"They just become more borderline" *possibly triggering*

I couple months ago I was talking about BPD with one of my friends. She said she had spent some time in psych wards and that the people who were DXed BPD "just become more borderline" after their dx.

She herself was not BPD and, now that I think back on what she said, it sounded like she was being critical of them and saying that they were just acting that way because they now had the "excuse" of being BPD.

The idea of overemphasizing aspects of my self-perceptiion because I identify with the experiences of BPDs (e.g., constant (self)-invalidation, chronic emptiness, lack of a sense of self) is something that I struggle with daily. I don't know if, now that I know what BPD is, I am just hyperaware of the emotions that I associate with it because I am desperate to put a name to the way I feel or if I have felt the way I feel because it is truly the way I always felt. In other words, I feel that I am often "become more borderline" because I know what BPD is now and not because I actually have a sense of having real emotions to that effect; that is, I I am tortured by the idea that I am "faking it" only so that I can call myself something that I am not.

Even though what I have just said doesn't lead into what I was pondering originally, I am still wondering if anyone else feels like they acted "more borderline" after they were DXed.

I am constantly tortured by this idea that I am faking it, which just reminds me that I don't actually want to me like this, unless I am that in denial, which just leads to a whole other spectrum of mental illness, right? Maybe...

I am not sure my symptoms spiraled when I found out about them, what I know is that I think of them in a very different way now. This is partly due to the fact I have the vocabulary to describe how I am feeling. When I used to dissociate I had no idea that this feeling of being unattached was dissociation. Most of the time I had no idea what was going on with me. I stayed in the situation, such as the school day just thinking I was being pathetic mostly, this spiraled me in the sense my emotions and what was going on with me was ignored and so I would carry on digging a deeper hole, acting out when it all boiled up. Now I can understand better, far from fully, actually I was triggered, or that this relates to this I am spiraled in a much different way. Instead of digging a hole, of which I still do its the nature of it, I have a better ability to stand back to some extent, recognize and acknowledge whats going on, which is a much more healthy response, accept it is more of a active one rather than a passive one so obviously more noticeable. Basically I can identify whats going on quicker. Sorry if this is gobble, I am still awake when I should be sleeping. I think this portrays the idea it has spiraled, emmm, not what I intended...

LOL


I love it..............


We're afraid we're faking it, cause we really have it. And since we really have it, we can take any little thing, and make it EVERYTHING.
So one little thought about something you did/thought that seemed "fake" makes everything about you feel fake.........and since you feel like a fraud, you must be one.

Once you feel fraudulent....only 3 things you can do:

1. attack the thing that makes you feel fraudulent
2. attack the idea you are fraudulent
3. ignore it

I guess 4, might be to accept it............but in this scenario, we're assuming we aren't fraudulent. Though it's good to remember, nothing is really black and white....and of course we do combos of all 3.....but that falls under the whole nothing is all black and white banner...........




......I will say, i do feel like i'm getting worse. It's been nearly 4 years................i am far better at coping (maybe?) but there seems to be more to cope with.



But yeah........it's not hard to see that people without an identity......would want to be the only identity that seems to make sense. Even if it was self-destructive.....cause umm, most of us are self-destructive.

Now if you'll excuse me......i'm gonna go smoke a joint, pour myself a drink and eat some candy before i go to bed.

This is kind of true at least for me and is f*cking depressing to think about.

I am not sure my symptoms spiraled when I found out about them, what I know is that I think of them in a very different way now. This is partly due to the fact I have the vocabulary to describe how I am feeling. When I used to dissociate I had no idea that this feeling of being unattached was dissociation. Most of the time I had no idea what was going on with me.

I agree with this.

Also, I do think that for those of us going through therapy, it can make us a lot worse initially. I've been having therapy for about 8 months now, and I've never been worse (that I can remember). So that might be something to do with it.

Hmm I have the opposite. I had no idea I was borderline, and once my doctor told me I was, after recovering from denial, I started researching. Then I started identifying the symptoms that pertained to me in particular. And then I started taking responsibility for my own #######4 and stopped blaming everyone else for making me feel bad, for being my triggers. I was making myself feel bad, no one else. I was the one with the inappropriate reactions, the impulses, the crippling feeling of being alone. And my triggers? They're MINE. I can't change how anyone else acts so I am on a mission to take control of my own actions and reactions.

I don't know if I could do this without my medication though, my impulses are so extreme, and the meds keep those at bay. My impulses are far more dangerous to me than my triggers. My triggers are all men, and the self-absorbed histrionic in me is determined never to let another person have power over my emotions again. They're mine and I will do with them as I please.

Just my perspective on things, so far it's working for me.

I was going to reply about the feeling fake and sense of identity, but then when i got to the post at the top realised I completely misinterpreted the thread, lol.

mjpam wrote:I couple months ago I was talking about BPD with one of my friends. She said she had spent some time in psych wards and that the people who were DXed BPD "just become more borderline" after their dx.

She herself was not BPD and, now that I think back on what she said, it sounded like she was being critical of them and saying that they were just acting that way because they now had the "excuse" of being BPD.

1. disagree with becoming MORE bpd.. (explain more somewhere below)
2. She was being critical
3. Some, not all, people do use it has an "excuse" for their actions.

The idea of overemphasizing aspects of my self-perceptiion because I identify with the experiences of BPDs (e.g., constant (self)-invalidation, chronic emptiness, lack of a sense of self) is something that I struggle with daily. I don't know if, now that I know what BPD is, I am just hyperaware of the emotions that I associate with it because I am desperate to put a name to the way I feel or if I have felt the way I feel because it is truly the way I always felt. In other words, I feel that I am often "become more borderline" because I know what BPD is now and not because I actually have a sense of having real emotions to that effect; that is, I I am tortured by the idea that I am "faking it" only so that I can call myself something that I am not.

Even though what I have just said doesn't lead into what I was pondering originally, I am still wondering if anyone else feels like they acted "more borderline" after they were DXed.

The one paragraph is hard to follow, at least for me. To answer your question though I don't believe people are becoming more borderline because of their dx. What I do believe is people are more in tune with thoughts, actions, symptoms now that they have a dx. Their just more aware.

Basically, your friend is wrong!

-cbox
King of All PsychForums

I think my writing is hard to follow, because, in part, my own thoughts hardly cohere. I don't think that I suffer the thought disorder characteristic of schizophrenia, but my construction of my own self-concept is not an integrated whole (as I guess that of "those who have their sh!t together" to be).

The most persistent and pervasive dilemma that I face is that I can say that I identify with borderline traits (i.e., reading how people on the forum experience their world makes me think, "That is soooooo me"), but I have a tenuous at best grasp on my own identity. In other words, I can say that I feel the way I understand that other posters feel, but I think that I lack the capacity to coherently translate that into a description of who I am.

That said, I don't have the external confirmation of a dx to tie my own self-perceptions to. In fact, I have had at least one mental health professional explicitly tell that he doesn't think that I have BPD. Thus, I feel that I exist in a deeply lonely and profoundly uncomfortable no-man's-land where I have to build a definition of myself without being sure that I am even able to build such a definition. I am but a "borderline" borderline.

I am at once both looking out from within (as I empathize with the BPD experience) and looking in from without (as I lack the certainty with which to call myself BPD). And it is the latter part of that tension that I feel that my friend refers to. Having received a dx, such "new" borderlines finally have a vocabulary to describe the world in the way that they have experienced it for so long. But language comprises more than vocabulary. To have any hope of beginning to understand one another, people must also devise a provisional syntax and semantics. Therefore, in a sense (because I am completely bereft of the first-hand experience my friend had), the borderlines-with-out-a-name, now become borderlines-with-a-name, act out their vocabularies, while negotiating the syntax and semantics of their new language. Unfortunately, it is this very negotiation of syntax and semantics that emphasizes the very absence of such a commonality and can therefore appear to those looking in from without as a intensification of "borderlineness".

I know that what I have said is woefully terse but I am not able at this point to elaborate with further coherence what I mean. I apologize if this seems but an exercise in speechification, and, if it does sound like self-aggrandizing tripe, feel free to tell me so; but I shall end here for now and hope that I have not contributed further confusion.

d1430 wrote:This is kind of true at least for me and is f*cking depressing to think about.

Same. Great post though because I was just thinking about this....