[CopperStar]

How do you tell the difference between symptoms coming from bipolar disorder and symptoms coming from borderline personality disorder?

I am going to be starting medication soon for BP1 with psychotic features, but my concern is that I had a pretty abusive childhood, and issues with abandonment and invalidation were pretty common and severe.

So what I don't want to happen is for me to start taking medication for bipolar symptoms, have unresolved issues that I need to work out but not realize it and just keep trying to medicate them away.

My understanding is that the emotions from BPD do come from somewhere, it's just a matter of trauma and trying to figure out the true roots of the issues. Whereas with BP the issues and symptoms are manifested from chemical issues and whatnot, apparently, so the emotions and thoughts are more so random and meaningless, albeit highly problematic.

I don't want to just medicate away emotions that do come from somewhere and need to be processed, but I do also need to medicate away the bipolar issues because they are chaotic and random.

So how do you tell the difference?

[healingme4me]

Medication doesn't resolve every emotion. Will you also work with a therapist and DBT group?

[CopperStar]

Originally Posted by healingme4me

Medication doesn't resolve every emotion. Will you also work with a therapist and DBT group?

Hopefully eventually. I'm trying to approach one thing at a time because I get overwhelmed and shut down pretty easily. I am starting with psychiatry/medication and then will have to see what happens with that. I have no idea how I'm going to feel, or what, or what I will be thinking. But if it goes okay then I would like to try DBT.

I feel like over the past 4-5 years I've just become extremely avoidant. I don't date, I don't make friends, I don't socialize very much, when I have a job I tend to stay quiet and avoid people. I think this is how I started coping with my BPD tendencies. On some level I realized that close relations with others made me extra nuts so I started avoiding people. I don't really think it means I was cured of BPD issues, I just don't get the symptoms much anymore because I have no life.