[objectclient]

Hi. I was just wondering if anyone one here could relate to certain symptoms as being part of their Borderline personality disorder.

I am currently in therapy for BPD as I've been told I have traits of it, though not enough to qualify for an actual diagnosis. However, I'm not sure that what I'm struggling with even is BPD related as I don't have any experience of the symptoms other patients in my therapy group describe such as the self harm, drug/alcohol abuse, threats/attempts at suicide, intense and unstable relationships.

I've seen a three psychiatrists over the last few years and the only diagnosis that has been made is generalized anxiety disorder which I do strongly identify with but the following symptoms are becoming unbearable and I just wondered what the hell is wrong with me. Are these symptoms typical of BPD, or am I dealing with something else here?

Whenever I'm with other people, I feel like my own sense of identity is lost. Sometimes it feels like someone's presence is so strong that it invades my own so that I become them. Taking on other people's mannerisms, style of speech and style of clothing etc is something I have done since childhood. If I saw something I liked, I mimicked it. However, in the last couple of years, I have started to feel like it's become involuntary and I'm taking on attributes I don't want. Even when watching a movie, I would feel like I was absorbing the personality of certain characters, regardless of the fact I didn't wish to emulate them. Other times, I feel like I become crushed, which causes me a lot of anger and anxiety, or I'm invisible and nothing more than a ghost. I have no idea who I am in these situations and it's frightening because I feel like I have stopped existing.

Another thing that bothers me constantly is I only know who I am when I'm with other people. They create a role for me which gives me a sense of security. In relation to others, I will be whoever I need to be and almost feel as though I am becoming an extension of them. For example, if I hit it off with a new acquaintance who's into reading, I will start to become more interested in reading and as the relationship I have with them progresses, they quickly become my new best friend. I will be in touch with them constantly: to me it's all or nothing.

When I become really attached to somebody emotionally in the context of a friendship, again I forsake my own identity and become like them. Depending on the nature of the relationship, sometimes I feel like I want to be so close to them that I become them and just disappear, sort of merging with them. This is especially bad in relation to female authority figures like teachers and therapists. It's almost like I want to undo the act of having been born into the world as a separate person.

I often lose sight of the bigger picture in all areas of life and have short-lived intense obsessions. For example, at the moment I'm obsessed with card games and will only listen to one song on repeat for several days/weeks thinking how amazing it is before tossing it to one side and moving on, denying the fact of how much I liked it. My friendships run similarly.

Conversely, I really struggle to connect with other people and have had very few friendships in my life and no intimate relationships whatsoever. I have always kept people at a safe distance, including my family. Rejection is something I always anticipate and even when someone accepts me for who I am, I feel the need to sabotage the relationship. I have had many shallow and short-lived friendships, rarely the real thing and when I do form any kind of connection with someone, after so long I will cut them out of my life, deciding that one or both of us has changed or moved on and we have nothing in common anymore. Again, it's all or nothing.

All my life I have also formed strong and perhaps irrational attachments to authority figures other than my parents. I have never had an open and honest dialogue with my parents. I don't feel that we are emotionally close and have never felt I could talk to them about my difficulties. Whenever I have needed comfort and emotional support, I never felt their response satisfied my need or that they have ever really understood me and my emotions. I guess I project all of this onto authority figures, idealizing them as the perfect parent figures that I always wanted but never had and want them to meet my emotional needs from childhood. However, when they fail me in some way, my admiration for them turns to hatred and I feel completely rejected and betrayed.

I never feel I can be myself to others because I don't know who I am. I have a constant influx of false selves which help get me by day to day and deal with different people in different situations. I know some level of this is normal and everybody wears different hats or masks, but I don't know who the real me is underneath. I latch onto one aspect of myself, like my profession for example, or my mental illness, and that will define me entirely in all aspects of my life. Despite this, I feel like I'm broken up into different parts. Sometimes I feel like a child, especially when I feel vulnerable or I'm around teachers or therapists. Sometimes I feel male, sometimes female, other times gender-less. I can't work out my romantic orientation because my feelings/attractions are so tied up with my emotional needs from childhood that I'm still trying to meet. However, I had a very happy childhood without trauma and it was only when I started on the road to becoming a teenager that things started to get difficult with bullying and realizing I was attracted to the same sex.

I am also overly sensitive to criticism and have been my whole life.

Does anyone relate this to BPD?

[Pastel Kitten]

I can relate to a lot of what you've said about feeling you lack an identity or that your identity is solidified through other people. I also can relate to having done the "mimicking" thing since childhood. I have always thought of it as being a chameleon. I have made myself like things I really didn't like or even abandon things I did like for the sake of being like the person I admired at the time (and god forbid our friendship breaks apart due to lack of common interest). Same goes for behavior, like their tone of voice, dress style etc.

From what you've said, your relationships seem pretty unstable to me, notably the "I admire them at first but if they disappoint me then I start hating them." My psychiatrist told me this is putting people on a pedestal, and is common in BPD.

I also relate to not really feeling emotionally close/able to open up much to your parents, but for me it's a bit different because I did experience family related trauma in my childhood. I also started becoming symptomatic as a teenager, due to both life events and the nature of this disorder (I was told it's common for BPD to begin showing itself in adolescence).

Whether or not you have BPD I cannot say, but did you mention these specific things to a psychiatrist, or did you begin realizing more about these struggles after they told you that you have BPD traits? I'm sorry things are hard for you.

[objectclient]

Thank you so much for replying. I was worried nobody would. I have really struggled to find common ground with anyone in my BPD group as the focus has been on more on the childhood trauma that caused the BPD in the first place and problematic behaviours like self harm, outbursts of anger towards others, the extreme highs and lows and drug and alcohol abuse. As I said, I didn't experience any childhood trauma and I never have had the above symptoms. The only trauma I have really experienced in life was being bullied at school but even before then, I struggled with relationships and emotions without there having been any real cause.

Originally Posted by Pastel Kitten

I have made myself like things I really didn't like or even abandon things I did like for the sake of being like the person I admired at the time (and god forbid our friendship breaks apart due to lack of common interest). Same goes for behavior, like their tone of voice, dress style etc.

I can't really say I've ever abandoned things I did like for the sake of wanting to be the same as somebody else; rather I never really knew what I liked in the first place. I don't have any dreams for the future and since I've dropped liking things I like in other people rather than being myself, I don't like anything. However, I can remember forcing myself to like things in order to live up to the self I had created, to gain approval or admiration and to fit into certain social groups but I wasn't aware that I was doing it at the time.

Originally Posted by Pastel Kitten

From what you've said, your relationships seem pretty unstable to me, notably the "I admire them at first but if they disappoint me then I start hating them." My psychiatrist told me this is putting people on a pedestal, and is common in BPD.

Having had very few relationships in my life, let alone close ones, I can't say I have ever paid much attention to their stability until recently. I have always had a tendency to avoid them where possible. Relationships and emotions have always frightened me and I've always felt like a fish out of water. Added to that, I have long had a fear about being "found out" about my sexual orientation which caused me to push people even further away. Also, I have always lacked understanding of my own and other people's emotions. I was completely unaware of how my behaviour affected others and when I look back, I have probably hurt people in the past by the way I have behaved, being so difficult to get close to and pushing people away. It was only when I started seeing a therapist who I became really attached to that I started to become aware of my style of attachment. I want to connect with someone but when I do it turns to anger. I try to push them away, expecting they will reject me and even trying to provoke them to do so. Then I'm apologizing for my anger and want to be close again but I'm back to anger and we've gone full circle. It keeps going on and on this way until I feel I can trust them but then I start to feel suffocated in the relationship which leads more anger and resentment. I hate you, don't leave me comes to mind.

Originally Posted by Pastel Kitten

Whether or not you have BPD I cannot say, but did you mention these specific things to a psychiatrist, or did you begin realizing more about these struggles after they told you that you have BPD traits? I'm sorry things are hard for you.

I told my psychiatrist I was struggling with my identity, but not about these things specifically, only that I really struggle to connect with people and thought I had Asperger's Syndrome. I was assessed and the results came back negative. It has only been since the attachment to my therapist and the subsequent termination of therapy and the way I felt afterwards (rejected, hurt, lost, angry) that all of this came to light. My next therapist told me I have BPD traits and that's when I started to question it but at the same time, it doesn't really fit because I don't have the impulsivity, outward anger, and self destructive behaviours that my therapy group talk about.

[Pastel Kitten]

Hello again! I'm sorry for not responding back until now. I'm no expert but maybe it's possible you have avoidant personality disorder or an avoidant disorder of some type. I can see how you have BPD traits but your main issue definitely seems to revolve around opening up to/engaging with other people in general. I personally have always been drawn towards other people, and this has led me to cling on very tightly. I definitely exhibit outward anger, but a lot of my anger is also directed towards myself, which is how I end up in suicidal mindsets and self harming tendencies.

I'm sorry I don't have much advice to give. I hope that you're able to get help for your struggles regardless.

[objectclient]

Originally Posted by Pastel Kitten

Hello again! I'm sorry for not responding back until now. I'm no expert but maybe it's possible you have avoidant personality disorder or an avoidant disorder of some type. I can see how you have BPD traits but your main issue definitely seems to revolve around opening up to/engaging with other people in general. I personally have always been drawn towards other people, and this has led me to cling on very tightly. I definitely exhibit outward anger, but a lot of my anger is also directed towards myself, which is how I end up in suicidal mindsets and self harming tendencies.

I'm sorry I don't have much advice to give. I hope that you're able to get help for your struggles regardless.

Hello, thanks for replying. Avoidant personality disorder has been ruled out. In fact all personality disorders were. Next thing I know I've been referred for therapy where everyone has BPD and I am now being told I have BPD traits.

I definitely think I have some kind of problem with relating to people, that's for sure. I rely on other people to give me a role/character/personality because without that I feel like I don't exist at all. I also find that I sacrifice my own likes/dislikes/thoughts/feelings/opinions whenever I'm in some kind of relationship with another person. It's like rather than meeting them in the middle, I go too far so that I lose my identity completely in the relationship, not that I ever had much of an identity in the first place!

[Pastel Kitten]

Originally Posted by objectclient

Hello, thanks for replying. Avoidant personality disorder has been ruled out. In fact all personality disorders were. Next thing I know I've been referred for therapy where everyone has BPD and I am now being told I have BPD traits.

I definitely think I have some kind of problem with relating to people, that's for sure. I rely on other people to give me a role/character/personality because without that I feel like I don't exist at all. I also find that I sacrifice my own likes/dislikes/thoughts/feelings/opinions whenever I'm in some kind of relationship with another person. It's like rather than meeting them in the middle, I go too far so that I lose my identity completely in the relationship, not that I ever had much of an identity in the first place!

My old therapist told me to write down what I know for a fact are my own traits. It could be anything, like a favorite food. Think back to things about yourself that you know have been consistent, even if you don't think they matter much. There's an underlying you, and it may take some time to discover it, but it's there!

ObjectClient: the way you describe losing yourself in another person sounds to me like co-dependency. I did that too, before i gave up on relationships and got a dog. With me it was more like making unsolicited sacrifices and then blaming the other person when it made me unhappy. Very f$cked up.