa thinks this.' I work with symptoms, not a diagnosis."

I hope she can help me. Looking at this from another angle, I think she really cares and has my best interest in mind. It just drives me crazy not to KNOW.

Originally Posted by ripley

I think you should definitely talk to your T about your concerns. But I think it will be pointless to try to get her to label you if that is not something she does. I guess what is more important is to ask yourself what it would mean to you if you had BPD?

I would be ashamed.

And I wouldn't want anyone I know to be able to guess it.

I would try even harder to make sure no one ever found out.

My T's right. I shouldn't know.

Originally Posted by ripley

A little knowledge can be a hard thing to deal with!

YES it CAN! I am so frustrated and thinking I shouldn't become a psychologist! What if this "picking up symptoms" keeps happening?!?

Originally Posted by ripley

Whatever you are struggling with, I know for sure that there is nothing 'wrong' with you. But it sounds like you need some help...like me. I hope you will let your T help you in ways she can.

I will let her help me the best I know how. I have tried so hard to be vulnerable with her, I have tried so hard to be honest with her, I am trying, I am trying SO HARD but it is SO HARD to get my head around all these things she's trying to get across.. I feel like a hopeless, impossible case.

[jexa]

Originally Posted by ECHOES

When we know we are lost, but that's all we know, more information is helpful and can give us a place from which to begin again.

Yeah! I guess that's how I explain it to myself, the need to know because I need to know I can be helped, there is a name for this, something cures it. Something will make me sane.. something will make me okay..

At the risk of getting too philosophical, let me say that there is actually no such thing as BPD. Or any of the other PD's. These labels were ade up by people trying to classify and pigeon-hole people in order to make things more manageable for themselves. It is so much easier to say "X has BPD, for which the treatment is ___", than to say "this person in front of me is struggling with a lot of different beliefs, feelings and behaviours, this person is unique and I will have to treat them as such."

Another thought...perhaps the desire to have someone give you a diagnosis is like saying "will someone please tell me who I really am!" For those of us whose identities are wobbly or diffuse or changeable, it can seem reassuring for someone to do this. But it doesn't really help. I have never been more terrified than in the moments when I can actually feel the extent to which I don't seem to exist. But out of those moments comes the motivation to take the time in therapy to let my real self become visible in spite of any diagnosis that may be hanging over my head. I know I am in here somewhere

Sadly, I have to agree with BillieJ when she writes "T might be wise not to label you, as this could turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy" The first time I ever heard of BPD was 25 years ago when a friend of mine went through a bad patch, as we all do. She ended up being labelled BPD, and she basically proceeded to 'become' that, whatever it meant to her. She was never the same. She gave in to the diagnosis, and my friend was lost to me.

[jexa]

Originally Posted by ripley

Another thought...perhaps the desire to have someone give you a diagnosis is like saying "will someone please tell me who I really am!" For those of us whose identities are wobbly or diffuse or changeable, it can seem reassuring for someone to do this....

... She was never the same. She gave in to the diagnosis, and my friend was lost to me.

ripley this makes me so sad. I'm so sad for your friend. The diagnosis is so powerful and I think I would be a lot like her, letting the dx overtake me. I am so obsessed with it. I can't stop thinking about the dx. I want to KNOW.

[ECHOES]

I brought my dx to therapy. I read a lot of psychology books, always have, and suggested that this diagnosis fit, did she agree. She did and had been thinking it for some time. She doesn't think the name is so important, as it is just a term to describe the difficulties we have in dealing with things. She told me to not get too wrapped up in the diagnosis. What's important is what I experience.

In my opinion, BPD isn't something we 'have', but it is a way of describing how we relate to others, to certain situations, it's about our perception of ourselves and others, the fears we have, and how all these things make life so intensely chaotic. It is about who we are, what kind of person we developed into being. We go to therapy, we continue developing, and our lives feel much better because of the growth and relief and the new perceptions that we gain through therapy.

The diagnosis put me on the map. "You are here: X " I knew I was lost. But the diagnosis gave me an idea about being lost. Being lost and knowing you are in California but want to be in New York is more helpful than being lost and not knowing where you are, besides that you are not in New York... if that comparison makes sense.

We didn't spend but a few minutes on the diagnosis. I asked if she thought it applied, she said she did and then said why she didn't mention it to me (the therapist right before her had announced abruptly that I had and obsessive disorder and that really bothered me that she was so blunt. So my current T didn't want to do that, and didn't think putting a name on my difficulties was important for me). We talked about it a bit, I came back to it next session to tell her that there was something relieving about it. I think mostly because the diagnoses of depression and/or anxiety just never seemed to fully fit the way I felt. The intensity I experienced seemed to indicate it was something more, but I had no idea what.

I read "get me out of here" by rachel riland and other books about BPD and books about attachment and books about early childhood development. Those helped me get a better perspective.

[opheliasorrow]

Jexa hon having borderline doesn't mean its the end of the world . My T doesn't like labels either, for this very reason It can make a person feel threatened and resigned when actually having borderline is not so bad. With good therapy and awareness there is so much we can do, it's not nice feeling fuzzy about ones self, but from experiance I can tell you that life is wonderful even though I still have the odd bad day. Calm down sweetie, we're here to listen, borderline personality disorder also brings with it some wonderful and POSITIVE aspects. The best part is you are aware, even if some days you don't feel like it. My T says each human has aspects of each personality disorder, it is how we are made up, but they don't always prove to be a problem Sending you positivity, peace of mind and friendship. We can all help each other through this right? Hugs to you, Ophelia xxxx

[jexa]

Thanks Echoes, ophelia.. Echoes, I really like your map analogy.. thinking about it like that helps a lot. I guess the fear is partially that the label borderline will stick and stay with me forever. But it's not, it's not that, is it?

Thanks for the reassurance guys.. I really need to calm down about this.. I need to distract myself, stop thinking so much about this.. feels like I can't get it out of my head but you guys made me feel better about it.

[Confused_1982]

Just wanted to say that I totally relate to this. My T was forced to bring up BPD with me about a year ago, because I asked if he thought I had a number of other PDs. He said no but was "putting off a diagnosis of BPD". So I went away and did some reading on BPD, and everything fits.

I think he has regretted even bring BPD up. I have asked him a couple of times over the past year about whether he is going to diagnose me, and every time he evades the question and wont answer directly. I did the sanity test here and printed out and took it into T. I scored 96 on borderline traits, and highly on a number of others. We talked about everything but the borderline traits.

I will push him on diagnosing me one way or the other- I feel I need a dx so that I know where/what I am. Maybe he knows this and thats why he wont dx, but for me I need to know I fit in somewhere, and am "something". I feel in limbo, I dont know who I am, where I am or what I here for. A dx is really important to me