Where to go to get help? (And venting)

Where should I go to get help?

If you have insurance do you need to go through a primary care doctor? Or you can go straight to a psychiatrist or therapist or someone? It's been years since I last tried getting any help (through the VA) and that was a nightmare. Basically, sure, we'll be glad to help.... just come fill in some forms and we'll be glad to check you out...in 3 months.... *rage*... and finally got there and was sure we think you have this-and-that....but go to month long in-patient alcohol first... I ran away.

So, what do I do? Do I try going back to VA? Do I go to a regular doctor and say "Hi, I'm Crazy!", or call a private practice? Do you find a therapist/psychiatric place? I dunno.... I'm just so scared and ashamed and thoughts in my head start racing around and telling me anything and everything that I wouldn't want to hear and it's maddening. God, I hate myself so much. I am so defective... I don't have any reasons why I am... I don't..just.. why! Sorry.

Hi Brokeinside

You could start with your normal doctor you see as a starting point and they should be able to help in providing a referral or point you in the direction of the right services to contact. They may even be able to help you out a bit themselves.

You could also look up the heath services in your local area- their websites may have information on who and how to contact the relevant people- there may even be some free services available in your area too. Those are methods that have worked for me in the past.

Hugs- and feel free to vent as much as you need to.
Lily

In Phoenix there is a place who does DBT http://www.vipmhlc.com/

For meds I go through my primary doctor, see him every few months for refills

Welcome & I hope you find something that helps

Have a friend who I worked with years ago, she was a VA nurse, can ask her nextweek about the VA & issues. From what I have seen, BPD is the illness that no one knows how to treat. The DBT place might take your insurance & you could be inluck? It all blows, glad somehow I get by..I know the days coming soon where all the $#%^ oozes out faster than I can handle.

Ok. Ok! Alright, that's great!

I'm gonna check that place out and find out if I can go there.

It's just.. I dunno know how to say it, it just, damn it hurts so much having to go some place and tell someone all this and that, and then oh ok, well, why don't you go here.. and then the same, and then the same, and it eats you up inside just thinking about having to keep telling people the same things. I mean, I dunno... I totally get that just a matter of time. Whens the day gonna come that I can't hold it back anymore and there's gonna be a news story about another guy on a bell tower or something like that. Or another guy splattered his brains out.. I dunno which, kinda wish for both at the same time.

I think the issue with the VA was that it was a bad time and wrong place, with all the deployments going on and being out in california so high demand for services i'd guess. Like it'd even matter though, I managed to wait through that and as soon as I heard a possible verdict I was run run run away. Now it's the point where the things that I do to kill the crazy just aren't working so good anymore. drink drink drink and I still get the $#%^ out of my head, and still can't remember who I am, and still the emotions are constantly shifting like you're standing in a sand.

Hope your day is better, keep trying there is this forum & crisis #'s to call if you need to. The links should help. Remember to breathe & there is a PTSD Android app which has some breathing & relaxation techniques to bring your brain back home.

What kind of health insurance do you have? Do you have USFHP or TriCare?

There should be a number on the back of your health insurance card that has a line specifically for behavioral health. Any place with a DBT program will be good for you. Just make sure that they're "in network".

I wouldn't recommend going through your primary care physician for medications for a couple of reasons. People with BPD tend to be VERY sensitive to medications. If your doctor ramps up a medication too quickly, the side effects could turn you off to the medication, making it hard to stick with it. Secondly, only a psychologist experienced with treating Axis II disorders should be prescribing the medication, because they really need to be up to date on medication treatments. For example, a primary care physician will see "anxiety" and automatically think "benzo", whereas someone who is experienced with treating BPD knows that drug addiction is a major issue and won't go to the benzos unless ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY.

Right now have blue cross blue shield, but I should be in the VA system (but that was awhile ago, so I have no idea)

And ok. I was thinking about that earlier. I couldn't trust myself with anything potentially addicting or it'd be down the hatch with some liquor. I really hope there's some way to just tone down the emotions so I could at least try and deal with them.... right now there's too much chaos to figure out whats going on, but I think I'm starting to snap out of it a little and hopefully can deal with it productively.

Has anyone had any success self treating with low carb or ketogenic diets?

Brokeinside wrote:Right now have blue cross blue shield, but I should be in the VA system (but that was awhile ago, so I have no idea)

Great. BCBS is a nationwide health plan, so your network is going to be relatively large. I would suggest seeing if the clinic that practices DBT as mentioned above is in network. If not, check out http://behavioraltech.org/resources/crd.cfm for a list of facilities that have DBT available.

I was thinking about that earlier. I couldn't trust myself with anything potentially addicting or it'd be down the hatch with some liquor. I really hope there's some way to just tone down the emotions so I could at least try and deal with them.... right now there's too much chaos to figure out whats going on, but I think I'm starting to snap out of it a little and hopefully can deal with it productively.

It's good to be aware of your leanings toward addiction. Be OPEN AND HONEST about that... even say what you said here word for word. You may not get all the fun meds, but it is way better for you in the long term to stay away from addictive substances.

Has anyone had any success self treating with low carb or ketogenic diets?

Low carb diets can make you notoriously moody, so I wouldn't recommend it. I had a really bad experience with trying a low carb diet a few years ago. I was taking in less than 20 g of carbs a day and I was in the most piss ass mood. The only dietary thing I've seen regarding the treatment of BPD is fish oil.

Ok.

Thank you.

I guess I should introduce myself or at least the basics.

31 Yro male, have had problems for quite some time (mid childhood) but I guess just the blessing of having people around was always enough to moderate my behavior just enough to keep from going off the deep end... same thing with military... been almost six years since I've been out, and been extremely rough (I'm sure most normal people would think i'm nuts), but couple weeks ago something just clicked off in my head to the point where I can't try and ignore it or kill it with alcohol anymore. I was checked out by VA and told i was bi polar but I never thought it was quite right.

That was about 5 years ago that I was trying to figure out wtf was wrong with my head.... So fast forward to about two weeks ago, went into some kind of crazy depression, not just depressed but wild mood swings, alternating between wanting to kill myself, and wanting to kill everyone else... for whatever reason, was looking through an old email account of mine and stumbled on something about borderline, I guess I was looking at that some years ago, and took some stupid online test. It was like "Hello!", but it only tested for that, so ya know, like I bet anyone who takes that shows some signs of it so not very accurate. I had seen another test that was supposed to be for a bunch of different personality disorders so thought, hey, well, lets see what really happens.. bet if the first test was false positive that it won't show so high on this other one, especially since it has lots of other possibilities. and... test was like, slightly higher than average risk for narcissism and anti-social but not by too much, but way over for bpd. so I finally broke down and read a bit about what borderline is, and it wasn't so much a list of symptoms I could have, but more like a list of my lifes crowning achievements. And it's to the point where I need to get some professional help. please don't be mad at me that I don't have a doctors diagnoses about BPD, I really don't want to take advantage of your hospitality here, i just don't know of any other place that everyone seems to understand exactly whats going on. I'll leave if you aren't comfortable with me around, I'm sorry.