Borderline Personality Disorder: An Overview

here we can share our biggest troubles with our dx.

All my best and understanding. dd

If anyone would like me to add other dilemmas to the list please PM me. thankyou.

1 other that I couldn't add was:

black and white thinking

I push everyone away, then I wonder where everyone went.
It is a cycle with me really. I want people to leave me alone, then when they do, I feel abanded. Confusing huh?

...it's always been the biggest thing. I think I'm doing great, then BOOM! Out of nowhere something can set me off; next thing I know I'm in the middle of BPD rage - thankfully, I can recognize it and stop before I make an ass of myself, unless I've been drinking...
I stay out of bars most of the time because of this; if I do go I limit my drinking, try not to do it on an empty stomach, etc. - I know what will trigger me, and what state I'm in that will cause me to be easily triggered. I still slip up sometimes, though....
Dealing with people at work is hard! I've never had a problem with being alone - I actually enjoy my solitude. Being around people is hard for me....I feel anxious because I'm self-conscious, then I get angry at being self-conscious, then my anger builds and builds....it's a vicious circle that i'm still trying to break out of.
Gret poll!

These stories sound all too familiar.

I have to this day a great deal of trouble with aloneness. And when I say "aloneness" I can be alone with someone in the room. It's the lonely child in me, begging silently for the world to nurture and hold her. She feels so abandoned and unloved. She gets very angry , and has tamtrums alot. (This for me is very embarressing). She doesn't believe anyone loves her, so she tests and tests them til they are gone, then she is again alone. And wonders why> "Why didn't they love me "enough", "Why didn't they tolerate me , understand me, teach me, stand by me, rescue me?"
During the height of my Bpd I was very self destructive, the pain was so deep and I had to hide it from the world. The people I needed the most were the people that began this cycle, tho I try now not to blame everyone else. But at the time it was so true. So I ran to drugs , thugs, alcohols, and sex, to numb the pain, and to have some feeling, any feeling. The hangover was actually pleasurable , as it was self punishment.
I ran from one relationship to another, seeking rescue, finding abuse. Thinking if I wasn't abused I wasn't loved. Love? I asked myself, what the hell is love anyway? What am I searching for? It was like hunting for something invisible. Something unfamiliar, but yet something I yurned for. ... the big VOID. What I had to do first was find MY SELF. Learn everything again. Be loved and recognize and accept it, let it happen. Not test, just accept. In the process I'm learning how to love.
I have extremes in everything I do. One day is great, the next is the end of the world. Unpredictable and exhausting.
I have trouble with authority and control figures. Condrictions and corrective critisism, even from my therapists, I take it as a personal attack on my knowledge, integrety, intelligence, and my person.
I have been defensive, lied, all out of fear of punishment and ridicule.
I was stuck in a pattern, because I wasn't taught, or hadn't learned to teach, or reparent myself. This pattern was making my life and those around me hell. They walked on egg shells, once the mask of newness wore off, and the testing began.


HX< my father left when I was 2.
My step father and mother were physically and verbally abusive( making it emotional).
I was sexually abuse, by 3 men, 2 of which were family members by the time I was 7.
I was a runaway at 17. Married right after that, which lasted 3 mo. of abuse.
My mother was abandoned at 8, left in an apt by herself for a week, before she had someone contact an older sibling who came after her.
My biological father was adopted and has hx of mental problems, including Bpd.
My mother has ocd, and anxiety with depression.
I am also dx'd bipolar.

Thank you for sharing and for listening.
We should never apologize for who were ARE!

what would life be like if i could live it effectively according to DBT rules - I am trying to learn these skills. all I can think of is how my life is controlled by thoughts of hurting myself and those around me. I read your posts here and while my life is not filled with abusive significant others anymore it is filled with self destruction. I do not always si in the traditional way - i binge eat and then get so angry with myself i eat more or act out. I am alone in a room full of people and alone with my self. While some others in the group have the same dx their experiences are so different to mine.
What are the sx i find the most difficult, the first one listed reminds me of all the things i think ... i use to abuse sex and alcohol but not now - like sepulchre I abstain, I avoid so that I avoid the anger and the temptation to further inflict pain. Thank you for telling me that others manage this...

Hi, When I took DBT it was for 6mo 3 times a day. We kept tracker sheets on our problem areas and goals, we could not move on until that goal was met. At the end of the 6 mo. we were allowed to graduate or had to start over, as it is hard to relearn all that in 6mo.

I learned alot about SELF, The one person I wasn't (as a child) suppose to learn about . If I knew me then I knew my feelings and had a say. Subconsciencely my parents took this from me to control me, and my behavior. DUring adolescence, they didn't allow me to utilize my judgement skills, they just told me what I would and wouldn't do, thus in the adult world I was clueless and wild. Emerging, rebelling against the cage I had been in. Finding out the hard way, the boundaries of society and people.

DBT helped me to find myself, to reteach myself my boundaries( what to allow in my life and how to react and behave). It is a slow process, and I still relapse out of (old habits die hard), but the old way didn't and doesn't work.

If you had a psychologist that was your one on one during dbt, you might call him/her and tell them how you feel. That was the part I found most useful, was my followup psychologist, who would explain things as we went, as the classroom, was too full of constant questions, and complaints. So many had stories to tell, of course, many were also bipolar, many tears fell, so they assigned us individual councelors so that we could use our class time to learn and the therapy time to explore and cry, and talk, as recovery is full of memories, emotions, anger, and self doubt.

I hope this has helped you. And I hope you can call your doc and see if maybe you might need to take another class. I also read this website everyday,... almost like my BPD bible, if you will to remind me of my old self.......

http://www.borderlinepersonality.ca/199 ... eindex.htm

All my best

ddee wrote:These stories sound all too familiar.

ddee wrote:I have to this day a great deal of trouble with aloneness. And when I say "aloneness" I can be alone with someone in the room. It's the lonely child in me, begging silently for the world to nurture and hold her. She feels so abandoned and unloved. She gets very angry , and has tamtrums alot. (This for me is very embarressing). She doesn't believe anyone loves her, so she tests and tests them til they are gone, then she is again alone. And wonders why> "Why didn't they love me "enough", "Why didn't they tolerate me , understand me, teach me, stand by me, rescue me?

Wow, ddee, I could have written this EXACTLY - well, here's a hug from the loney, angry little girl in me to the one in you....I, too, can be in a crowded room and feel so very, very alone.... (((((ddee)))))

ddee wrote:During the height of my Bpd I was very self destructive, the pain was so deep and I had to hide it from the world......I ran to drugs , thugs, alcohols, and sex, to numb the pain, and to have some feeling, any feeling....

Oh, yes, the self-medication - I can only count on one hand the drugs I did, but I would use them excessively when I got hold of them! Picking up men in bars, using them for sex, then kicking them out of my bed before they could dump me - always feeling empty and unfulfilled but avoiding the reasons.

ddee wrote:....I have extremes in everything I do. One day is great, the next is the end of the world. Unpredictable and exhausting....Condrictions and corrective critisism, even from my therapists, I take it as a personal attack on my knowledge, integrety, intelligence, and my person.

I understand this feeling too.....because of my overbearing parents expecting perfection from me, if I don't measure up to my own unrealistically high expectations then I feel like a complete and utter failure as a human being. When it comes to constructive criticism, I only hear the CRITICISM part...

My hx is similar to yours - I was adopted, so there's where the whole abandonment feeling comes in. I was sexually abused by a foster brother at 4 and 10; then physically and sexually abused by a friend of one of my older brothers between the ages of 6 and 12.
I ran away from home at 16 for a number of reasons...school was boring, my parents didn't care that I was depressed and miserable, and I hated myself and hated life. I also have BDD, OC traits and PP traits. I get anxious at times and have had a couple of anxiety attacks. I was hospitalized when I was pregnant because I was feeling extremely homicidal towards a woman my then-husband slept with....never had a thought of hurting myself or my child, but that woman and my ex caused me so much rage and pain - I'm glad I got away from that unhealthy relationship!

...we've come a long way, haven't we?

Yes, in hindsight I guess we have.

I remember not knowing what was wrong, but that something was wrong. My ex's called my psycho, ooo, anyway. I had been dx'd early but was too young to understand or care. So life went on, or what I thought was life. I was actually existing. I feel lucky to have a survival gene.

I finally took it more seriously after talking to other BPD"S. Many with mohawks, green hair, pierced everythings. REminded me of my youth, I grew up in the punk era. Purple hair, piercings, everything black. Now would be considered Goth, I suppose. In a sense we were experimenting, but there was a side of me that wanted more, I lived on the edge, and sometimes even alittle over the edge, esp. if dared. I wanted soooo badly to fit in. To be someone. anyone, anything, just something.

later as relationships came and went, and the abandonment really hit me one night, staring out the window, waiting for anyone to come by,, my heart sunk. The feeling was undescribable to most. I thought my head would explode if I were alone one more minute.


This computer , since I now, due to the lack of self control, have agoraphobia and panic attacks due to an innocence in 96, has been my salvation. It has made me friends, and they have gotten thru to me, with acceptance and understanding and got me to comply with my treatment. God bless them all. Some I have regular conversations with on the phone, pray with, exchange gifts with, and will life long friends. We've helped eachother, and that is what it is all about . At least I think so.

Thank you for sharing, and for trying so hard to heal for yourself, and for being an inspiration here at psychforums, esp. in Bpd.

Yes, you guys really sound like me!!!I mean, I sound like you. I just had a whing-ding fight with my sister, cause we were not getting along at dinner, and it was so bad, that I'm gonna go to a lawyer, and get my mom to change,and rewrite, the family trust, so my sister and her "husband"(i.e.,dominating,hishonest bulldyke partner,) sorry about that remark, just now, I apologize, but she is one,) cannot raid the whole family trust when my mom dies. Why? they cannot manage their money, at all, are in debt, broke, and now, I just cannot trust them to not squander,or go thru it all, thru my sister's side of the trust.

It's mostly because of this: I have realized, my sister is so dishonest about her "domination/submissive" gay relationship, and is so "in the Closet" that she just cannot, and will not try, to be honest about anything. She pretends she is something she is not. She lies about everything. Her "husband" hates our mom,and she largely hates me, and they both disrespect me about everything I do. What made me think I could trust my family? I never could!!!Never!!!!!!NEVER!!!They have not changed any. Both of them diss me for everything, and anything I like, or do, and they hate me just for being the way I am. So, when we had this big fight, when they refused to help take care of my mom(who has severe dementia) for 2 weeks, and we got into a fight about everything else we were talking about, I realized it. I' can't trust my sister. She's totally submissive to this domineering woman, and she always will be. And they will always treat me like this. I mean, they are really f____ __, but they are not even going to be honest enough to admit they are a lesbian "submissive/dominant" gay couple!!! My sister, who is a big wig in the San Francisco Gem and Mineral Society, and weighs about 300 lbs., and will die unless she loses weight, lives with this bad tempered, spoiled, angry woman, and they say, I"m nuts!!!! They both have such bad health problems, from weighing about a total (together )of almost one thousand lbs.,in their middle age, at 55, and such, that they're destroying the health insurance business!!!

So, I am really glad to get to this forum, cause I cannot stand any of my family anymore; I have to be the family caregiver, just to have a roof over my head(cause I';m on disabiltiy, and there is no housing for us,) and it is a stressed out, rough, horrible job. I am now on call almost every single day, every single hour. There are no caregiver chatrooms, or forums, that I could really find; there's not support for caregivers, really. But, please tell me, if I find these borderline treatment books they are recommending, here, can I learn how to cure myself? Cause I cannot pay for a therapist, and they willnot take my insurance. no one will. I always have to cure myself, and take care of myself, cause no one else ever will, unless there have been a lot of Democrats in office, who have fixed up the mental health system. And, there is none, now.

But, I get lonely, and too alone, like a lot of you. And then, I revert to going to my bad relatives. Tell me, do all your other relaatives act like mine? diss you? treat you like s___? Actually disrespect you so bad, or just refused to love you, at all? I mean, I am tough; I am 57 years old, at the end of July, and I should have been dead by now. My feet are partially disabled, I cannot run, or walk a lot. I hobble around. I can't work at my old job. I have been thru so much poverty, hospitals, times of no friends, dead friends, (well, yes, in San Francisco, yeah,) but I'm still standing. AA helped me a lot. So did my religion;(I am Jewish, about 25 percent,) and also studying philosophy. I'm taking yoga, and I really like it, and the philosophy. Is tha what borderlines need to learn? Please, everyone, feel free to advise me; I need to heal myself, so the most best books, that I can use, would be heartily recommended to me. I love to read.

Hey, if at the end of the day, you can realize that there is a God, even if you do not like him a lot, that makes a lot of difference to me. Glad to meet you all. Shalom, dorothyblueeyes

Dorothy
while you sound like you have a lot going on in your life, the borderline issues can prevent you from ever effectively dealing with these outside. What can you do for free? There are the books... and there are ways of finding the DBT Workbooks - they are effective... when I read the stuff I wrote before about DBT I was naive... it is hard but it works... having someone to normalise some of my behaviours has been very useful. It is good that you have the study... it is good as part of the distracting strategies to change your unsupportive habits.

I am now studying, I have achieved some of my goals in DBT, today was really insightful about my eating habits... keeping myself calm and in control is easy when i don't have things happening outside my world... so I keep my world ordered and written down... and now I can create things... meds have helped too.

rgds
cate