[tuliptorn]

What the heck does it mean anyway in real life terms BPD fragmented? Does anyone here struggle with this and am I crazy or insane when I think there are others walking around in my head with their own likes and dislikes and issues. What should I do? About this my T is not exactly clear on this.
Any advice would be helpful as long as it is tactful at this point...this is raw and hurting me right now. I am very confused. Thank you and sorry.

[pachyderm]

You might check into the Dissociative Disorders forum. In any case I think it is a matter of the fragmentation of different aspects of personality. Everyone has different sides to a personality. It is an exaggeration, perhaps, of a "normal" phenomenon. It happens when some aspects of a personality are forced to become suppressed -- not allowed to be expressed and accepted.

[ECHOES]

http://www.medscape.com/medline/abst...emed_ckb_ref_0

I found this on Medscape and it is short and interesting.

Fragmentation is also known as 'splitting' in Borderline Personality Disorder.

I am a bit surprised that your therapist isn't clear on this, especially if she is experienced in treating BPD. But maybe the two of you can explore it together!

[iamtwilight]

i agree with pachyderm. you might want to check out the dissociative forum - dissociation is sometimes a symptom of bpd, and in some cases, the dissociation gets severe. there are many different forms of dissociation.

can you ask your therapist what it (bpd fragmented) means though? is it a diagnosis you've gotten?

[tuliptorn]

No I have not been given this specific diagnosis of being fragmented but I am borderline ~ he is just painfully vague on this subject for me. Perhaps this is something I need to explore in more depth with him but somehow have not very aggressively.

(((((((((pachyderm, ECHOES, Katie_Kaboom))))))))))

Thank you all for your responses.

[Greg77733]

Hi, I might be wrong but the way I was reading you, it sounds like your therapist don't know much about bpd. I would them there experiance in that field. If it is not to yuor liking, get another therapist. A therapist not qualfied in bpd can mess you up. Take care, Greg

[90mphINneutral]

Is splitting when you split things into black and white terms? Cuz I had an argument with a nurse once that splitting meant you were split off from your parents or something... I'm like you idiot... I could do your job and do it better at that... LAME.

[Rapunzel]

Splitting tends to be used slightly differently with BPD than with dissociative disorders. In DID it seems to refer to splitting the self into separate personalities or identities. Borderline splitting is understood more like assuming that someone or something must be all good or all bad. Borderlines have trouble understanding how opposites can exist at the same time in the same person, including the self. So we polarize everything. There is no middle ground.

But I think that it really does fit together more than it would seem at first glance. Dissociation is a symptom of BPD also. My T has commented that DID, BPD, and PTSD all are dissociative disorders. I agree. They are all reactions to trauma of one kind or another, and the symptoms are ways that we attempt to survive and deal with the trauma and its effects. The main differences are degree of fragmentation and emphasis on certain symptoms being more prominent than certain others. Maybe the fragmentation is directly related to the polarization. When things seem too opposite and too different and separate to exist as part of one identity, maybe some of us define those different aspects as separate identities or ego fragments.

My T has identified that I am fragmented. I have parts that conflict with each other and do not like each other. Some of them are opposites. There is a professional fragment and a helpless fragment, for starters. I've even noticed different professional fragments that use different approaches. I have developed a behaviorist fragment since I work as a behaviorist, but I don't really want to be a behaviorist. That fragment has sometimes taken over when I get overwhelmed with something and behavioral was not the approach I wanted to use. Arrgh. But even though I dissociate, and I have these fragments, they are not completely severed from one main identity that has all of the same memories and shared experiences.

I have all of the criteria / symptoms for BPD, although nobody has officially made that diagnosis. My T, who doesn't seem to like the concept of personality disorders, and who thinks of what most people would call BPD as something else (a trauma or dissociative disorder), says that I don't fit neatly into a diagnostic category, although she has mentioned personality disorders several times in connection with my diagnosis. That fragmentation, or "fragmented BPD" is one of my main symptoms.

Did that help at all?

Tuliptorn, you may need to work towards integration, or at least getting the fragments to be more cohesive and work together cooperatively. You might want to talk to your T a bit more about the approaches that could help you. But you're not the only one who is like that. Understanding the way that you are is a good place to start.

[pachyderm]

"My T... says that I don't fit neatly into a diagnostic category..."

How about that!

[tuliptorn]

Rapunzel - thank you that was very, very helpful.

Thanks everyone for sharing. It is appreciated.