Diagnosis doubts - Am I just creating drama?

Hello. I'm new here. I posted one time before, but nothing came of it. It was a really annoying post though given.

Doctors around me have been talking about "personality difficulties" and "emotionally unstable problems" for a while now, but a few days ago I finally asked outright what they thought and they told me I've been diagnosed with "Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder" which I gather is essentially the British name for BPD. Correct me if I'm wrong here because this is all new for me.

I'm in recovery from anorexia and have been weight restored now for a few months. Before AN, I was a bit of a train wreck of a person, but at the time I didn't think anything was seriously wrong. I only think that it was actually bad now because starvation really calmed me down and I stopped lying and being suicidal and calling people up in the middle of the night. I felt more comfortable with myself and just didn't have the urge as much. My SI decreased and I didn't create dramas to draw people in. Social anxiety meant I didn't really talk to anyone, but it was ok because I'd stopped lying. I'm sure my ex would say I was emotionally irratic, but I felt better.

I was so relieved that I'd stopped doing those things. I was ashamed of myself and I'm so embarassed that I was so ridiculous.

The past few months since my weight started to reach normal again, all the old impulses are back. I've started lying again, though I'm trying desperately not to. I've started calling people in the middle of the night again with nothing to say. I just feel so awful and need someone to know and save me from it, but I can't articulate it and I don't know what they can do to help. I've started to tell people off again for not being there or letting me down, cutting them out of my life. Or cutting them out because I can't stand them as they're so much better than me that they make me hate myself more. I'm losing friends and making people uncomfortable fast. I'm trying so hard to control these urges, but it's like I get so entrenched in an emotion that I don't know what else to do so I do something I hate doing, then in a couple of hours when the emotions past, feel like it wasn't even me and I had no control and berrate myself for being an idiot.

It's not as bad as when I was on SSRIs. Citalopram made me manic and incredibly self-destructive. I've just been put on prozac again though, so I'm terrified this is only going to get worse again.

So I started talking to my team about this stuff, but at the same time, I'd picked up on the use of "personality difficulties" and stuff around me and, being an idiot, started googling. There was a good week when all I did online was look at personality problems and how they manifest.

Now I've got the diagnosis, I think I don't have the problem. I keep thinking I made it up to make my treatment team think there's something wrong with me and give me more help. Like I want to have problems, but why whould I want that? I can't think why that would be a good thing, but at the same time, it's the sort of thing I've been known to do. I feel like I've manipulated them into giving me a diagnosis I don't actually have. I duno. I'm kinda freaking out about it right now. I don't know what to think of myself or what's right or wrong and I think I'm making a deal over nothing but equally know that I the way I was before and how I feel now don't make me happy. I just feel like I've lied and there's nothing wrong and I'm just trying to get attention.

So I guess I'm wondering if it sounds like attention seeking and it's just normal behaviour and feelings, or it sounds like BPD. I don't know what to do with these feelings and this might not help, but I don't know what other option I have right now.

Sorry for being annoying. Any answers would be appreciated.

You aren't annoying ... (Just wanted to get that out of the way.)

I have heard BPD referred to as Emotion Regulation Disorder and something else with the abbreviation EID.

Honestly, you sound pretty BPD to me. I am not a therapist, but your words resonate.

I understand your feelings though. I was terrified to see my counselor to confirm a BPD diagnosis because I was sure she would think I was just coming up with an illness that I wanted to be labeled with. I thought for sure she was going to tell me that I was just trying to have BPD for attention, that I was not actually feeling these things.

First of all, NO ONE WANTS THIS.

A part of this disorder is that we think no one is going to believe us or trust us. Why? Because we don't believe or trust anyone else. It's that whole (flawed) believe that those who do not trust cannot be trusted. Why else would someone be so suspicious all the time if they themselves weren't actually being untrustworthy. It's flawed rationality, and it's part of how we think.

If you don't want a label, remove the label but work on the symptoms. The label just helps therapists prescribe a treatment plan. I told my counselor that I didn't want to be referred to as "a BPD" or even as a person with a disorder. She is completely fine with that, we're going on with therapy (DBT) as if I'm merely fixing some things in my thinking and at some point I will start thinking better. We aren't looking at it as a disorder that we are curing.

I hear you.

Think about it this way (because this helped me): If you were a psychological hypochondriac, could you really fake the symptoms? I don't think so. Let's say you had headaches for five years non-stop. You searched and searched for why. You nearly killed your kidneys by taking advil all the time. You were trying to figure out what was wrong, and one day you went to the doctor. You told the doctor something like, "I feel like there's something in my head just scratching to get out." (A common description of really bad migraines by otherwise normally healthy people.) The doctor hears that and does an MRI immediately and you have a brain tumor. Did you fake the tumor? Did you say a common phrase about migraines after having suffered them for five years just to get attention or a diagnosis? NO! You felt the pain, you felt like something was in your head trying to get out! So, there ya go - you can't fake this disorder. I truly believe that.

Now, maybe you don't want this disorder, and that's why the Dx is bothering you. If that is the case, I understand. Denial will get you nowhere, but you should definitely NOT want this disorder. Do whatever it takes to kick it.

I'm with Flo, on both counts. You're not even close to annoying, and it sounds like you do have some BPD in you. Some of the things you said hit pretty close to home.

Thank you both so much for replying. Genuinely it's such a relief just to have someone say that it isn't stupid. I'm getting really worked up about this and I don't know why.

At first I actually did want the label. I asked my psychiatrist straight out what was meant when members of my team were saying "You have pathological personality traits, but I can't diagnose you." I really wanted the label because then I thought I'd have something to work with and something concrete that might help me firgure myself out finally.

Of course, as soon as I got the label I started to go the other way. Thinking that it was so entirely wrong and nothing applied and I'm just lying all the time, even when I don't think I'm lying because I don't have true facts. And I start worrying if they really meant the diagnosis, or whether I read too much into it and it wasn't actually a diagnosis anyway.

Then all of a sudden it all fits and makes sense again and it's like my whole world is so different because it's not just the big events and big behaviours, but little things that ring so true with me. I start to question everything and I'm so desperate to call people and start asking questions. Everything feels wrong, so I ask people and they say "yes that's not normal and fits with the diagnosis" to which I freak out and tell them that that's just who I am and it's not wrong. Or they say no and I freak out and tell them they don't understand and it really isn't ok and everything is wrong with me. I need something or someone to get it right, but I don't know what right is.

I'm all over the place at the moment. I'm really desperate to reach a place where i feel comforable one way or another. I keep thinking of calling my team and then I get worked up that they'll think I'm being irritating or dramatic or lying so I don't.

I can't win right now.

Obvs I don't want the disorder, but having it doesn't really change anything. I'm the same person I was last week. It is just a label and I know that. I'm just freaking out about it because I keep thinking it's a mistake and I've caused a mistake because I'm horribly manipulative. So I don't have it at all and all these behaviours and feelings are because I'm wrong and a bad person, not anything else. I duno. I just really want to know what I think. I feel like once I work it out, I can work out what to do next, but until I'm comortable, I can't move on.

So yer, it's really nice that you replied. It's helpful to here that maybe this isn't just me being manipulative and it does sound actually possible.

I don't know why I find this all so scary, but I really do x.

scrunch10 wrote:Everything feels wrong, so I ask people and they say "yes that's not normal and fits with the diagnosis"

I do that all the time. I'll say, "I see trees and grass and I feel like I'm looking through a 'blah' filter, is that normal?" I want to hear, "yeah that's normal ..." because it validates my realization that my perceptions are wrong. That's just part of exploring your thoughts. I think understanding that you're seeing/thinking wrong leads to wanting to change the way you're seeing/thinking.