Just found out that I have this

Hi everyone,
I just found out today that I have Borderline Personality Disorder... I'm only 16 years old, and I know a lot of people say that teenagers cannot have BPD, but I really feel as if the symptoms of this strongly affect my life. Plus, the criteria says you have to be at least a "young adult", and at 16 I'm a lot more mature than my peers.
For some time, I've always felt that there was something missing in my diagnoses. I've been diagnosed with: Depression (doctors are wondering if it could be a less severe form of Bipolar), Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Social Anxiety, and Eating Disorder NOS. But I always knew that something else was wrong, something that doctors weren't telling me... And recently I've been researching BPD, and it all fits! I have 7/9 of the symptoms, and for the first time in my life it makes sense why I view everything in terms of black-and-white, why I have such trouble with interpersonal relationships when I try so hard to make them work, and why I have this feeling of hopelessness and emptiness, no matter what I do. My psychiatrist agrees that I have these traits, but he doesn't want to jump to dx me with this until I'm a little older, to see if some of these issues resolve themselves over the next couple of years. But still, it's pretty clear to me that this is something that's not just going to go away.
Sorry for the lengthy post... Just wanted to introduce myself since I'll probably post on this forum again. I'm so glad that I finally found out what's wrong, and that I'm not alone in this.
Thank you for reading this, and take care!
<3
drama_queen

Drama, as you know I too am bpd. I have to admit I wondered, thus the self harm . .........

bipolar and bpd have many of the same criteria. There are many cyclic mood disorders that have swings.

Eating dx also is a sx of bpd. As many of us hate ourselves and carry inner pain that we try to fill with useless copers. Eating is a soother. Anorexia is a self harmer. Either way they are gonna fit.

our bpd forum here is very supportive. I hope you always feel you can express yourself openly here ......we learn from eachother, and as you learned in dbt that is what it is all about relearning.

((((hugs))))

Thank you, Ddee!!!
I can already tell that I'll be very comfortable in this forum and that there are lots of supportive people here.
*hugs*
Love,
drama_queen

I know this thread is old, but I have never understood why they say you have to be an adult to be dx with a pd. PD's are systemic and developmental, I think the wiring of the brain to make you the PD has to happen in the very early years of development.

I think it's true that the disorder doesn't typically manifest itself to full blown pathology until you get out from underneat the "protective" umbrella of your parents care. That's when all the faulty construction on the foundation of your psyche really shows up.

My ex wife is HPD/BPD, it really blew up when she was 31, but it was going on throughout our marriage and before we met. Looking back to my High School days I know of one or two girls that were DEFINITELY HPD.

I myself have dependant and avoidant disorder, again it didn't really cause the collapse and destruction until I was 33, but looking back on my life, it was always there, I just didn't realize it. Interestingly though there were times in my life(even early childhood) when I noticed certain patterns of behavior, and low and behold I find out they are the symptoms of the disorders I just mentioned.

The prognosis isn't good, but I am a firm beleiver that if you make the right choices you can rewire your brain and be tranformed so to speak. Especially at such a young age. Again from my studies it seems the sooner you realize what you have, the less entrenched it becomes and the easier it is to change. That's why I think it's such a diservice to wait until adulthood to dx.

Because children change. 16 still isnt an adult or at an adults maturity or mental state.

And so when your young your not yet complete...your still growing. So they like to wait until your adult enough then look you over.

That makes sense... I've actually rethinked it since I wrote that post, after I talked to my therapist. I don't want to jump to any conclusions! So thank you for your replies. <3

JamieJ23 wrote:Because children change. 16 still isnt an adult or at an adults maturity or mental state.

And so when your young your not yet complete...your still growing. So they like to wait until your adult enough then look you over.

I thought about it more last night, and I guess the way I would suggest is that maybe they don't give you the official diagnosis label, but at least say you have all these traits and these are things you need to work on.

My whole life people told me I was too hard on myself, but I always discredited their opinion. It wasn't until I took the DSM IV test and saw that I had an 80 on the masochistic disorder scale that I finally realized, OK the way that I think about myself is NOT NORMAL. That information was huge in helping me to fight off the self depracating thoughts. I have hammered myself my whole life, and I don't do it anymore.

Reading about the dependant and avoidant traits really helped as well. But I was 33 at that time and not 16. I can't help but think how much better I could have developed if someone had shown me in black and white clinical terms that I needed to make some changes in the way I think about myself and interact with others. They say it's never too late, but damn, I could have avoided a very toxic and devastating marriage had I started making changes at 16 instead of 33.

Starchecker,
Thanks for your reply! It was very insightful.
That's exactly what I'm working on with my Therapist right now- trying to sort out my BPD traits, so that I can hopefully learn better ways of coping while I'm still young. As of now, I don't consider myself Borderline, but I'm very aware of my Borderline traits. They definetely have many negative impacts in my daily life, so I'm working very hard to control them- especially the deadly black-and-white thinking! That's the worst for me.
I'm sorry that your marriage was so difficult, but I'm glad that you're working hard now to make changes in your life and yourself. Good for you! I wish you the best of luck, and thanks again for your advice!
Take care,
drama_queen

Diagnosing teens with BPD should be encouraged more they already have the disorder but it is masked sometimes by family dependency. All a therapist needs to do is look at the person's intrapsychic structure their responce and behavior towards them and the family history and dynamics to make a solid conclusion.

Was talking to my psychiatrist about this last time I saw him.

His view is that the personality isn't really fully developed and mature until a person reaches their thirties. During teens and early twenties, we're still figuring out how to cope with life, feelings, events, and other people; the vast majority of teens could fit quite neatly into the personality disorder category as a result. Probably 90% of teens feel they are somehow different, or misfits, or that something is wrong with them.

Psychiatrist's feeling was that he would never diagnose BPD in someone under say 25 because of this; he feels that when this happens, people tend to then fit themselves into that set of symptoms and find it much harder to grow and go on.

He doesn't beleive that BPD doesn't exist in younger people; just that because those traits are generally present in so many perfectly normal people, who go on to adulthood with no personality disorder as the personality becomes fully formed, it is dangerous and unfair to label people who are just having a rough time of growing into themselves. Instead of medicating and diagnosing, he prefers to teach coping methods and so on.

That may be why they are reluctant to give you a definite diagnosis DQ; better to learn ways to deal with those traits and move onwards and upwards instead, I guess.

Interestingly I was given a diagnosis of BPD when I was 17. I'm not, at all. I show none of the traits at all now and haven't for some years. (I'm 34 now).