Borderline PD symptoms description

Haha, BPD seems to be (scarily) such a complex condition with so many facets that it seems impossible to try to describe it all in just one sentence, or even in a brief paragraph. Consequently, I've attempted numerous times to challenge this notion by trying to summarize it all into one sentence or even a simple explanation. But to no avail - I can't ever seem to do it justice, haha.

Lol, my latest attempt is this: "A state of being where, basically, life eats you up alive".

Which, even the sound of that can be quite scary...

But I guess that could also kinda go with such things like severe depression and anxiety...

But hell, depression and anxiety are a couple of possibilities out of a handful of facets of BPD.

An attempt at a simple explanation I've came up with before was - (for a non-borderline individual) "Imagine your most stressful day ever, with a sense of turbulent, inner and outer emotional chaos - NOW, imagine living in that state for most, if not all the days of your life".

This condition is one HELL of an emotional and mental labyrinth. Not to sound cheesy, but it really does take its toll on its victims.

Also, a couple more statements about BPD I could agree with (sry if already mentioned in this thread :P)...

"Trying to define BPD is like staring into a lava lamp: what you see is constantly changing. The illness not only causes instability but symbolizes it." - from Stop Walking On Eggshells

Also, "A mental illness where a person cannot control their own emotions.

This means that you feel like **** for literally no reason..." - from Urban Dictionary

I disagree on several levels.
I don't consider BPD an illness.
I consider it these 3 words to be just a way to describe how we interact with others and with ourselves. It is our fears and perceptions that create the intensity.

There is always a reason why we feel how we do, why our mood shifts quickly and dramatically. Therapy helps you find out what those reasons are.

ok... this is me... but i don't want it to be. this sucks

Yeah, I think I've got your impression of the term "illness". Typically speaking - yes, it's pretty stigmatized. So I've lately started to pull away from using terms such as "illness" or "disorder", and have began to use the term "condition" more.

However though, considering the latter - I guess the person who provided the "definition" is saying that you could be in some beautiful, peaceful environment on a sunny day, but your mood/perceptions are in an unusually painful state. In a general sense - the circumstances you're in seem to be incongruent to your mood, so it doesn't make much sense or, there seems to be no concrete reason for why you feel the way you do, that you just can't "lay a finger on". Nonetheless, I personally didn't take that Urban Dictionary statement in a literal sense.

I think there's a risk in seeing any problem behavior as an illness, namely, that overly controlling MH professionals will use the illness model to explain almost any actions you take, even positive ones, as an expression of that illness. When I finally broke free of one such therapist who treated me as someone who couldn't be trusted with even the smallest responsibility, I felt as if she were going to hunt me down and throw me in solitary.

Well, my feeling about calling BPD and 'illness' is that I don't think of it as something I 'have' but rather the way that I am, or tend to be. When painted with too broad a brush, I feel like the (sometimes) very small and always very important issues that drive my perceptions and responses can get overlooked and therefore not addressed.

I 'have' BPD isn't helpful to my learning about my many fears, such as fear of exposure, fear of failure, fear of being thought of as stupid, fear of intimacy which also drive my wanting to control, wanting to avoid (another form of control), etc.

In my therapy we only very briefly mentioned BPD and only because I brought it up, after reading a book and feeling that BPD fit me or I fit it. lol. Anyway, my therapist agreed and had thought that for some time. She suggested not getting too hung up on the diagnosis and we've never mentioned it again. It just isn't important and doesn't define me, even though it does describe me.

I agree. It's the behaviors that matter. The course of treatment needs to be individualized. Slapping a label on a set of behaviors and applying some generic treatment plan probably won't work. Also, calling it a "disease" suggests there's no hope for change, that we'll always be this way no matter what we do.

Thank you for posting this and to everyone that posted after.
Good to know i'm not alone.

Fits me very well. Except I dont cut myself , so does that dq me !

No, not everyone with BPD SI's

Sounds like me...

100% me. 100% bpd

thats me 2

thats me too

In the end after all of my neuropsych testing, I told myself I didn’t care what they said, I was not going to let the diagnosis define who I was. I was well aware of BPD and the symptoms. The problem in saying I wasn’t going to let it define me was that I didn’t take time to find out exactly how BPD related to me. Now I have spent the last 4 months giving in to nearly every impulse that comes to mind. This is not a very comfortable place to be. Somehow I know I am in control, but yet I have been crazy impulsive. I don’t like it. Thanks Echoes for posting this because this was just given as a diagnosis but wasn’t explained in how this relates to me.

Welcome Fit1 and thank you for your post.

I'm very glad that you don't let the label of the diagnosis define you! My therapist didn't offer me a diagnosis (because of a recent somewhat traumatic misdiagnosis by the therapist I saw prior), but she confirmed it for me when I presented it to her. I'd been doing a lot of reading and thought the diagnosis fit me. She was quick to say to me, "I don't want you to get hung up on the diagnosis, though." and so I haven't. We don't refer to it in my therapy, and I don't label any of my behaviors or issues with the BPD label, because it takes away from the real issue(s) that need to be looked at.

The good news about the diagnosis, for me, is that it explained a lot about my life and it gave me a place to start. "You are here: X". Therapy makes my life so much better!

Great thread. I have just been diagnosed by my T after one month of seeing her. I started seeing her at the beginning of my break up over 2 months ago. I think I am getting swallowed up by the diagnosis and terrified of it from what I read on forums and websites.

I have always had issues with letting go of relationships and this last relationship I was so terrified she would leave that I sabotaged it within 2 months. A record for me usually I live with the secret pain of abandonment for 6 months and then start self sabotaging. I feel very lost, I keep doing stupid things to get my ex back, which BTW she has blocked me from every part of her life but I still keep trying to "Fix" things.

My therapist says my BPD is not that bad. But this weekend the depression and stressing over my ex has left me feeling really mentally dull, with a massive headache that feels like I have given myself brain damage,has anyone else every felt this?

I am terrified that I will never find anyone who understands me or accepts me in a relationship. I mean who wants to be stuck with it, my last ex was a very supportive girl and I just shat all over her and treated her so bad. I'm also 6 months off Xanax after an addiction due to contracting Graves Disease. So I am not sure if that is making my BPD worse. I read in "Sometimes I act Crazy" that borderlines should never take Xanax.

Gosh sorry rambling on. Just thanks for the post!

Disordo personae emotionalis instabilis, is it borderline personality disorder, in English?
This is my diagnosis, by the way.

My therapist tells me everybody has something. She has a hurt back and hip. Her friend has something and this other friend has something. Really after she said that i thought about the people in my life they all have something about them that hurts or is wrong. I have a mental disorder and cant control my emotions and thats what I have. I have to get it through my hard head there is more to me than this damn disorder and learn to live again. Its just so hard to do.