Last post Sat, Sep 20 2008 12:15 PM by george9t7. 13 replies.
Hi,
Just wanted to get this condition on the discussion boards.
For those who don't know about this condition, it's one of the more devastating and difficult to treat disorders in the mental disorder spectrum. It's not an organic condition but generally appears in teens and adults who were both abused and neglected. Most people with Borderline are female. I don't have the DSM handy but some of the hallmarks of Borderline are drastic mood changes, self injury, repeated suicidal threats or gestures, repeated suicide attempts, risky behaviors such as promiscuous sex, excessive spending, drinking, drug use, gambling, etc., fear of abandonment and difficulty maintaining relationships. This is a bit paradoxical, as most sufferers of BDP, upon first glance, are "apparently competent" and have a capable demeanor, which explains why this condition is so widely underdiagnosed.
For many years, BDP was considered extremely difficult to treat, thus it had a stigma among mental health care providers that made things more difficult for those suffering with it. This was due to the early theory that this illness was on the "borderline" between neurosis and psychosis and the belief that patients with BDP were potentially dangerous to their therapists as well as to themselves. Thankfully these attitudes and ideas have changed over the past ten years or so. It's sometimes said that people who suffer from BDP "grow out of it" as they hit their 30s - and to some extent, this may be true. One theory about BDP is that is may be a particular set of maladaptions related to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
My own history does include abuse and neglect during childhood. My first suicide attempt was at age 8, I began physically abusing others at age 11, was hospitalized at 15 after an overdose and it just continued to spiral out of control from there. The first time I ever heard the term Borderline Personality Disorder was in my mid twenties, after I had been suffering for more than 15 years! Maintaining employment has been impossible for me and I have found it difficult to maintain friendships (not due to emotional dysregulation but just finding it hard to let people know me well). I have learned to regulate my moods better through personal study of cognitive therapy books and through my Orthodox Christian faith. When under extreme stress, I still exhibit PTSD/BPD type symptoms which typically appear as angry outbursts or suicidal ideation. Avoiding stress is helpful but in order to truly overcome this disorder, it will be necessary to improve my coping abilities so that I don't have to avoid things that are ultimately necessary and beneficial (such as work!!!!). I have worked part time on and off over the years but ultimately my family has paid the price for my illness (literally) and that is a heavy thing for me to live with.
I'm not really interested in sympathy from anyone but rather in helping to make it known that this condition does exist and to encourage others suffering from it to accept responsibility for their recovery inasmuch as they are able.
Hi, and welcome to the board. You're right about BPD and how it's been mis/underdiagnosed. I've worked with hundreds of mostly women who have partners with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) and it overlaps BPD in many ways. (It's very similar and on the same spectrum, I believe, but diagnostically it's extremely difficult to diagnose, and is usually diagnosed as a result of the mental health professional talking to the person's partner.) Unlike NPD, BPD is treatable if the patient wants to make the changes. In the over ten years I've been working with people, I've yet to see someone with NPD or someone who charts high on the narcissistic scale ever get into a serious recovery. Not saying it doesn't happen, but in my experience, I've never seen it happen.
A good friend of mine has BPD and she also struggles with PTSD as a result of years of systematic childhood abuse, and a physically abusive ex-husband. She's got the added "bonus" of having problems with some medications that don't work for her. On the plus side, her degree is in mental health and she works in that field, so she's got an excellent professional support network.
There is help and hope out there. The good thing is you recognize you have symptoms and are making strides in your recovery.
Thanks for your comments.
It seems a few of the personality disorders are often comorbid.
I remember reading somewhere that patients with Borderline often have a narcissistic parent. This really does fit as a causative factor in BPD, which is said to be caused by lack of validation (it's a shame this word has been cheapened, as it refers to something so important to proper childhood development). Because people with pronounced narcissistic personality traits have difficulty seeing others are distinct people, it would be quite difficult, I think, for them to recognize feelings and needs in young children, let alone to validate them (not impossible but difficult).
It would be interesting to hear from more folks on the boards with personality disorders.
I was first told I had bpd when I was in my early 30's and I didn't know what it was, I just denied having it. Then about 5 years into it I decided I had better learn about bpd and so the journey began. For the most part yes I agree I believe a person does grow out of the bpd state. I believe this is done threw alot of inter personal work and a wanting to be well. The stigma attached to such a disorder is horrible I did not discuss the disorder with anyone. My current psy. doc. doesn't know about the bpd as I have not allowed my medical records to be forwarded to him. To this day I believe that was the right decision for me at least. I have my doctor's full attention on my clinical depression which I feel I need the most help with.
If I am lucky I will be envolved is a clinical trail using an implanted device to stimulate the vagal nerve within the next month.
Here's keeping my finger's crossed XXXX
Hey Myrrh,
BDP has been a huge part of my life since I grew up with a narssistic (sp?) AND BPD parent. It is a very tricky and difficult diagnosis, and from what I understand, the exploration is only beginning.
It's always nice to know that there are others out there who can relate when I talk about growing up in a home with BPD.
Hi
I am glad you brought up BPD on the board. For what it's worth, I wanted to pass on a few things I learned getting my degree in Psy and knowing a Narcissistic parent and a sister with BPD.
I believe that all persons with BPD have an external locus of control. The state of their emotional self is dictated by their environment. My ownn personal metaphor is the reptile's ability to maintain its body heat is dependent on the temperature outside. A mammal can maintain its body heat in a variety of temperature depending on the species. A person with BPD cannot maintain a constant emotional state on their own. To make matters more difficult, the events, conditions, etc. that trigger a change in the emotional state are different for each and every person depending on their abuse history and their family of orgin. The "locus of control" or the 'ability to maintain body temp/emotional state' can be internalized. It is not hopeless.
I had my sister start writing a 'rule book' in which she would write down rules about everything that happened to her in a single day and the way it was "supposed to" work. In the evening, I would go over and help her change the 'rules' she had written to 'rules that could be universalized'. For example, one of the first 'rules' she wrote was " the guy in the brown car should not have cut me off on the freeway" - after asking her several questions we got to the 'rule' that "persons should not drive recklessly and cut people off because it is illegal, rude and dangerous to themselves and the other motorists" Finally, we came to the rule that "persons do not have the right to act in such a careless manner that they or other persons might be injured or killed. (both the 2nd and the last are universalized to different degrees)
To make a short story long (:-), I taught her how to take emotional situations and analyze the foundation beliefs and the motivations and responsibilities of each person involved and to WRITE THEM DOWN. This 'training/teaching' brought her to the point that she was able to regulated/control her emotions more because they had an INTERNAL Foundation rather and EXTERNAL Locus of control-(the environment and others)
Hope this helps some
Good Luck
Kris
Think of stages of dissociation that we all know, not just the autopilot - how did we get somewhere when we've lost our memory of how we got there - but where there is something that frightens us. For example, a memory of school playground bullying where we seem to be slowed down somehow and yet your hearing and sight are very sharp and you have a sense of everything being in slow motion for protection. That's a sort of stage along the way. Then supposing it's you being kicked. There is then the sense of you being outside looking at that little you being kicked because it's not bearable to be there. This is the experience where people have all sorts of out-of-body memories looking down on themselves. If it's an attachment figure, and it goes on and on, then there is a point where it can't be me because my name's Mary and I'm eight, so that little girl there, she's not eight, she's five and she hasn't got parents. The next time abuse reaches a certain pitch, then that new one takes over and is fleshed out with fragments of the original personality to empower her. She then uses the creativity of the host to develop herself.
The research from America, where, as with everything to do with abuse and trauma, they seem to be about ten years ahead, was that this was linked to trauma. More specifically, trauma linked to attachment figures, in that the child under five cannot conceive of a parent or key caretaker who is sadistic, mad or in a temporary state of not managing. The child has to think the parent is good because their survival depends on it, so they have to find another way of coping. The normal kind of fight-flight mechanisms, that for a teenager can lead to running away, or fighting . . . if you're little you can't run away outside. No one would be able to look after you, you couldn't look after yourself and therefore flight inside is the only mode of survival. So it seems to be a very creative kind of use of the imagination for the purpose of survival.
Whilst you can have dissociative identity disorder from extreme emotional abuse on its own, and we really underestimate emotional abuse, the commonest group seen in America are where there's physical and sexual abuse too. We've been calling it an attachment disorder. There is controversy over this, but those of us who think that's useful language do so because concentration camp survivors, who've gone through extreme torture, do not develop DID. Vietnam vets have not developed DID. Yes, they can have amnesic states, fugues, dissociation, flashbacks, but DID seems to be where you cannot bear the nature of who the person is that's hurting you. So it's primarily for evolutionary purposes, the child's need for an adult for their survival.
Tragically, in the sample we've seen, but also in a lot of the American samples, ritual abuse of whatever kind, abuse in which there are regularities and repetitions of place, time, meaning, sometimes with a religious belief system, whether satanist or other, but where there are those repetitions around dates, and it involves family members too, is par excellence a breeding ground for DID. One of the problems there's been is that initially there was awareness of incest, families abusing their own children, then there was awareness of stranger danger, paedophilia. What has not caught on adequately and where the most serious, chronic abuse goes on, is where the two combine and you have got paedophilia in the family with outside people brought in and it is not just one parent, it is multiple perpetrators that are interconnected. Our theoretical difficulty in putting incest and paedophilia together is part of the reason why we find this hard to see. ~~~
Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), formerly known as multiple personality disorder, is a disorder in which a person has more than one discrete, separate identity. Each identity is unique, and has its own sets of memories, ideas, thoughts, ways of thinking, and purposes. One identity may be the protector, while another may be a child. On average, a person with DID has between 8 and 13 separate personalities. DID generally results from a severe traumatic experience during the early childhood years
We are happy to answer questions, and happy to write more about how we live tgether day to day. If it would help others, or if anyone would like to know.
Megan & All
Hi Megan,
Thanks for sharing about DID and welcome to Disaboom. It's a hard concept to view DID as a gift but I know that in some ways I consider my own condition (brittle bones) a gift as well and most people totally don't get that either! It's not ALL a gift and maybe that's how you view DID as well. Most of my contact with people who have DID has been as a therapist in an inpatient psych unit for children-it's fairly rare but can be so hard for teens/kids with DID and their families.
Did you always have a positive view of your diagnosis or how did you change your perspective?
Hi, Mgean and all:
I'm here at Disaboom because I had Polio when i was two in Okinawa. I'm here on a BPD forum as you are. I had a wife that was a boardline personality. Was married in 1990, separated in 1992 and divorced by 1994. I remember the marriage counselor telling us that she was boardline and also co-Dependant. She kinda liked the idea of being co-Dependant, but didn't know what borderline was at the time and neither did she, I'm sure.
I found out about BPD from "walking on egg shells" given to me by a client and friend who was having problems with his mate who had BPD. I tested positive for living with a BPD and when my son came out for the summer, i gave him the test too. We both got a perfect score and she would therefore be a BPD person. Now, I'm going to make an interesting connection.
You said you have a Disassociate Disorder or Multiple Personality Disorder. I found out in 1997 that i have Disassociate Disorder from another client this one was a Psychiatrist MD who specialized in trauma. She would come to see me every other month or so and one day we went to lunch together. That's when i found out i had DID. I found out from her, yes i did. lol She didn't have a doubt at all as to me with DID, but she had some problems dealing with the AMA and/or the "false memory" people. She had lost her MD and when i ask her she explained it to me and told me also that everyone in her line of work has had similar problems. For some reason i found myself very interested in the topics that she brought up over lunch. We had many more lunches as all were pleasant and very informational and exciting for me.
So, where I'm at now is ...... Is there a connection between the borderline personality and the Disassociate Disorder? I'm wondering and would like to chat with you about that.
I'm George.
myrrh:I'm not really interested in sympathy from anyone but rather in helping to make it known that this condition does exist and to encourage others suffering from it to accept responsibility for their recovery inasmuch as they are able.
Thank you so much for this post. It was quite interesting and educational. Did you go to a therapist who worked with you on cognitive therapy?
"I believe everything out of the common. The only thing to distrust is the normal."John Buchan
KaraSwims: Did you always have a positive view of your diagnosis or how did you change your perspective?
When i was first diagnosed DID, i freaked out, didnt want to hear it or acsept it. Ok so i did some thing i didnt remember doing, like putting the dirty washing up in the cooker (as someone insided didnt want to do them) Drew pictures, that i had no memorie of doing, emailed people i did not remember wrighting, many things. But why? i didnt want to know, that scared me, and when they exsplained why, i got scared, didnt want to know. WHY? becuse DID also means there is a lot more that has happened to you in your past than you can remember, as each insider holds the secrets, they hold the pieces of the pie that is our life. our past, they hold the hurts and pains of what happened to us, the memories. Does anyone want to acsept bad things have happened to them, more than they already remember? does anyone want to acsept you do things with out realising it, nope!
Once i came to terms with it, i started to learn, not only did they hold these hurtfull memories, that some have now talked about and have now shared with me, although many have still to, if they decided it is the right time to. They also bring joy and happy ness to us. We together make who we are.
At the moment i am watching my 8 year old insider learn her times tables, i feel happy and proud of her. My 4 year old has learnt its safe to hold a friends hand, and she is learning her colours and watching her fave cartoons, they can do all the things we never could do. We have many toys and teddys, we go out we take a bag of toys with us on the back of our wheelchair.
Its tiring being DID, i mean think if it this way. if you spent every day doing the things you enjoy and have to do everyday chores and work to, how tired do you get, now think if there more than one of you doing things you enjoy, yet only one body! its exsauhsting, but the joy over balences that. The happyness and joy they feel when they learn something new, it feels great.
I see DID as a gift as with out it i trully beleive we would be dead, that we would not have survived our childhood.
It took me some time to get past the freaking out, to learn to acsept the others inside, to learn to let them have there time 'up' to do the things they want to.
I also learnt very quickly, that the best way to cope with DID is to enjoy the happyness and achivements we all make. share glow and grow together.
We work as a team, i have insiders that do things i cant or i am afraid to do, so i let them do it. same as i do things they cant, together we tackle many obstercules. that alone i couldnt face or do.
When a friend gave us a toy, the first time we where able to acsept a presant, a toy for us, a doll with a horse and some play doh. we played with them so much, and then would hide them, so no one would take them away from us. when we crossed that hardle of fear together and learnt to acsept it was ok to have our toys, ok to acsept presants, that presants did not mean something bad was going to happen, that no one was going to take our toys away from us again, that was a huge goal and achivement we did together.
With anything, DID has its ups and downs.
But it is a gift, because, again i will say it, and proudly say it. We would not be here if it was not for 'us'
george9t7: So, where I'm at now is ...... Is there a connection between the borderline personality and the Disassociate Disorder? I'm wondering and would like to chat with you about that. I'm George.
Hi george,
I think there is a big diffrnce between BPD and DID, but with in saying that i do not know much about BPD.
I think the fact there is totally seprate personalitys, each with there own ages likes dislikes sex etc, they all are diffent yet share one body, the fact disosiastion is involved a lot, notjust in the past, hence the lack of memorie about what happened to us and having to re live it throw there memories, but alsow in the presant when others are up, i am not, so i am not aware of what they are doing all the time, i learn from seeing after, seeing there work, pictures drawings hearing from others. I feel them inside, i feel there feelings hear there thoughts as they do mine. You talk to some of us and we will tell you about our bedrooms inside where we hide some times or just go to sleep or play inside.
I think the discosiation is the biggist diffrence.
DID is a lot more comman than people realise, its just most people never learn to live with DID or never know, how would you know if your disosiating because someoen else is active?
I believe the biggest difference would be the fact that MPD is a condition that you have at any age, and at any point in life. Yet DID is something that becomes a part of you as a child and therefore you live as many for many years. You can not become DID as an adult, it is related to the past of a child and therefore, you can only be diagnosed as DID as adult or child, but Diagnosed as always being DID.. Where as MPD you may not have for most your life, and then you developed MPD.
Sarah
langkris:(both the 2nd and the last are universalized to different degrees)
I enjoyed reading your take on BPD and therapy. I guess they have to learn to feel and it's okay to feel.
george
Thanks, your answer is helpful to me. Can i ask, what about being controlling if you are DID. I've known a few of us... no, they are not all inside me... lol
The ones i've known were like the polar opposite of controlling and i'm now wondering about Boarderline being a control freak and the DID gets freaked at even trying to control people... am i off on that one?? lol
