Recently diagnosed with Borderline...

Hi guys, my name is Kat.

I am 22 and recently started going to 12-step meetings for my heroin addiction and alcoholism and have been sober since July for the first time in years and years!

This is a little strange, but both of my parents are PhDs in psychology, my mother (who passed in 2014) worked in the clinical field though my father, living, does not. I have been in and out of therapy since around age 12 when I started having serious problems and feel that I have always "been this way". After I sobered up this year, I returned to my main interest; psychology.

Though my father always adamantly denied my having Borderline Personality, and my therapist seemed to skirt the question citing dislike of the diagnostic approach, I began to find it beyond my belief that I did not suffer from this given how much I know myself and what I would call extensive understanding of the psychological concepts involved. My father revealed to me that I have in fact been diagnosed, that the family has sort of known I've had this, and I was not formally told so it would not hinder my progress and because at the time I was battling heroin addiction and suicide attempts.

So my questions:

Since I've known about this, some things seem to have been getting worse. Some things I am just noticing now to be legitimate parts of a larger problem, but others just seem to have gotten much worse. My lashing out horribly and at very inappropriate times has increased. My general mood, which is everchanging at best, of course, seems to be at a lower baseline, like I start off in a worse mood. My body dysmorphia is worse, my inclinations to act out sexually are a literal force of nature, it feels to me, though I haven't - I am feeling "empty" more often, food has become an even bigger source of horror than it was, and I'm splitting with more intensity and frequency than ever before.

Given the BENEFITS of having the insight of this diagnosis, being in a supportive long term relationship that has allowed me to flourish, against the backdrop of a wonderfully loving childhood with no trauma other than my mother's horrible illness, why would some of this stuff be getting so bad? Has anybody else experienced this after diagnosis? I am also having feelings of my behavior being "preprogrammed" for lack of a better word; or like I just possess an extreme predictability because it is literally a disorder of the personality.

What's up with this?

Do you know what, it is exactly the same for me. I was diagnosed 6 weeks or so ago and since that day things do seem a lot worse. According to the psychiatrist that diagnosed me I have had this problem for years, he got this from previous medical notes from a psychiatrist in 2004 and 2012. I now am thinking to myself, well I have apparently lived with this for 12 years or more, but now I actually know, I'm off work for the foreseeable future. I think it may be that I wasn't recognising my traits as much before, and now I have been diagnosed it explains a lot of the problems I have had, particularly in my marriage.

I have also experienced the same. I was formally diagnosed a year ago, but have been like this for years, but in the last year it is as if the floodgates opened. To be fair, I have been in intensive weekly therapy so that is also likely part of the increase in symptoms, however I have noticed that I went through a kind of "mourning" period after having the diagnosis.

Part of that was due to reading alot of the negative media online, and feeling a sense of hopelessness for any change. As a result my symptoms also got worse. But what seems to be helping me feel somewhat better is in coming to a place of acceptance and not putting pressure or expectations on myself to HAVE to change. And in fact to some degree feeling like I don't need to change, the rest of the world does.... they need to accept me warts and all, and if my emotions make them uncomfortable, that is their issue not mine. So a bit of a push back perhaps on my thinking but it has helped to eleviate some of the humiliation I feel about the diagnosis.

Regardless, I understand your experience and was also wondering and questioning why things seemingly have gotten worse for myself too. Perhaps we just perceive it as such because it is in the forefront of our minds.... "comfimation bias" so to speak...