Full Recovery from BPD

Hello,

I'm curious to see if there are current borderlines on here who have mostly recovered to the disorder, so that the symptoms are not nearly so bothersome? Or, are there former borderlines who are completely symptom free and have been that way for some time?

I was diagnosed with BPD myself, having all 9 of 9 DSM symptoms, 10 years ago by a psychiatrist. I was 18 then, and the next 4-5 years were a nightmarish hell full of negative emotions, suicidal thinking, self-hatred, and despair. But after being in therapy for several years, I started to get much better, and after 6-7 years, I was mostly better with only a few of the symptoms at any one time. For the last three years I have no symptoms and no relapses.

I moved from being unable to go to school or work, to having a great full-time job where I get to work with children. I stopped my acting out behaviors, am not at all depressed anymore, and have much better self-esteem. Over the last year I've had my first serious girlfriend. The last few years have felt so alive and and so real- it has been just incredible after the suffering of being borderline as a teenager and in my early 20s. In those years, things felt hopeless and I believed that I would never get better. I appreciate what I have so much more now after that experience.

For the last few years, I haven't even been thinking that much about BPD; I've just been living a normal life with my work, friends, girlfriend and family. However, in the last year, I stumbled across some articles on the internet asserting that BPD can only be managed - that is is life-long, and one can never be totally free of it. That made me curious, and I found that borderlines on some forums believed this view and were resigned to suffering from their symptoms in some form for the rest of their life. That motivated me to let people know that full recovery is possible and one can become fully non-borderline, after having been diagnosed with BPD.

I was extremely fortunate to have my parents support me financially to go therapy 1-2x a week for several years. My type of treatment was psychodynamic-psychoanalytic, and that field is something I've read a great deal about to understand BPD and its associated defenses, like projection, projective-identification, splitting, acting out. There are actually many stories in psychoanalytic case books out there of borderlines who were treated in intensive therapy, and recovered fully to live normal lives in their work and relationships. Unfortunately, most people don't know about them.

I've now seen several blogs and websites by fully or almost fully-recovered (former) borderlines, so I know I'm not alone. I'm interested to know if there are some others like me on here.

To those of you who are still suffering with the condition or have been recently diagnosed, you have my full sympathy - I understand deeply how very difficult and painful being borderline is, and how frustrating it is to not be able to have normal relationships and enjoy your life. But it doesn't have to stay that way. I hope it's encouraging that other people have managed to recover fully, and there's no reason you cannot do the same.

To those who have active BPD, I'd like to say that therapy with someone who really knew how to treat BPD was the most helpful thing I ever did. If you can see a good therapist once (or ideally twice) a week for a long period (meaning years), it makes a massive difference. You can't imagine at the beginning how much you can positively change, after years with a good therapist who knows how to treat this disorder.

Also, the other thing that really helped was reading extensively about BPD from psychoanalytic, psychodynamic, CBT, DBT, and other perspectives to understand the disorder. It's like a difficult puzzle that starts out slowly, but once you understand why and how your problems developed, it's much easier to resolve them. For me, I had never had a dependent, vulnerable relationship where I really trusted someone else deeply and allowed them to "parent" me in the way in the good way my abusive parents did not. As I gradually formed that with my therapist and also with some friends that I risked opening up to about my abusive history, I was able to change so much.

Lastly, if anyone needs support and/or non-directive, non-judgmental mentoring, I would be happy to help anybody who is just starting out on their journey of recovery from BPD. Feel free to message me privately.

That is great you are doing so well. I have hope that I will be symptom free at some point, I have noticed an improvement since I was diagnosed in September. I think for me it was know what we are dealing with that has helped me so far, I am more aware of what I am doing/saying and that has helped.

Welcome to the group.

Thanks for posting, it was good to read this and I'm so pleased that you're doing so well. That is great to hear.

I absolutely intend to be fully recovered. I have no intention of resigning myself to a life of 'being borderline'.

I was diagnosed relatively recently, and read a lot of articles and forum posts and so on about how it couldn't be recovered from, and only managed, but I also found quite a bit of research which just doesn't support that idea. Within only a few years from diagnosis, many people will no longer fit enough criteria for the diagnosis.

Of course, not everyone will end up being able to fully recover. But even then, being able to manage and cope with it is a positive thing! The recovery model is becoming very popular with regard to mental health in general, but it seems like when it comes to PDs, the same ideas are often framed in a more negative way. Instead of emphasising the positives about being able to live a meaningful life in spite of symptoms, and the resilience that that takes, it can be put more like "oh BPD? You'll never get rid of it, the best you can hope for is learning to cope a bit better and reducing some of those behaviours."

It frustrates me. I was told by my doctor that since it's a personality style rather than an illness, there's nothing that can be done, and it can't be changed. Which I think is just such an unhelpful and outdated point of view, and I think it's terribly sad that he's telling people this.

Anyway, for me right now, it's hard to say how recovered I am. I have been very well and I think I cope better with the bad bits, but for me it's always been very episodic, so we'll see whether that can be sustained. Hopefully it will and I won't end up back where I started!

Starling,

Thank you for your kind message. Regarding your physician, he sounds like a terrible doctor! I'm sorry you had to hear that BS. The funny thing is, what he said doesn't even make sense. If the problem is with someone's personality, there are studies out there that show that personality and level of well-being does change significantly over time. There was a recent German study of thousands of people that showed that people's level of well-being sometimes changes dramatically based on differing environmental conditions and during important life events. It's not all genetic or inborn personality. There is a very good book about this topic called "The Mirage of a Space Between Nature and Nurture" by Evelyn Fox Keller. It explains how nature and nurture interact in complex ways so that one cannot exist without the other, in other words, "nature via nurture". I recommend it if you like reading. Also, Jay Joseph's work refuting genetic determinism and predetermined personality is verying useful. If you search for Jay Joseph on Google, his books and articles are on his website for free. I don't have any affiliation with these people by the way, but they helped me feel more sure that those who say BPD is genetic or unchangeable are dead wrong.

Good for you for intending to be fully recovered. There is no reason that you cannot do it! If you need any more sources or articles about borderlines who have recovered fully, private message me and I will send you some.

And technigal thank you for your message and the welcome also, and best of luck to you

Hi,

This was a great post to read! Thanks for that. I was diagnosed with BPD 6 years ago but had been struggling for years and years before that. The diagnosis has been both a help and a hindrance. The idea of full recovery is very relevant to me right now. I am just at the end of a group programme and the topic is now recovery and relapse prevention. I asked myself where I'm at and I now believe I am in the recovery phase, basically because I can now recognize how ill I have been in the past. I hope to remain on the path I am on now, although I still have a long way to go and alot of behaviours to eliminate. What concerns me regarding the diagnosis is I have recently been told that you cannot do certain jobs with the BPD diagnosis, i.e train to be a teacher or possibly other jobs with kids because they would ask for your medical records. Of course you don't have to consent but that would look weird. I have heard that you need to be rid of the diagnosis and stable for 2 years before you can be a teacher (I know this from someone in the group who used to be a teacher). I am so tempted right now to lie to my psychiatrist and try to get them to remove the diagnosis for this reason. But of course if I then desperately need them or the crisis service, I will be screwed. So I guess my only hope is to really, truly recover to the extent that I do not meet the criteria anymore. It is wonderful to read your story and gives hope to me that I can recover too. Thank you

From reading, it seems to be two schools of thought that can be viewed as either completely separate or intertwined.

A recent article I read dealt with Object Relations, which I believe comes from psychoanalysis.

In some of it, it stated we potentially have naturally high agressive and/or other limbic responses with respect to "nons," which throws our development awry.

If this were true, then no, we never fully recover in the sense that we become normal because there's a biological abnormality.

Does it matter? This is the more relevant question, I believe. If you are able to maintain your emotions and live a happy life, it really doesn't matter.

If this supposed brain abnormality were to be real, you would have overcome it in much the same fashion that some people without arms and legs become olympians, while "normals" in America are nowhere near.

Screwedup,
Did not know that some jobs will discriminate based on BPD. That is terrible... they should not be allowed to do that. It would be tempting to do the same thing as you are doing, to ask the psychiatrist not to use that label. Do you mind if I ask, is this in the United States? I thought it was illegal here for companies to ask for your medical records. Given that the BPD diagnosis is itself unreliable and really invalid as a medical disorder (i.e. different therapists often diagnose the same patient differently), it doesn't even make sense to restrict someone from work based on such diagnosis.

I'm not advocating this, but it may be possible for you to use another, less stigmatized diagnosis (like "depression") to get another form of useful treatment, and then retain the ability to do teaching sooner, if what you fear is right. I will admit I did this in my later years of therapy. I stopped being diagnosed as borderline (which I actually was not, in terms of the 9 symptoms, by that point) and instead asked my therapist to use another diagnostic term which she did.... "dysthymic disorder".... whatever that means It was funny because I was feeling well most of the time but I was officially labeled with this disorder that means you are really depressed.

IDoNotExist,
Your theoretical point make sense - if one is doing well one is doing well. However, this has not been my experience. Today, I am very rarely extremely angry and rageful in the way I used to be. Really, I am only angry when there is a realistic reason to be - when someone does something really bad to really p--- me, which any normal person would be angry at. So I have become much more "normal", and I know from my therapy that my tendency to easily get enraged in past years was related to my father, who physically abused me for many years with beatings. I was so angry about this that it often came out inappropriately toward other people. But once I worked it through and felt more loved and supported by other people, my psychological functioning gradually became pretty normal. So, there was never anything biologically wrong with my brain, as I experienced it - my excessive aggression was related to my experience in the environment and to the internalized object relations that I carried with me based on that experience.

I have also read extensively about object relations theory, particularly Kernberg, Kohut, Masterson, Adler, etc, and their theories of BPD make much more sense to me than the modern reductionist-biological view. But perhaps you are still right that it doesn't matter what one believes, or what the cause of one's problem is, as long as one gets to a better place in the end.

That is like the nail-in-the-coffin diagnosis to a lot of people. My state keeps poor contact with eachother, so I felt so stupid admitting it the last time I was in the hospital because it's now down.

If things go as they are here, it probably won't make it through the system.

Can you get a psych that is a little unscrupulous to diagnose you with PTSD or something and remove the BPD?

I'm not really that well-versed in psych theory, as I only got into this about a few years ago and took 2-3 courses in college.

I only read it from the BPD perspective/pathology perspective.

I'll use my own experience:
I actually fly under a lot of people's radars for BPD now. In fact, I told a therapist team at a temp residential that I had it, and they said "NO WAY, you see her? THAT's a borderline"

The only difference between "her" and I was that I was very internal. I could sit and brood, think about slitting my throat, yelling at someone but it'd look very passive. With her, she did that externally.

Do I not have the disorder? I definitely do; it's just more controlled. I acted that way in my teens, most likely because, as I even notice now, if I have a bipolar mixed/manic episode, I lose that ability to control it almost completely and it becomes about 6-10x stronger

. I can even look like a psychopath temporarily if perturbed in these states, which can be jarring to those who know me. To give you an example, a nurse thought I was the impulsive "life of the party" with a mean streak until a month when I calmed down. I am nowhere near those (I'm a shy nerd with passable social skills that gets told he speaks too softly 90% of the time), though I can be an arrogant prick naturally if perturbed (it never goes beyond snide, subdued, passive-agressive criticism that can appear innocuous)

I didn't really explain that well. As far as I understand, the causation is not clear. Do the fragmented object relations cause reversible brain changes, or do natural brain inclinations lead to fragmented object relations?

It wasn't reductionist; it plainly said that it could be either or. I'll post a link when I wake up, as I have to go through and find it (reinstalled my OS/wiped everything).

I don't want to sound discouraging, but when I asked my psych (who specialized at a Uni in Pdisorders/Eating disorders), she plainly told me that some of the internal thoughts I have (wanting to hurt myself) may indeed last for the rest of my life.

Mind you, however, I also have Bipolar I and some type of anxiety disorder NOS, so this may not be the case.

My point, I believe, still stands:
I hung out with the "fast crowd" for awhile. They seemed more impulsive than I was, with no "disorders." Was it that I did not WANT to do those things? No, I just controlled the urge, but it was there and strong.

No one cares how you get to point B, as long as its there. It's like a math problem; there's often tons of ways to do it, even though one is more popular.

This is the UK. I was really surprised too actually when I heard about not being able to teach with the diagnosis. Apparently it's something to do with the fact that you are working with kids. I don't know that I want to be a teacher but I either want to work with children or perhaps some form of social work and it sounds like both may be off limits. Even the facilitators running the group programme where I found this out did not seem to disagree that this could be the case. I always thought it would be up to me what I chose to disclose. I don't really know where to find out the answer to this. I will keep looking into it, but your idea of changing the diagnosis sounds good. I haven't yet spoken to my psychiatrist about this but she may be able to tell me how things work and maybe change how it looks on paper, I don't know...But thanks for the suggestion I also wonder what they consider 'being stable' for 2 years. If it entails being discharged from mental health services, then there's no way of covering that one up
It's all just the last thing I expected just as I thought I might finally be getting better...

Yeah, another good suggestion about PTSD. I guess I just need to have an honest conversation with my psych about this. I just worry that they will then not take me seriously if I have another crisis (which I hope I won't) as it's already hard enough to get any help from them.