[Razzleberry]

Were you abused?

[Razzleberry]

Thanks for voting.

I just keep questioning this for me, since a lot of the research shows that like 90% of Borderlines are victims of child abuse or sex abuse. I'm not. Guess I'm just wondering if I can still be Borderline if no one ever hit me.

Honestly, the p-docs and T would probably say you were Bipolar 2 if you have no history of trauma and have similar systems.

It's like this:
Trauma = Borderline
No Trauma = Bipolar 2

Of course there is some overlap as well....but the transferance/countertransferance that occurs in therapy with abuse victims (most borderlines) is different than someone that has not been abused.
Good T's can see Borderlines coming..LOL (and then they run!)

[ECHOES]

From "Understanding the Borderline Mother" origins of BPD:

"Therapists find that borderline patients have had one or more of the following experiences:

*Indadequate emotional support following parental abandonment through death or divorce,

*Parental abuse, emotional neglect, or chronic denigration,

* Being the 'no-good' child of a borderline mother.

(Good book, btw).. To me, it all has in common being emotionally neglected and emotionally abandoned and not getting the opportunity to learn about how the world works.

It doesn't have to be severe trauma. Just not getting what is needed to grow and be emotionally healthy leaves a person vulnerable.

I asked my therapist last visit why she said borderline applies to me and she told me her thoughts. Why not ask and see what your T says about it?

> a lot of the research shows that like 90% of Borderlines are victims of child abuse or sex abuse.

does it? or does it show that 90% of borderlines REPORT being the victims of child abuse or sex abuse? the majority of reports of abuse... nobody attempts to find independent evidence for.

this is a pretty extreme stat... i've seen 80% cited a lot...

> Guess I'm just wondering if I can still be Borderline if no one ever hit me.

90% of people say they have been kinda logically entails that 10% of people say they haven't been.

if the stat is about childhood abuse then that covers a hell of a lot of ground this day and hitting isn't necessary. some people define abuse so widely that i think they would have trouble finding a single person who wasn't abused. others go with self report so anyone who identifies with being a victim counts...

[jbug]

I don't have any serious trauma in my past. My mom says I was born Borderline but the T in the hospital told me that isn't possible. She said what you might think is insignificant might just be the thing that helped you along in your borderline road. An example is me being left at a hardware store...it wasn't on purpose but I have a huge abandonment thing.

Jbug

[ECHOES]

jbug, it doesn't matter if it was on purpose or not, what matters is that you experienced the fear, panic, and abandonment of it.

Abandonment can also be the result of other non-intentional things like emotional neglect, etc.

[Rapunzel]

There are different kinds of abuse. Although I was molested a couple of times as a child, and also beaten up by bullies, those weren't the things that had the most significant impact on my development. I feel that emotional neglect has a lot to do with it. We have to keep in mind that different people have different needs, potentials, vulnerabilities, etc. That said, here is one possible scenario.

I see BPD as an adult attachment disorder. Babies have to attach in order to survive. They can form secure or insecure attachments. In order to form secure attachments, three things have to happen. The baby has to communicate that there is a need. A caregiver must understand the need and respond appropriately. The baby must be able to be soothed. A number of things can interrupt that process. Maybe the baby isn't able to tell when she is uncomfortable or hungry, or isn't able to cry. The parent might continually misunderstand, and insist on trying to feed the baby, when the baby really is lonely, not hungry. Maybe the baby has colic and no matter what the parent does, he doesn't feel better. There are no perfect caregivers, and everybody has unmet needs sometimes, but if the baby learns that her caregivers are unreliable more often than not, that child will likely form an insecure attachment. As we grow, emotional invalidation also contributes to insecure attachments. When you say that you hurt or you're sad or angry, and someone tells you that you should be just fine, and there is nothing to be upset about, or they tell you that you shouldn't be happy about something that makes you smile, etc., you learn not to trust your own feelings and perceptions either. We grow up with a lot of experiences like that, and we feel alone and we can't regulate our emotions (or understand them even), and it's hard to trust anyone, and we are afraid that if someone gets too close they are going to take over, and we resort to acting out behaviors to try to prove to ourselves and others that we hurt and there is a problem but nobody seems to be able to understand. Any kind of abuse can contribute to the pattern of development. Sometimes we have a hard time recognizing what we experienced as abusive, especially since we didn't know any different so it's normalized for us.

It doesn't matter so much what the label is. There is a reason that you are the way you are. We don't develop mental illnesses just for no reason. Finding what the reason is for you might take some time and patience, but that's okay. And even if you don't know what it is, what you are feeling is real. It is how you feel. And what you do has a reason behind it also. We don't do things for no reason at all. If we are not happy with our choices, we can learn to make better ones.

[Fuzzybear]

[bigbear68]

Wow, I understand more about this disorder from this post. Ty Repunzel too for explaining it so well...I too have BPD. It does fit me so well I now realize.

[whales75]

HI,
I saw your post. I have BPD. I was diagnosed while I was inpatient at a hospital 2 years ago. They still determined I was BPD even though I haven't had any physical child abuse. I had a minor sexual abuse incident when I was 10 or 11, but it was only a one time incident. My therapist advised me a person can have BPD and not experience any abuse in the past. Hope that helps.