shrink shopping

The T responded that it was insulting to have his diagnosis put in question.

I asked if bpd was a derogatory diagnosis for T. The T responded that it was insulting to have his diagnosis put in question.

#3 does not accept payment in hugs, either! But she was really sweet! I'm so relieved. We kind of talked about general stuff, but she seemed VERY intuitive... it was kind of nice. She is young. We talked about relationships. She said "oh that must be so hard oh gosh" like a million times! So yeah, she was super super nice. I hope it works out to start therapy with her. So shrinkfest is officially OVER!!! Thanks for the feedback all

I hesitated whether to post more about the last session with the fourth T here as we touched on some SO personal things. But this was supposed to be a thread about shopping for shrinks. So in for a penny, in for a pound!

Ok. So, shrink #4 diagnosed me with bpd (borderline personality disorder). After discussion we dialled it back down to "a little bit bpd," as in the traits. I feel like I've heard other people here say they've heard this before in therapy, but it was news to me.

Confrontational... is the word for how it went. "If you think of yourself as a victim, given what you've described of your relationships and work history, than you have personality issues," is what he literally said. I was rather upset hearing this, to be perfectly honest. I asked if bpd was a derogatory diagnosis for T. The T responded that it was insulting to have his diagnosis put in question. We discussed whether he was angry or not. (This was ten minutes into the interview). He said that he was not angry but he felt my attitude was consistent with someone who has bpd.

The good thing is I felt that I did not have to hold anything back. Honestly, the question when shopping for a shrink is "can you help me?" I feel like this person can.

On the other hand... this is NOT a diagnosis to be taken lightly. If I go back (which I am thinking about doing) we will keep discussing it. I am extremely aware how rigged this entire conversation was and still very shaken. If a man in a doctor's chair wants to make a younger woman with mental health problems act "borderline," they probably know how to do it...

i dont know if this is okay to say here....but he kinda sounds like a douche.

You know, it is hard from a distance to tell the significance of this. It could be many different things, depending on his manner and all kinds of cues you could pick up in person. He could be just being very direct and honest with you, saying "Yeah, it is kind of insulting to have my judgment called into question. " Or, he could be getting defensive and blaming it on you. Or something else. Maybe you need to collect more "evidence" before you decide for sure.

An experienced T should be able to discuss this with you, and not load you with responsibility for how he feels. A problem I have is sometimes I get triggered and so panicked that I cannot think clearly. Then I can't collect the clues I need to figure out how much danger there really is here. Again, a good T, I would think, would know enough about how frightened people react to know how to work through this. But probably many T's don't have this much insight into frightened people to know how to do this without getting overly triggered themselves.