Extremely upset after receiving new diagnosis

I'm very sorry to hear that, Hope. I hear you. I truly do. That's why I'm glad you have a good therapist this time. He will help you if you allow him to. Just tell him everything and accept his help. You deserve it.

Hang in there. You do have a brother and a sister and that’s something. Life can be tiring and overwhelming. But lots of good things could happen.

Thanks for the kind words.

I do have an excellent therapist this time.

So if I work hard on the symptoms that cause the problems, I have a chance of overcoming this disorder?

My biggest problem is that everytime I try to embrace the BPD, I begin to feel like I’d rather be dead than have to deal with this disorder.

It's easy to get hung up on the label, but if you get stuck there, you don't move forward.

Look at the behaviors/symptoms you display (you don't even have to look at the list; you know what they are) that cause you the biggest issues, the most repeated issues, in your life. Work on discovering effective approaches for countering those issues. What do you need to understand, what do you need to do differently, so that those behaviors/symptoms start decreasing? What are the positive opposites of those behaviors that you'd like to see in yourself? What can you take control of so that you start increasing those positive qualities in your life?

It won't happen quickly. It won't be easy. I won't happen in a straight line. It will be more like three steps forward, two steps back. But change can happen. No one can do it for you though. It's work.

Is your therapist (who I understand to be a psychiatrist - not sure) really good at working in therapy mode? Does he have specific training to work with bpd? It might mean you need to find a different therapist (and still keep your doctor for meds if needed) who specializes in these kinds of issues. You might need to look into a good DBT program perhaps has a supplement to your work with your doctor. I don't know. These are the discussions you need to have with him. He'll be able to point you in the right direction.

My T is extremely experienced in treating personality disorders.

I understand the extremes of psychic pain, and my heart goes out to you, Hope. Sometimes the pain is too enormous for a narrative that explains or alleviates it, and that is a scary place be, a place from where it is easy to lash out at the office staff or the doctor . Physical pain is almost easier. I broke my back and leg once. Everyone cared, everyone treated it as a massive emergency, and everyone worried about pain. And yet, emotional pain from childhood is so much worse, but it isnt visible and doesn't elict care the way obvious injuries do. I dont have BPD, but I do struggle with emotional pain that has no easy answer from csa, and that makes me feel a bond with your pain. I hope your PDOC and others who treat you also have a deep awareness of how much suffering you do- who cares what they name it. To me, BPD is a constellation of responses to pain that make it worse by making it harder for others to care and keep caring. You can learn new behaviors so people can keep you better company with your pain.

Hope, there's a guy you can find on YouTube that you might like (or might not!) named Dr. Colin Ross, who runs some inpatient programs for people who've suffered severe trauma. What he has found is that no matter what diagnosis a person is given, if you help them address and work through trauma, their symptoms will improve. It doesn't matter if it's DID, psychosis, schizophrenia (which often has links to childhood trauma as well as to biology), BPD, or anything else -- if you treat the trauma, the person's life improves. I think this is a good way to look at things. T's can put whatever labels they want on things as long as they are willing to work on trauma with you, because that will help.

I also wanted to say that in some ways BPD looks to me (as a complete layperson -- my opinion is what you paid for it) like an attachment disorder, and it reminds me of things I've read about disorganized attachment. A person with disorganized attachment basically doesn't know how to insure an attachment with another person because when they were a little kid, they tried everything and nothing worked. So sometimes maybe they faun over / idolize someone, sometimes they flee them, sometimes they fight with them, sometimes they freeze (shut down) -- but those are actually trauma reactions and none of them really work for attachment, but that is not the person's fault. If they had been allowed secure attachment as a child then they would know how to do that, but they weren't. Lack of attachment as a young child is a kind of trauma and it makes sense to still be having trauma sorts of reactions when attachment is threatened. I think there are many ways to look at these things and we should try not to get locked into any one label or model for things.

You are a person with your own unique history Hope, and your T can't define your story just by putting some label on a few selected traits. The label may be useful to him in doing his professional work (like writing prescriptions) but it might be irrelevant to you. Figuring out what you do want to work on, like some of those borderline traits you do see, or attachment issues, or trauma -- that is what you get to define. Stick with him a little while longer and find out if he'll do this with you -- if he will come on your path with you.

Right now I want to quit my T because of the phone call we just had.

And now I can’t remember any of the reasons that I like him.

What went wrong in the phone call, Hope?

It sounds like you are having too much outside contact with him. I think he should be encouraging you to come in and talk to him. Therapy should be done in his office not on the phone.

The lady in the office told him that I made a comment about rather being dead so he called me but I didn’t like his tone. So I ended up more upset. I emailed him with a list of reasons of why I’m thinking of quitting. I hope we can work it out but it takes 2 to work it out.

What are you trying to work out? You aren’t a couple. He is a doctor and you are a patient. Perhaps you really need to have a psychiatrist and a therapist separately. Is he officially providing therapy or those are doctor visits that you just call it therapy?

Don’t worry about liking him. Think strictly of what health care he provides.

Sorry hope for the misunderstanding.

@Divine Her psychiatrist is providing therapy and meds. If I remember correctly, he told her that he wouldn't see her for only meds. Is that right Hope?

That’s actually insulting because I’m not an idiot. I didn’t mean work it out in that context. I meant work it out in the doctor/patient therapeutic alliance.

That is right. When I first began, it was only for meds. Then after I asked him to do my therapy and we started on that, he wouldn’t let me go back to just meds.

It can be difficult to correctly interpret tone over the phone (or email/text) because you don't have any body language or facial expressions to go with it. I imagine he was concerned about you, so his tone may have been worried, which could be easy to misread as annoyed or frustrated. I have a tendency to ascribe tones to people based on what I'm afraid they're thinking about me. It's something I'm working on quite a bit with my current T, and he's really helping me with it. Like, if I feel that he (or someone else in my life) is annoyed with me, I just ask them instead of assuming, Usually I'm wrong (or they might be annoyed about something that has nothing to do with me, like just in a bad mood). It could be something good to discuss with your T.

Great points! Momentary emotions can really distort perception and it can be hard to recognize while in it unless someone is very aware of the tendency and actively questions their perceptions. I can imagine this being a problem for you as well, Hope, not only in regards to therapy/Ts but when you get into that mindset that other people are upset with you, including on this forum sometimes. I think these things are basically mental projections and emotions like anxiety, anger or shame can be especially powerful to generate them.

Dearest Hope

I have not read every post you have made, but I remember reading some.
And I wanted to chime in, I really feel for you and hope things will get better soon.

A diagnosis is just a work-tool. Years ago someone in kindergarden wanted to label my son with aspergers. (Today, years later, he is perfectly fine) Anyway, he was really sensitive and intelligent and didn’t play the same way as others. I told the staff: I don’t believe he has aspergers, but it doesn’t matter- if the solution will work for him, you can name it whatever you want.
Thing is- if it works, it is a good thing. If it doesn’t do any harm, it is worth trying.

I agree you have traits of the diagnosis. But: does it help if you think about the traits a little different? You don’t strike me as a bad person at all (not saying people with mental illnesses are bad persons), you don’t seem to be rude to others. The traits you have seems to mostly affect and hurt yourself. Your story is that you have been neglected in so many ways, you are hurting from it. It’s not your fault, it is the result of your story.

There is a art form called Kintsugi (you can google if you want to see pictures). It is when broken things are fixed using gold. Instead of seeing it as broken goods, they are enhanced from what once broke them.

«Kintsugi is a Japanese art form in which breaks and repairs are treated as part of the object's history. Broken ceramics are carefully mended by artisans with a lacquer resin mixed with powdered gold, silver or platinum. The repairs are visible — yet somehow beautiful. Kintsugi means "golden joinery" in Japanese.»

I truly believe the psychiatrist only wants to help you. Let him help you mend your broken pieces, let him help you heal.

It is hard, and it will get harder. But he is there with you. One day you will realize you are progressing into something better. You will grow and you will feel better.
It will be stormy and you will feel like you can’t do it anymore. But that is when progress is made, that is when you need to trust in him and let him guide you.

Focus on the fact that he is there to help you, and try not to fixate on diagnosis. It doesn’t matter. What matter is that you deserve to feel better.



All the best,

Cornucopia

Thanks for clarifying. I wondered if he bills it differently as therapy session versus doctors appt. Just trying to understand what’s the best here