Confused by Psychologist-

I am confused. After much research, I realized I have BPD. I printed off several bits of information about BPD & wrote notes beside all the bits I identified with & put exampled. I took this evidence to my last psychologist's appointment & discussed it with him. He confirmed that my assessment was rather acurate then I mentioned how I thought the phrase "Borderline" was a bit confusing as it was kind of a "borderline of what?!" We discussed this for a while then he went on to say it's more of a Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

That confused me cuz I was like so do I have BPD or Cpx PTSD? Or is he saying BPD is more like a Cpx PTSD than a borderline of something. Have any of you heard of this before?

It's just started to confuse me!

well borderline is an old term that don't really fit the description and what he calls it is not really right either cause it dont cover everyone but I understand what he comes from. I can use myself as an example:

I got beat up by my day care sitter before the age of 2, now I don't remember this, but my mom noticed I was depressed and one day caught the woman in the act. I went from a happy kid to yeah..

at age 4 I was raped by a neighbor and friend of the family, at the same time my father who was an alcoholic had started to abuse my mother and tried to kill us both, my mom wanted to commit suicide, and more than once did I see that woman count her pills, and more than once she was trying to kill me first cause she didn't want to leave me with my father. I don't remember all the details anywhere, I have bits and pieces, pictures flying through my head. BUT my body remembers the fear, you know that creeping anxiety? that comes from soemthing that usually happened in your childhood, I was petrified, and to this day I can not for example finish a guy orally, if I do, I panic and starts vomitting, hyperventilate and pass out, usually I wake up in the ER (done it twice) the fear is so overwhelming that I go ballistic.

Seeing scissors sometimes or using them can do the same thing, that one has become way better, but if I have an anx moment I stay away from them. The clearest picture I have in my head was the one where my mom stabbed for me with the scissors I ducked and she missed my face with half an inch and destroyed her purse. She woke up from her insanity that time and called the ambulance on herself but the fear its still there. So it is post traumatic stress in a sence, however due to the feeling of abandonment its more complex than that and can be triggered by so much more. When a parent abandons you you almost take to any method to take care of yourself and to have trust broken by a parent or a closed one make you so paranoid in the end that you all of a sudden have abunch of issues. All these back int he days was clumped together as borderline, now they start to define it more.

I can even relate this to animals, I study behaviorism, and honestly I don't understand why no Dr's or shrinks has seen this pattern before, in dogs there is something called fear imprint stages http://www.diamondsintheruff.com/Develo ... tages.html , IF soemthing happens that is very scary like physical abuse from a human, or an attack from another dog, hit by a car, thunderstorm that is really bad during certain periods of their ages, the dog will get emotional issues almost PERMANENT in imprinted in their behavior. You can sometimes fix it to a certain degree but the animal never becomes as stable as it was supposed to be. Through counter conditioning you can teach the dog to manage the situation as well as manage the situation around the dog pretty much how we have to relearn to avoid certain negative thinking patterns. But basically what happens is that the deepest form of survival is triggered in them (which make them fear aggressive) which is a description that would fit the borderline as well, through the dogs I have got to known myself and improved myself with the same techniques I use on them. We are fear aggressive, fear of abandonment makes us aggressive towards the people we actually love cause something happened when we were too young to fully grasp and overwhelmed our minds with fight and flight that it basically turned into a new deep instinct.

Same thing with people who get chocked in the war, a broken exhaust pipe that goes makes them loud gun like noises can make them duck cause it has turned into a reflex.

I have to say that your dr's description of it is rather close on what it can be for so many, for me its a spot on descritpion but borderline also covers bigger areas than that.

mosaicmonkey wrote:I am confused. After much research, I realized I have BPD. I printed off several bits of information about BPD & wrote notes beside all the bits I identified with & put exampled. I took this evidence to my last psychologist's appointment & discussed it with him. He confirmed that my assessment was rather acurate then I mentioned how I thought the phrase "Borderline" was a bit confusing as it was kind of a "borderline of what?!" We discussed this for a while then he went on to say it's more of a Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

That confused me cuz I was like so do I have BPD or Cpx PTSD? Or is he saying BPD is more like a Cpx PTSD than a borderline of something. Have any of you heard of this before?

It's just started to confuse me!

It's not having a handle on emotional impulses. And because you can walk and talk and drive a car and have a job everyone thinks you're just fine. Friends should be commended for attempts to dissuade you from such an ugly diagnosis such as borderline personality disorder. But, truth be told, it's not really talked about in social circles, and when it is, it carries an ugly stigma, so it's now wonder people do not want to admit you have it.

"Borderline of what?" is the classic line of Kaysen's book. And what it means is we live in between the sane and insanity. I'm not schizophrenic, but I've always sympathized with what that perspective brings, because I understand the dread. The dread is the leap we make in emotional dis-regulation. One minute happy as peach pie, the next second suicidal. That's not normal. People aren't supposed to live that way.

I read that BPD is likely to be re-named in the next DSM, possibly emotional regulation disorder. It IS confusing and the diagnosis somewhat biased along gender lines (supposedly more women are BPD and men are PTSD, although the symptoms are so similar).

My uncle, who is a respected forensic psychologist, said to me once, without knowing my diagnosis, "You don't want a borderline in your bedroom." Just an example of how blind (ignorant) and tactless some doctors can be, even when they believe they are acting professionally.

If I were you I would ask more questions and maybe get a second opinion.

f mae wrote:The dread is the leap we make in emotional dis-regulation. One minute happy as peach pie, the next second suicidal. That's not normal. People aren't supposed to live that way.

I second that. I'm glad I was diagnosed, because it explains my entire childhood. The causes for it are unknown- my therapists theorize that it's either my parents being suffocating (I hate that one for that; she had me believing it until I realized it was BS and she was grasping at straws.) or, more recently and believably, perhaps some trauma before the age of 4 or so that I can't remember. I don't remember most of my childhood at all, but I know I've had a picture-perfect family, even with its odd little quirks.

Because of that, I don't understand WHY I'm like this. I feel almost like a fake- every other person on this forum that I know of has a good, concrete reason; what happened to me that made me this way? That is something I will look into (qualified, with my fiance there) hypnosis to find out. Because it feels like I'm taking something away from everyone else here.

There, I said it.

I read that Borderline stands for on the border between psychosis and neurosis.
It is considered a reaction to trauma. Plus with many people the have both bipolar disorder and borderline.

bpladybug wrote:I read that Borderline stands for on the border between psychosis and neurosis.
It is considered a reaction to trauma. Plus with many people the have both bipolar disorder and borderline.

yeah he did mention that actually.

I've always said I don't want a diagnosis, I just want a cure, but I think having found out about BPD, a diagnosis is actually helpful for me to understand why I am so erratic as I am.

ThinkingTooMuch wrote:well borderline is an old term that don't really fit the description and what he calls it is not really right either cause it dont cover everyone but I understand what he comes from. I can use myself as an example:

I got beat up by my day care sitter before the age of 2, now I don't remember this, but my mom noticed I was depressed and one day caught the woman in the act. I went from a happy kid to yeah..

at age 4 I was raped by a neighbor and friend of the family, at the same time my father who was an alcoholic had started to abuse my mother and tried to kill us both, my mom wanted to commit suicide, and more than once did I see that woman count her pills, and more than once she was trying to kill me first cause she didn't want to leave me with my father. I don't remember all the details anywhere, I have bits and pieces, pictures flying through my head. BUT my body remembers the fear, you know that creeping anxiety? that comes from soemthing that usually happened in your childhood, I was petrified, and to this day I can not for example finish a guy orally, if I do, I panic and starts vomitting, hyperventilate and pass out, usually I wake up in the ER (done it twice) the fear is so overwhelming that I go ballistic.

Seeing scissors sometimes or using them can do the same thing, that one has become way better, but if I have an anx moment I stay away from them. The clearest picture I have in my head was the one where my mom stabbed for me with the scissors I ducked and she missed my face with half an inch and destroyed her purse. She woke up from her insanity that time and called the ambulance on herself but the fear its still there. So it is post traumatic stress in a sence, however due to the feeling of abandonment its more complex than that and can be triggered by so much more. When a parent abandons you you almost take to any method to take care of yourself and to have trust broken by a parent or a closed one make you so paranoid in the end that you all of a sudden have abunch of issues. All these back int he days was clumped together as borderline, now they start to define it more.

I can even relate this to animals, I study behaviorism, and honestly I don't understand why no Dr's or shrinks has seen this pattern before, in dogs there is something called fear imprint stages http://www.diamondsintheruff.com/Develo ... tages.html , IF soemthing happens that is very scary like physical abuse from a human, or an attack from another dog, hit by a car, thunderstorm that is really bad during certain periods of their ages, the dog will get emotional issues almost PERMANENT in imprinted in their behavior. You can sometimes fix it to a certain degree but the animal never becomes as stable as it was supposed to be. Through counter conditioning you can teach the dog to manage the situation as well as manage the situation around the dog pretty much how we have to relearn to avoid certain negative thinking patterns. But basically what happens is that the deepest form of survival is triggered in them (which make them fear aggressive) which is a description that would fit the borderline as well, through the dogs I have got to known myself and improved myself with the same techniques I use on them. We are fear aggressive, fear of abandonment makes us aggressive towards the people we actually love cause something happened when we were too young to fully grasp and overwhelmed our minds with fight and flight that it basically turned into a new deep instinct.

Same thing with people who get chocked in the war, a broken exhaust pipe that goes makes them loud gun like noises can make them duck cause it has turned into a reflex.

I have to say that your dr's description of it is rather close on what it can be for so many, for me its a spot on descritpion but borderline also covers bigger areas than that.

Sorry, I couldn't read that, it was too triggering.

That's ok, don't feel bad nothing to be embarrased about. One good way to handle the borderline is to step away from things that will trigger too hard its called emotional management. Which you actually use in dog training too kinda funny when I think about it.
baby steps and only do what you are ready for, best set up for success.
*hugs*