BPD Traits? Confusion

Hi All,

I have recently gotten out of psychiatric care after a month.

I had a few diagnosis's but one of them was 'Traits' of BPD. I found this very confusing. The psychiatrist was talking about treatments for people with BPD but I was diagnosed with the traits not the full blown illness.

I know from my own behaviours and reading the symptom list that everything on that list was a tick for me.

I have a history of wreckless behaviour, constantly seeking reassurance's and going from loving someone to hating them in a split second.

does anyone have any insight to what this means?

for me the bpd traits didnt just sprout one particular day. they sort of came gradually.

it started with depression then mood swings then impulsive behavior which led to a nervous breakdown that led to black n white thinking and rage and more depression.

there was a time when i would experience mood swings but generally i was content n at peace with myself.

Hi TCG

I also have a diagnosis of BPD traits (among other things). I have most of the symptoms of BPD- I just don't have them severely enough for them to diagnose me with BPD. It doesn't mean that they don't negatively affect my life though. Perhaps they don't affect me as badly as they do with someone with a full BPD diagnosis, but they do cause havoc in my life. DBT was also suggested to me when I was given this diagnosis a few years back, but I can't access it where I live.

It may also be that you have say, two of the traits severely but the others are not strong enough to give you a full BPD diagnosis- those traits might be there and stand out in addition to your other diagnoses.

Hope this makes sense.

lilyfairy wrote:Hi TCG

I also have a diagnosis of BPD traits (among other things). I have most of the symptoms of BPD- I just don't have them severely enough for them to diagnose me with BPD. It doesn't mean that they don't negatively affect my life though. Perhaps they don't affect me as badly as they do with someone with a full BPD diagnosis, but they do cause havoc in my life. DBT was also suggested to me when I was given this diagnosis a few years back, but I can't access it where I live.

It may also be that you have say, two of the traits severely but the others are not strong enough to give you a full BPD diagnosis- those traits might be there and stand out in addition to your other diagnoses.

Hope this makes sense.

Thankyou that does make alot of sense!

-- Sat Apr 11, 2015 11:10 am --

lilyfairy wrote:Hi TCG

I also have a diagnosis of BPD traits (among other things). I have most of the symptoms of BPD- I just don't have them severely enough for them to diagnose me with BPD. It doesn't mean that they don't negatively affect my life though. Perhaps they don't affect me as badly as they do with someone with a full BPD diagnosis, but they do cause havoc in my life. DBT was also suggested to me when I was given this diagnosis a few years back, but I can't access it where I live.

It may also be that you have say, two of the traits severely but the others are not strong enough to give you a full BPD diagnosis- those traits might be there and stand out in addition to your other diagnoses.

Hope this makes sense.

Thankyou that does make alot of sense!

Hi TCG,
I too have been diagnosed with traits. And also told I don't have the full blown disorder. Like you said I can probably tick enough of the boxes off, except for one or two, but they're also not severe enough to warrant the full dx. Through some learning about myself, I'll cop to having moderate to severe black and white thinking, idealization/devaluation, impulsivity, reckless behavior, and that these things are stable over time. It has been a VERY gradual awakening for me in therapy. These symptoms were really ruining my relationship and I didn't know. It was like the traits were invisible to me... I had no idea I was doing them. But since discussing them in therapy I've got some more control over them. Just wanna say they're not the end of the world. Best of luck.

What it might mean, in my somewhat cynical opinion, is that psychiatrists often don't know what they're talking about, and that the so-called diagnoses they label people with are not reliable or valid.

We should remember that BPD has never been reliably identified by any brain, genetic, or physical marker - despite decades of failed efforts to identify these markers. "Diagnosing" BPD always relies upon subjective judgments made by the therapist, judgments which can be mistaken and will never be 100% agreed upon by different psychiatrists.While the symptoms called borderline are real in innumerable variations, it is far from established that these symptoms/traits go together in any reliable way to form a common illness, whether that supposed illness is called a borderline personality disorder or borderline traits.

There are many problematic questions surrounding the BDP label.

For example, someone could have 3 borderline symptoms one week, and 5 the next, but then 4 the week after that. So then they would be non-borderline in week 1, borderline in week 2, and non-borderline in week 3. Does this person really have a borderline illness only in week 2?

Or, does it make sense that person A could have symptoms 1 through 5 in the DSM list of BPD symptoms, and person B could have symptoms 5-9 only, but both would have the same borderline illness, despite having only one symptoms in common but four totally different symptoms?

Is it logical that each of the 128+ forms of BPD that supposedly exist (from combining the 5 out of 9 symptoms in every possible way) actually constitute a common syndrome (i.e. cluster of symptoms that reliably occur together) or "disorder"?

Can psychiatrists reliably "carve nature at the joints" to determine when someone has (or does not have) a borderline disorder, has (or does not have) borderline traits, or is "normal"?

Can a psychiatrist reliably determine when the degree of a person's emptiness, or stormy relationships, or black and white thinking, is intense enough to warrant classification as a "borderline" symptom or trait? Where do we draw that threshold? And if it cannot be drawn reliably, is BPD reliable? Etc. etc.

Perhaps you can ask your psychiatrist these questions If you do get good answers from them, please do share on here.

I saw my counsellor this morning and she said she thinks I likely don't have a personality disorder. I was pretty angry at this, as I feel I have a lot of the symptoms. But she did say it's clear I have BPD traits. I can see the doctor and try and get diagnosed if I want to but I'm wondering what is best. I think for me I wanted to be taken seriously and for people to see I am suffering. I guess BPD traits even if nothing more might be enough as its a serious illness and the traits are serious so if I have some of them then that's not saying that there's nothing wrong with me. Does that make sense?

Just wondering if I ought to go further and see a psychiatrist or whether I should just leave it at BPD traits and just work on getting better. What do others think?

Hi Kah

I was given the diagnosis of BPD traits by a psych. Both she and my therapist made comments about looking into DBT (I haven't, because it's not easily accessible in the area I live in, but think I accept that at some point, I may need to look more seriously). The traits still interfere with your life and your ability to function. It's not saying that they're nothing and not important, but just that it's not as severe as having full blown BPD.

If you feel having a formal diagnosis is important to you, then that's ok- go for it. For some others, they may not want it. Personally, it is more helpful to me knowing than not knowing- everyone's different though.

Thank you. I really can't decide what to do for the best. In some ways I think a diagnosis would help me, in other ways I think it would hinder me. I guess I'm partly afraid they'll say there's nothing to diagnose me with.