What Are Your Opinions On My Mental States?

Greetings to everyone in the BPD forum, Just to clarify & make things clear, I AM NOT SEEKING A DIAGNOSIS! I am fully aware that only a certified, ‘professional’ psychiatrist can make a diagnosis. However I would like to get the honest input of others regarding the details below. I posted this in the general section and a helpful user recommended me to post here.

I am a 19 year old male whose currently a college student. Ever since I entered college, I have been a loner. In high school I was pretty social, though not overtly popular, I still had a good group of friends that I could connect with regarding studies, working out etc. So I do find this polarity slightly amusing. After some personal introspection, the main reason I became a ‘loner’ was simply due to the fact that I viewed myself as above everyone, save for a few students who were straight A’s, and I felt that by associating with the rest of my classmates I would be detracted from my path to greatness. Basically I saw them as ‘bums’ who were meant to be mediocre and average while me and a few others were meant for greatness. Now, I did work hard and constantly strived to improve myself, so it wasn’t like I was fantasising and living in a dream world with no base in reality.

Most of my classmates were friendly & warm towards me and I was friendly as well, but I could not form any kind of emotional bond with them and also the fact that I saw myself as being better than everyone else, made this worse. According to my teachers I was an excellent student who was friendly, polite & respectful and that I always put my best into assignments and displayed a hunger for knowledge/deeper clarification. I have not been able to form any kind of meaningful emotional bond with my family members as well and I always rely on myself.

I know this is going to sound weird, but whenever I could, I would put myself in a place where I receive the attention of others, especially on how handsome I was etc. I love to be complimented and whenever people don’t compliment on how attractive I am, I feel like there’s something wrong with me and/or something wrong with them and that would lead me to continuously stare at myself in mirrors. I would stare for quite some time until I felt ‘perfect’ and extremely attractive. Now, I am not sure if I am as objectively attractive as I see myself, but that’s how its been.

I just love to stare at myself and during moments of desperation, I would text my photos to female friends and acquaintances and get them to rate my photo on a scale of 1–10 (based on my attractiveness) and lie to them by saying it was for a psychology class or some other B.S. I would feel amazing and on top of the world when people commented I looked REALLY good/like a ‘movie star’ and the moment someone saw me as an average looking person, I unconsciously develop hatred for them. I hated them because they could not see how attractive I was and they were blind. Now, logically I know everyone will not find me attractive, but I just can’t convince ‘that’ part of my mind to believe it.

I need to be in the center of attention and all the attention has to be devoted to me. If there is another male present and people tend to find him more attractive, not just physically, but his personality, confidence etc. I hated that person terribly. There were times where I really wanted that person to die (like how everyone else feels, this is normal isn’t it?) because he was preventing attention from coming to me and if at all I can’t get rid of him, I tend to isolate myself because I can’t stand being looked over.

Now, am I happy with myself? No. I almost always feel empty, quite insecure and generally hollow. As a matter of fact, after falling into severe depression for the last few months, i started using food & sex to cope and numb my feelings. I have gained some weight and am no longer as attractive as I used to be, though I am not obese or grossly overweight. I am lost. Why am I so dependent on others?

I have also been said to be verbally abusive to my 'loved ones' and I admit it, even though I always feel justified and think that it's the fault of others and not mine.I have hard time regulating my emotions, but I can put on a good act/show and in college/social settings I am a very polite & friendly person. I am jealous whenever others come to my home, because then I am no longer the center of attention. My moods change quite rapidly and as I have mentioned, I have felt empty and hollow for quite a long time. When I hurt other people through my words and they say that it hurts terribly, I can’t empathise with them.

Numerous times I have tried to force myself to put myself in their shoes but I can’t and will never understand their pain/feelings. In the end, the ugly truth is that everything is about me and only me. I have to force myself to feel compassion and care for others and even then after a few days, I go back to being the same person. The main areas, I feel I need to work on now is taking ACTION. Before becoming depressed, I would take action to make myself look good, like working out regularly and being obsessed with facials and herbal treatments to make my skin more beautiful, but now I have lost the will to do that though the 'ME ME ME' part in me is very much active.

Sometimes I feel like I am the king of this world, that I am at the top and other times I am like a ghost in my own life. But Irregardless, the feeling of being a 'ghost' is always present, though when I am in a 'high mood' I tend not to acknowledge it that much.

I used to self harm consistently for about a year and I no longer do it often. I normally self harm because:

1. Inability to regulate emotions. I get into an argument with a family member and feel this violent, explosive temper rising in me and I cut myself to release the anger. The more cuts/deeper the cut I make on myself, the greater the relief.

2. I feel extremely dead. Not sadness but extreme hollowness. It's hard to explain, but it's something like being a shell with nothing inside. It gets unbearable at times so I cut to make myself feel alive, though it is short lived.

To give you guys a little back story, a psychiatrist I visited last year did state that I do have quite a number of symptoms present in Borderline Personality disorder and he referred me to another psych. I visit that psych and I end up getting referred to an addiction psychiatrist regarding my sexual obsession, poor impulse control, mood swings & mild dissociation*. I went treatment for several months (mainly pills) & attended psychotherapy sessions and it honestly did not help much and eventually the addiction psych realised there's something else going on that's causing all of these and he refers me back to the psych that sent me over to him. I am currently visiting him but he's still unsure of as to what exactly is going on and says that I can only be diagnosed with BPD (if at all I have it) at age 25. A psychologist that I visited stated that I have Bipolar II symptoms and sent a memo to my psych.

I have quite severe impulse control problems and that has caused me quite a lot of problems, from overspending, anger outbursts, sexual obsessions & emotional eating.

Regarding the mild dissociation, I only experienced it twice when I felt an uncontrollable urge to hurt an animal. It is as if something dormant in me woke up, took charge of me, did what it felt like I doing and I came back to reality and couldn't believe at what I had done. I could not control that part of myself when it came 'alive' and to clarify, I did NOT hurt the animal due to anger or frustration. I have been an an animal lover and am actually pursuing a course in veterinary technology, to prepare myself for veterinary school, so I found it really bizarre considering that I have not gained any pleasure or fun by hurting animals. But, I will say that I get a rush when I hurt people emotionally.

I have noticed that (my psychologist pointed this out to me as well) I cannot trust anyone & am truly afraid of intimacy. No matter how long I have known a person and spent time with them, I keep everyone at an arm's length. The moment they start expressing emotions & concern regarding me, I feel extremely uncomfortable and either try to change the topic or flee from it all together. I have had no romantic relationships, mainly because I found myself experiencing scary emotions and have since declared that:

1. It is not worth putting in time, energy & effort and ending up hurt.
2. I am too ugly to be loved and do not deserve to be loved.

I was molested once as a child by a distant relative when I was about 7-8 years old, but I have no idea how that even contributes to the situation currently.

The only 'real' or significant relationships I have in my life are with a couple of birds that visit my house daily and my pet fishes. I used to rescue injured pigeons, nurse them back to health & release them. These are the only things, as far as I know, have made me emotionally vulnerable. Some nights I lay in bed and think about them, and I end up crying. I have formed emotional attachments with them that I have not done with people.

I know this is quite a long post and I ask you to bear with me. Once again, I am not seeking a diagnosis but merely your take on my issues.

Only this: you sound like me.

I would steer you towards Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ev ... know-about

The depression maybe co-morbid due to your lack of socialization but the parts where you say you have a hard time associating with colleagues because you don't think they're at your level and you worry they'll drag you down,...

Inability to empathize with others also points towards that.

As well as having to be the center of attention and demanding to be in the spotlight. The need to be complemented otherwise you feel less well....

perejil wrote:Only this: you sound like me.

I see. You have been diagnosed by a certified psychiatrist with BPD?

No. I haven't been to therapy in ages for lack of money.

The last therapist I saw (she was not a psychiatrist but a psychologist, as I remember), maybe 5 years ago, said I came just shy of meeting the diagnostic criteria for BPD, and that I did actually meet it depending on how you interpret one of the criterion.

She diagnosed me with chronic low grade depression and PTSD. She suspected there was another problem and was trying to choose between bipolar and BPD (there is a history of bipolar in my family). It sounded like she thought it was BPD but couldn't quite diagnose me. I didn't see her for very long, and have been unable to see anyone else since.

I gather there is some overlap between BPD and NPD, and self absorption is a key factor.

Good luck to you.

of course we can’t seriously diagnose but it does sound narcissistic.what made you think is bpd and not npd?
maybe is both.once i read about comorbitidy and why covert npd looks so much with bpd.
and i read somewhere,there are 4 types of borderlines.2 of them are way more narcissistic and 2 are not.(i found very amusing the names btw)

irrelevant with op but @perijil do you that thing with pictures too?you hate when they do not find you pretty.
i mean i do not know if op has a pd but i see the problems

julllia wrote:irrelevant with op but @perijil do you that thing with pictures too?you hate when they do not find you pretty.

No, but I would certainly resent someone who didn't think I was exceptional at my job. I still think it relates to vanity, just a different kind.

The first half of what you wrote makes me think NPD. The second half makes me think BPD. What I would do is read a variety of posts from both subforums and see what resonates with you. Keep in mind that these disorders manifest differently in different people so you won't identify with everything that is said, even if you do have one or the other disorder. And it's also possible you could have both, or one with traits of the other.

Thank you for your responses. Initially, BPD resonated more with me than NPD since I had a poor understanding of NPD. I thought that I lacked the grandiose, extremely assertive and social aspect of NPD and hence it didn't really occur to me. But as of now, it looks like I might have BPD with several NPD traits interlaced with it.

I have been diagnosed BPD with a lot of NPD traits and I will say that I can relate to a lot of what you wrote. It's great that you can be so honest about the way you feel. I have been misdiagnosed Bipolar II a couple times and I believe the main reason is because I wasn't being totally honest with my Psychs in terms of what I was experiencing daily and I didn't really know how to explain what I was feeling that well either. I can't speak for everyone with BPD but I will say that my close friend and I have both been diagnosed and we struggle with empathic emotions. For years I refused to believe that I was part of the problem in any situation and if I ever "admitted" that something was my fault, it usually wasn't genuine and I did it in hopes the other person would give me a break and feel sorry for me like I did for myself. I've always viewed myself either extremely attractive, a girl that has everything going for her or completely ugly and a waste of life. Rarely any in between. I don't take criticism well especially if it pertains to my looks. I've cut myself a few times under extreme emotional distress to relieve internal pain or to just feel something to remind me I'm alive. Once again.. we are all unique and I'm not speaking for everyone but these are my characteristics. I'm a 29 y/o female and I'd say I started showing symptoms around the age of 15. Mostly anger, depression and self inflation. I have only felt a truly deep connection with one person in my lifetime.. oh and my dogs. DBT therapy has helped me the most with managing my symptoms. Hope that helps and hang in there.