Please read my story (repressed BPD traits?)

Hi everyone,
Hope it’s ok for me to post here. I am being assessed currently for BPD and other things that look like BPD. I do have a lot of the traits of quiet BPD but feel they were most obvious when I was a teenager until I was shamed and abandoned for my impulsive and slightly manipulative behaviour (I think I was crying out for help) by the adults around me (teachers, friends and friends parents etc)

I was abandoned by my friend group as their parents were encouraged by teachers to keep their kids away from me as there was something ‘mentally wrong’ with me and that I was a bad influence etc. It didn’t help that I had substance abuse issues too (something I did alone to cope and not with peers) and although I didn’t ever do anything bad, I guess I was just labelled as bad and I knew it as my friends told me what our teachers had told their parents.

The humiliation of being abandoned and having to go in and get through each day alone while I knew what everyone thought of me (peers and teachers) was completely traumatising, it went on for 2 years, I thought I’d never get out and I still have dreams of being back there in it.

I think after this experience I learned to suppress feelings and live in a way that stopped my BPD symptoms from ever showing again. Which has led me to isolate myself and be afraid of people. I started therapy because the suicidal thoughts were getting stronger and stronger. And since I started my BPD traits are coming out again and it terrifies me.

Anyway I guess what I wanted to ask you guys is if you think it is possible to live in such a way that you can suppress BPD symptoms? Does it work like that or am I way off? I feel like a liar and a fake and like I don’t have it as bad as others because I’ve felt like I have no feelings for years. But every time someone is kind to me I feel like my symptoms rear their ugly head and I run. It’s less painful for me to be around people who are mean or even abusive towards me because it will keep things under wraps if that makes sense

Would love to hear opinions from anyone with BPD
Thank you so much for reading

I don't know if this is quite what you're talking about, but you might want to look into the four subtypes of BPD. One of them, and a really common one, is "quiet BPD." The others are petulant, impulsive, and self-destructive.

Here's a video explaining the four types, and you can have one domineering but have traits of the others.
Dr. Daniel Fox has a lot of really good videos on BPD

Thank you, I had a look and can relate to all types at times. I guess what I really wanted to know if it’s possible to hide and repress all the traits so well that you actually feel like you don’t have feelings?
Not having feelings is not a borderline thing, it’s the opposite from what I’ve read. So I wanted to see if anyone here can relate ?

Do you just plain not have feelings, or do you have intense feelings that you numb out? The former is definitely not a BPD thing, but the latter can be.

In general a person normally is quite capable of lying, hiding and so forth about anything including mental and physical health disorders, conditions, symptoms and what have you. human beings having this ability to think logically, strategize and lie, hide and so forth about all kinds of things including health issues is documented all the way back to cave men days.

whether you decide to hide your disorders and what comes with them is up to you.

my own opinion is

dont worry about whether you can or cant suppress / hide any mental disorders, symptoms and such.

If I remember right the last few assessments, you went through you purposely hid things and that resulted in you not getting diagnosed for the disorders you wanted to be assessed for.

if you dont want to get diagnosed just tell your treatment providers you do not want to go through the assessments right now. just deal with what you are willing to deal with in therapy at this time.

sometimes self sabotaging can happen on purpose and accidentally when someone knows too much about the mental disorders and whether or not that disorder is one you can or cant hide.

my suggestion is stop worrying about hiding your symptoms, problems, behaviors from your treatment providers.

if you want to be diagnosed, just go through the assessment with the attitude that this is a good thing. by getting a diagnosis you will be able to get more services and treatment options that actually fit your situation.

Also assessments for many mental disorders do take into consideration the ability to lie and hide a disorder. thats why many who try to hide things end up getting diagnosed with fictitious disorders imposed on self.

you really dont want on your record that you repeatedly go through various assessments and then hide your disorder or symptoms, problems and such.

if you are considering hiding your diagnosis, symptoms, problems and behaviors during the assessment then now is not the time to do the assessments.

that said as for hiding things as a teenager. thats normal and being a teenager. teens do naturally learn to suppress their feelings and such, what their peers dont agree with or bully others for. just normal life of teens. I have teens who are constantly trying to hide their feelings as each one entered that stage of puberty of wanting to fit in, dont let others in, dont let others see their emotions, protect their self from bullying and so on. normal teen age stuff.

not expressing feelings, emotions is considered a mental disorder when its not a learned or self taught thing.

example my special needs daughter was never one to express her emotions, not even when she was a toddler. that girl would be told no don't do something and she would look at me with a who cares doing it anyway look. when she was worried about a medical procedure unless you knew her you would think all was well, not a care in the world for it just was not in her to show her emotions. she rarely cried, even as a baby and toddler. trying to get a smile out of her some days is like literally talking to a wall.

Its not that she doesn't have emotions, she just doesnt have the ability to express them correctly. She isnt purposely like her siblings trying to hide her feelings from family friends and others.

her diagnosis is childhood schizophrenia and autism. as part of her autism/ schizophrenia her way is to naturally bottle things up. then explode in tantrums. medication is helping her. as is therapy work to learn how to identify her feelings and let them out in appropriate ways.

my suggestion is not worry so much about hiding things and either do the assessments or not whichever you want to do.

Thanks for your replies. Amandalouise, thank you for all this information, it was good to get a different perspective and there’s lots for me to think about.
It’s not that I want to hide my symptoms, it’s just that I often feel like a liar or like I am exaggerating etc. and find it hard to put words to my experiences as sometimes the words seem too dramatic.
I wasn’t honest in answering certain questions in my evaluation because it is hard to disclose things like abuse and self harm. I had a follow up appointment and I wrote down the correct answers to those questions so I’m all good there.
I was told I am suspected to have BPD which I did not think I had. However when I really looked into it, I saw a lot of things I could relate to and things started making sense for the first time, even though I still felt I did not fit the typical profile for BPD. I think that’s because I have hid it due to the rejection in the past. That’s what I was wondering, if that was a thing?
I have no intention of hiding it now for the assessment and I do want the correct diagnosis. I am wondering if I have been living in a way that keeps BPD traits under wraps because of what happened when I did not hide them when I was at school. I isolate and stay away from others emotionally and physically and I feel like I have not lived.
I am even going through this thing with my T where I keep telling her I hate her so that I will not feel in anyway close to her so it will not hurt if she lets me down. I have been seeing her for a year and I’ve started this crap a few weeks ago and I can’t break out of it and it’s because I don’t want to need her because it will hurt too much.

I just wanted to emphasis what MuddyBoots said about quiet BPD and having intense feelings that numb you out. Yes people with BPD are more likely to stuff down their emotions. It's hard to say if your description is part of BPD. That's a question for a *good* T.

thank you for clarifying. Im glad you did manage to get the correct for you answers down after words. I do now that you mention that remember you stating that in the other thread also. I had forgotten about that.

yes it is a thing as you call it where people will hide things out of rejection. even normal people do it all the time. we only tend to hear about it in things like talk shows, but the reality is every human being has secrets they dont tell other people and most times its for fear of what the other person will think and that they will reject us in some way.

yes its normal to push away those we care about for all kinds of reasons. there are lots of reasons why a person pushes away their friends, family, therapists and most times its not because of the disorder.

its not a disorder thing to push people away because of rejection. if it was there would not be any non mental disordered or mental disordered people making friends, having intimate relations and getting married. even completely normal people push their friends, family, treatment providers away for fear of rejection.

the personality traites are over a wide range its not just about relationships any more. it used to be that pushing those we know away for fear of rejection, having trouble making friends was a huge diagnostic part of this disorder.

since 2022 it goes much deeper than that, and it involves other things too. theres cultural situations that are now taken into consideration.

each person is diagnosed individually now based on what their culture and lifestyle is (location, race, disabilities, society beliefs, norms, language and other ways of communication, education, values and so much more.)

interpersonal functioning is just one of diagnostics.

theres also severity, cognition, impulse control and affectivity. and the patterns must be over a wide range including occupational, social and other important areas of functioning.

my long-winded point is because of what BPD is, and the wide range that it affects a person, their life, their culture, their place in society, how you speak and phrase things and so on. its actually very hard to hide it.

you may have been able to hide what was in your control to hide, either unconsciously or consciously, just like any other teenager can do, like who you get close to and not.

You can relax. most people do not get diagnosed with this as teens anyway.

the personality traits have to be enduring and across a wide range, not just in their relationships with the various people in their life.

if and I stress if because this is not a diagnosis site. if you end up diagnosed with this now it's no reflection on you and whether all those years you were able to hide it well. whether you have been living with it all these years or not.

if you get diagnosed with this now it's because this disorder is ....now.....under serious consideration by your treatment provider to look into and actually test for.

not because of your abilities to hide things in your relationships with those around you. it is no reflection on you and whether you purposely push people away out of fear of rejection.

breath and relax, and good thoughts coming your way as you take your tests.

Thank you Stahrgeyzer. What does that feel like? Does it get so intense that you dissociate or SH? I can relate to that. I just don’t get upset over things like someone not replying to my message etc. but then I don’t let anyone be close enough that it would bother me if that makes sense?
I know I experience positive emotions more intensely than others and as it’s positive I don’t tend to hide it. People can often think I’m drunk/ on drugs of some sort because I will be over the top bouncing around the place with excitement. I’ve always felt something was amiss with this or else other people are just boring ?

I know for me it's like a computer that's been to too many sketchy porn sites and goes into blue screen of death mode.
For me it's trigger->meltdown (usually involves self destructive behaviors like self harm or substance use, sometimes violence that doens't hurt others like punching walls or throwing shyt)->dissociation->grounding->back to empty but present

Over the top bouncing around the place with excitement definitely sounds like a BPD trait to me. Everyone can do that but I think BPD tends to be a lot more often. It's been a constant battle my entire life because it leads to the opposite. What goes up must come down. As you know BPD can have rapid cycling. Lot of times I get mixed episodes of both simultaneously. Ugg it's such a destructive disorder, at least for me. When it all comes crashing down I found that having a good sleep can sometimes help.

Oh yeah, BPD is experiencing ALL emotions more intensely. Good and bad. we're said to be emotional burn victims where every touch is intensified by a gazillion and three

MuddyBoots, good way of putting it, "ALL emotions." It's like an emotional bomb.

AnaWhitney, "Does it get so intense that you dissociate or SH?" Yes, both. Dissociate when life gets too painful. BPD is known for SH. Substance abuse, cutting, hitting.

And a lot of SI and planning, at least for me.

Oh yeah. The SI for me is at the point where when they normally hospitalize you, they're just like "this is your norm go home"

Thanks guys. Yeah the ‘on drugs’ high energy over excited thing is me any time I’m happy/excited about something. But I can tell it’s over the top by other peoples reactions. I always thought that was just me. Now I’m starting to wonder if there Would be anything left of me that isn’t BPD. Like who even am I if you take the BPD traits away.
What does your dissociation feel like ?

And guys how do you know it’s more intense than what others feel? I always struggle with that (minus the happy feeling as peoples reactions give it away) I would hide my negative emotions and I don’t know if they are more intense because I don’t know how It feels to a non BPD person. I don’t always SH when experiencing negative emotions, does that mean I’m experiencing them normally?

My dissociation at the mild end just feels like being really out of it. Just disconnected from everything and things feel blurry and unreal. Lately I've been really stressed and it's like one minute I'm trying to play guitar and the next I've "woke up" and found myself walking in the woods a town or two away and it's like I've been concussed or drank too much.

I don't exactly know that it's more intense than what others feel, I just know my reaction is more intense therefore I think the emotion is more intense. Like, people don't seem to be particularly as amazed as I am at certain things like seeing the moon during the day, and most people don't seem to really automatically go to "fk I gotta cut/drink/kill myself/binge&purge/etc." and start freaking out any time something minorly bad happens.

You can experience intense negative emotions and not react with a negative coping skill. It's just a lot harder with the things that come with BPD. I wouldn't worry about comparing the intensity to someone without BPD, just focus on trying to respond with positive coping skills and distress tolerance.

If you have BPD or BPD traits, I really suggest doing a DBT group or with a therapist or even just getting a workbook and going through it.

Muddyboots pretty much said it all. I would add that my dissociation also at times literally feels like I'm out side of my body watching myself. It's pretty weird and crazy driving a car when you feel like you're 3 to 5 feet above and behind your body lol.

I should say that it's a bad idea to drive a car while dissociated. I can't recall how many times I've nearly backed into another car.

During the times I have no memory I have no idea who's in the drivers seat of this body.

Interesting. I’m not sure what I have been experiencing. Strange things. Sometimes things don’t sound or look right and I feel so out of it that I wonder if I’m in a movie or something. Last time I felt like the serial killer in a movie. I think it’s directly related to my thoughts though, like the last time it was because I got distressed doing my journaling for therapy. I can also find myself staring at the wall and not realising I’m doing it, coming out of it and repeating until I’ve lost a lot of time. It’s like a lack of concentration I think. My brain won’t let me think about things.
Also if I feel threatened or any time my T mentions abuse my head goes fuzzy, like I see tv static. And when it goes away I have no concentration and can’t comprehend anything she is saying
Do any of these sound like BPD dissociation to you?