This is a rant

I don't understand why BPD is an Axis II disorder and schizophrenia and dysthemia are Axis I disorders. And before anyone gets upset, I'm not dissing either schizophrenia or dysthemia. In fact, I've been diagnosed with Dysthemia in addition to BPD. What gets me is that Axis II disorders are "labeled" as pervasive. (definition: pervading, permeant, permeating) How is schizophrenia and dysthemia NOT pervasive? According to my therapist, I know that I don't fit the diagnosis of BPD any longer but still fit the diagnosis of dysthemia, but it still upsets me that people who are being diagnosesed are being saddled with an Axis II diagnosis--which can affect their ability to get care and influence how medical people view them! I see schizophrenia and my own diagnosis of dysthemia as more pervasive then my diagnosis of BPD. What's up with this? Is it the medical/mental health communities own bias toward us? I get it that we are often a difficult bunch to treat, but it seems unfair and out of line that they label us having an Axis II diagnosis over other disorders.

I get it that most researchers in the area have believed for a very long time that anyone dealing with a personality disorder was NEVER cured. But a lot of the research lately reveals that, at least with BPD and I'm sure some of the other personality disorders, that people no longer "fit the criteria". How is that not a cure and how is that not an example of something that isn't pervasive?????

Because BPD is a personality disorder, while schizophrenia and dysthymia aren't personality disorders.

[athena2011]

I think a potentially enlightening question to answer is why this bothers you so much. I think I may know why but I'll leave that with you.

Appreciate your response, melissa.recovering, and I get what you're saying but "personality disorder's" were origninally put on Axis II because they were believed to be pervasive and uncurable . .. in other words, none of us were expected to change or "get better".. . adapt perhaps, but never really change. Schizophrenia and dysthemia are also disorders that have been shown to be resistent and never really curable. . .in other words, disorders that will be with a person for the rest of their lives .. . in a sense, a life sentence; something the person will always deal with on some level. I guess I'm saying that I think things need a serious review. Sorry to disagree.

Or maybe I'm saying that if all the research is right, maybe BPD isn't a personality disorder but more along the line of the other Axis I disorders--i.e. Emotional Disregulation Disorder.

Originally Posted by athena2011

I think a potentially enlightening question to answer is why this bothers you so much. I think I may know why but I'll leave that with you.

I think it bothers me so much because it is such a negative and condemning diagnosis. If a person admits to being diagnosed as BPD they are viewed in a different way than someone who is diagnosed with an Axis I diagnosis, i.e. depression. Being religated to a "wastebasket" Axis is depressing!

[athena2011]

Originally Posted by Jaybird57

I think it bothers me so much because it is such a negative and condemning diagnosis. If a person admits to being diagnosed as BPD they are viewed in a different way than someone who is diagnosed with an Axis I diagnosis, i.e. depression. Being religated to a "wastebasket" Axis is depressing!

. Exactly! It's almost like saying it IS you. I remember how relieved I felt in the first couple of weeks of therapy when i felt like what I had was NOT ME. BPD is NOT who you are. I think it is precisely how you act when you are NOT YOURSELF. It is almost like some kind of repression of the 'self'. The 'self' comes out when life is going smoothly, when relationships are stable and when the inner critic is silenced. For me, that is rare, but I think that is how non-BPD people are most of the time. I have found having labels thrown at me to be EXTREMELY damaging and I am happy to have a T who avoids them like the plague. I like to think of BPD as a kind of trauma that must be gotten over. **** happened early on in life and we just need help working through it. We were not simply born with ****** personalities. Personally I recommend ignoring this axis I and II stuff. The way you have described it, it would piss me off too.

Great response, athena, I totally agree with you. My difficulty is that I now understand that I am NOT the diagnosis of BPD, in other words, it isn't the defining description of who I am. I am so many other things, some great, some not so great. I am human. What bothers me about the diagnosis is perhaps influenced by my own professional involvement in the field of human services. I see how the diagnosis is used to put clients in a corner, to "identify" them as having a pervasive disorder that can never really change. It's wrong. . . but then, the DSM was originally created for insurance purposes . . . too bad it's become something that is used as a club rather than something to lift clients up. Guess I'm just being sad tonight. Thanks for the response.

[Chronic]

I struggle with this too, but for slightly different reasons. I hate how having a PD is blamed on us- like we choose to be like we are, respond in the ways we do, behave in the ways we do. I did not choose to grow up in an abusive,emotionally neglectful and invalidating environiment, where no one cared about me and I was left to bring myself up, but I am the one who gets the blame for everything. I'm getting the feeling recently that even my T thinks the same- It's the way we act and if we really wanted to do something about it then we would. Yet if we had a "proper psychiatric condition" i.e., one that can be treated with medication then we would be seen to have an illness which would not be blamed on us.

I work in the medical field and a nurse was telling me about a patient with BPD (no one knows I am BPD), and she said "People with personality disorders are the worst patients because theu do not want to change. They do not think they have a problem and psychiatrists don't know what to do with them because there isn't a medication they can prescribe. That patient is a hopeless case"

I hate how we receive a lack of empathy from lots of people because PDs are seen as our fault. Many times I wish I was schizophrenic or bipolar just so someone would tell me all this is not all my fault and to get some understanding rather than feeling such a bad person and hopeless

[BrokenNBeautiful]

I hate that personality disorder label, too.

like it describes me?

and it does not completely describe me.

In fact, I know that bpd can be treated and why can't professionals have that opinion, too?

Because it's too expensive or too hard to "handle"?

G*d.

And there is research saying that there *are* brain issues going on with BPD's, too.

Get with it, DSM and APA!

Billi