BPD (Borderline) Psych Interview | Charlotte & Dr. Diamond | Intro Meeting

so Charlotte I'm Dr Diamond nice to meet you and um yeah just wondering how you're feeling right now I'm good thank you I'm thank you for meeting with me I think it's going to be very interesting to talk so great okay well usually I think of you know a session like this it's just really trying to get to know you where you are now okay um and how you're experiencing yourself and other people so I wonder if you could tell me a little bit about yourself just describe yourself to me I I live in LA I go to school I'm in graduate school now for social work I have borderline personality disorder I feel like that's that's understood um I sure Charlotte I need you to speak up a little bit okay sorry I'm sorry okay that's okay um I think that pretty much sums it up actually so did you I can go over it again though but no I heard you're in graduate school and you have a personality disorder right that's what you said right yeah okay um okay those are important things but if I was going to try to get a fuller sense of you as a person like different facets of you how would you what would you say about yourself yeah that's interesting I'd be I'd be interested to hear how other people go about that I um I'm not a very interesting person right now in terms of relationships I have very few going on definitely no inter definitely no romantic relationships um my mother and I don't talk my father passed away I've done better with anger but I think a lot of that is because I'm not in any romantic relationships and I haven't been sense of February March of 2021 so I'm I would say that I'm able to maintain my emotional equilibrium because I'm not in any relationship so other than that I am I don't know I don't know I think it would have to be a little bit more specific I'm sorry well anything else that you could tell me about yourself that would just give me you know maybe a more multifaceted sense like I noticed that you said that you have a personality disorder as though that kind of describes something about you it's like a shorthand but that's kind of different for different people you know what I mean I do so everyone has a if they have a personality disorder it manifests itself somewhat differently for everyone I mean not just because there's different types of personalities whereas but because people are unique and they have their own experience of things so you said that right now you're not in relationships and anger you know is pretty much under control um and you think maybe that's because you're not in relationships that's something interesting I'd like to hear more about but but think about is there anything else you could tell me about yourself that would give me a sense of you as a unique person separate from your personality disorder right so I went with the personality disorder kind of so we could jump start and get into that I think and I I apologize if that was a little too direct I definitely don't introduce myself to other people hi I'm Charlotte I have a personality disorder but since that's why we're talking I thought it would be best just to go in that direction about something about me that's unique I really I'm I'm sorry I would need to know how other people answer that I don't I don't know what you mean I feel like I feel like you're going to say that that means I have I I don't um well no let me ask it a different way could you give me five adjectives to describe yourself just words okay that's a little easier yeah kind empathetic um gosh I don't we had to do this Icebreaker and um in one of my classes and I I had to come up with three and I think anxious was one of them which is fair kind sympathetic and what was the third one anxious anxious right and awkward I said that one as well and then um that's enough okay yeah tell me about anxious how does that work in your life is that something that you feel every day is it something that you know kind of plagues you or is it something that Ebbs and flows no I would say my anxiety is pretty severe for it I definitely would say anxiety is pretty high up for me on the I just I should replace all the other adjectives with anxious and all of those and then we can go to kind [Laughter] of it sounds like anxious is at the top of the list right now and maybe because this is kind of an anxiety provoking situation when you're talking to someone you've never met you know there's lots of people around yeah people around we're being filmed and so on so I can understand that thank you when did you start grad school it just started actually so it's the accelerated program so it started in June and then it'll be over in May it's one year program yeah yeah because I'm struck by the first two things you told me were I'm in grad school and I have a personality disorder and I'm thinking that you know and you're in grad school and social work which means you want to be in the field in some way right you want to be on the other side of the couch so to speak of the other s in the other chair right and and so that's you know that's probably a goal and yet coming to that with a personality disorder I'm sorry I didn't mean to interpret you no go ahead I'm sorry but I I don't want to be a therapist that's what I'm doing with my internship but I'd rather do more research policy advocacy grant writing anything that's not quite so micro because I have a personality disorder and I don't want my inability to maintain boundaries to compromise someone else's situation or my anger issues what if something happens and then that could be that could be bad for the other person that could be bad for me that could be bad for the career and then everything would just be horrible for everybody so I just wanted to clarify there there's no intention whatsoever of going into a micro level um occupation but you're still going to be dealing with people yeah and so I'm struck by two things about that one that there's obviously a part of you that identifies with being kind sympathetic helpful and you believe you have that capacity and you probably wouldn't be in graduate school if you didn't so that's important but that it gets kind of uh undermined by worrying about coming to this with having had a history of a personality disorder is though somehow a personality disorder isn't treatable and people don't get better you know I mean I do what I do because I really believe people do get better and so you know it's a long struggle I know that it's not easy um clearly you're on the road to recovery because you are doing this you are in grad school you are able to tolerate you know the anxiety of this kind of situation even um so I'm sure there are a lot of times when you feel like you're losing it you know grad school precipitate anxiety and people who don't have a personality disorder so yeah no definitely I initially when I went back to school to do social work I wanted to do a micro level I when I found out that there's these other Realms I definitely was thinking well this is going to be better for me I don't want to risk having an explosion or just all of the things that could potentially go wrong and that's when I decided to transition more into just more of a macro Direction and in my internship though I do micro work right now so so and with my last internship I was working with children so and I was still doing one-on-one counseling I guess I'm struck by you know the fact that you are doing more what you call Micro work which I assume means individual when I'm individual counseling or um and what's the setting exactly it's uh at the where I'm doing my internship yeah it's an interim housing facility so it's a shelter you know you do the adult full assessment the you know the biopsychosocial if I need to diagnose someone I diagnose and then my supervisor because she's an LCSW signs off on it right so it's really just sitting with the person and listening to what's going on with them right now and how they're feeling and so on right um and so you're doing that now but you still have reservations about possibly taking this road but I guess I'm struck by uh they're not totally trusting yourself and your recovery you know you keep mentioning what would happen if there was an explosion so tell me about that tell me about what what does an explosion look like for you what's happened in the past when you've had an explosion I haven't had anything happen at the internship or the prior internship but I have had things happen in interpersonal relationships where there were explosions and um I wouldn't say that I'm recovered but I don't know if there's something that one of my professors said about mental illness and recovery and this is going to have a cuss word so I'm sorry but when something's not kicking your ass as much as it used to and I think that that's fair however I'm not dating so there's nothing that will third rail me like a boyfriend yeah recovery is a process as we know and you know there there may be pockets of vulnerability but you get to know that about yourself and you can you know become more resilient it sounds like that's what's going on now um I hope so I hope so um so when you talk about this has happened in relationships and one of the ways you've dealt with that is just to not have any Intimate Relationships right now could you describe someone you've had a relationship with in the past and where the explosion relationship was like yeah I I can be toxic they can um I'll just it can be toxic I can say mean things and I don't like that about myself I with the last one he was my best friend I'm not going to say he moved to LA to be closer to me but he has a place in New York and then he had a place in La and during covid he transitioned over to LA and it's because he was my best friend so we could hang out more and then um and then we can't even say that we started dating but I this is embarrassing but when you we started having sex and so then you know the chemicals start going off and then I wanted to be in a relationship and he'd never had a girlfriend ever and since we were so close like in my mind it seemed like this would be a great relationship because he's got my best friend we've known each other forever and he really seemed to want to be in a relationship with me too but as soon as that happened he didn't seem to want to be in a relationship anymore and then I pushed and pushed and pushed for him to want to be in a relationship with me and then when he pushed back I was cruel I was mean and I said mean things and I would take things that I knew were vulnerable like vulnerabilities for him and I would hurl those at him and I had said before all this because I knew how it was going to play out and I had said there's going to be a time where I'm going to try to push you away please don't let me and so when it finally got to that point where he had said I'm at that point I always want to say he said that verbatim I um I sent him an email after that and I it wasn't a mean email it was a closure email and then I said it's okay because now I can concentrate on my school I'm not going to fixate anymore because it was there was closure in that and I'm sure that there was a if we want to psychoanalyze it I had proven either subconsciously or consciously that what I thought was going to play out did play out and not only did it play out which is some random guy it played out with someone who was I was very very close to and had been a very very close friend and then I'd managed to even push him away so I remember consciously thinking when that ended that's it I'm never going to date again I'm I'm I'm not I um you know how some people there they have photosensitivities and then they'll have seizures maybe that's how it is with relationships with me because I'm I'm I would like to think that I'm stable when I'm not in a relationship so but I don't want to I don't want to I don't want to I'm not going to say I don't want to throw myself under the bus but I just I don't know I don't know I saw a video of you on on YouTube the one where you're at a hotel do you know what I'm talking about and you're talking about narcissism probably yeah it was very interesting it was very personality assessment conference yeah yeah it was very interesting I was I listened to the whole thing it was very interesting what did you find interesting I want to come back to the relationship but just wondering since you brought it up what made you think of it just then because there was a part where somebody can't provide a clear response then do you know what I'm talking about and I can't remember what category it would be in but if they were incapable of providing a clear concise response then they had poor emotional or something do you know what I'm talking about that doesn't quite ring a bell but tell me more I mean that was it I mean there was so there was a there was a patient with borderline personality disorder and another one with narcissistic personality disorder and you would ask a question and then if they could provide this cohesive you know coherent sentence about something that had happened to them in their childhood or with the parent then you would you had categorized them with a I don't want to say emotional intelligence but something along those lines and then there was someone who was incapable of I don't want to say incapable maybe they had really about it I don't know but the sentence structure was broken and it was it was weak and then they were categorized a certain way as well right I I know what you're talking about you're talking about the adult attachment interview I think and different ways of responding in an adult attachment interview which asks people to talk about their childhood attachment experiences and um right and it's in the structure of the discourse you learn a lot about you know those early relationships so so what do you think made you think about it right this minute because I'm struggling to provide you with a coherence a sentence structure first of all and then also I'm I'm struggling with providing you with examples and I I don't know if it's because I'm afraid that you're going to say that I have a low emotional intelligence or however it was that they were categorized or if I am um I'm just nervous because we haven't really I mean I don't really know you sure okay yeah and then also as I said earlier it would make sense to be a little anxious in this situation more anxious you should let me know and we can talk about that but it's my adjective but also you know I think what I'm so struck by is that how you heard that lecture and how you're applying it to yourself and kind of wondering if I'm going to judge you and find you you use the category low emotional intelligence that's not in that interview I can tell you that so that comes from you okay right somehow finding yourself wanting or defective um and being so worried that you know how you express yourself here um because that part is in the interview it's not just what people say it's how they're able to say it and how they say it how coherent it is so you're kind of monitoring yourself constantly kind of Torment I'm saying but I have a feeling that's something you do to yourself you know that you do a lot of that kind of monitoring and when I'm not when I'm not comfortable I'm sorry but we don't I mean we've only just met sure of course I when I talk to Rebbie there's no monitoring which is which is how this is how those conversations go there's no monitoring at all I just talk nor [Music] but it's okay I can try to unmonitor myself yeah no I'm just making an observation about you know how difficult it must be but I'm I want to get back to that lecture and were there parts of that that you felt applied to you that you did you reflect on things about yourself two of your colleagues I've met before so Jill Delaney and she treated me for a month I don't know if you knew this I know her yeah I didn't know she treated you but yeah just for a month though and then I met Dr kernberg at White Plains hospitalized at the they took me to put me in Rome and then I met with him but those two experiences with both of those clinicians were were very uncomfortable for me so I mean a minute before right here when meeting with you I I'm very I was like is this going to be like it was with them so I I do want you to know that that's in the back of my head sure I can understand it right so you came to the interview with some transference already there because I work with that group and you know that yeah yeah um and you'd already had two difficult experiences with my colleagues yeah so that's understandable what was uncomfortable about those meetings I mean maybe different ones for can you say let's start with Dr kernberg yes he I wasn't aware that there were going to be other people in there and maybe they told me and I didn't understand that they were going to be that many other people in there so when I walked in and there was a full room with a whole bunch of people writing down and then I was immediately on I was very surprised so then I sat down and he he had brought up sex stuff pretty early on and I don't remember what it was but I know that and this is I'm ashamed of this I stormed out at one point and I don't know if it's because I was embarrassed that there were all those people in there or that I didn't know him well enough I felt for him to be asking me talk to my therapist about it since and she thought that maybe I felt like I wasn't in control and that was my way of taking back control by leaving and I had said I felt like a frog on an operating table and I hadn't because I hadn't been aware of what I was walking into and they probably told me and I didn't I just didn't grasp the number of people that were going to be in there and I didn't know who Dr kernberg did I say his name right I'm sorry if I didn't I didn't know who he was at that point so that's why there were probably so many people in there too because they were learning from him right I would think and then with Jill I I want to say this first I really like her a lot as a person and I think she's very kind and warm and compassionate but when she was treating me I didn't get that from her and I didn't really find that out about her until later unintentionally I'm sure it was just a very intimidating situation I would go in there and it was twice a week and it was so um threatening to me and I I don't know if that's what tfp is that how you say it tfp yeah I don't know if that's how tfp is but I I do know that she had asked me this question and I thought it was so silly at the time but now I know that there are people who have never had um I I think she thought maybe I mean I probably did have an alcohol and drug problem I don't know she had said have you ever had sober sex and I thought that was so I thought that was so um silly honestly that's I didn't I was surprised that that was even a question I was surprised that that's a possibility for some people but then the last guy that I dated he had apparently never had sober sex except for once so I was like oh wow this actually is a thing and then she had um I know that when I get uncomfortable my voice gets high it's probably high right now and she had called me out on that but the way she called me out on it it was a little for me it it made me feel like my mom was um hurting me I'm sorry did you say hurting you like being mean like just I know that's I know that juvenile to say it like that but just being cruel and saying something saying intentionally cruel to to hurt me did you tell her no of course not no I I probably should have in retrospect I should have I did not I would like to think that I have the emotional fortitude now to be able to say that kind of thing I don't know if I do but right but we're having a more open conversation now so maybe yeah I don't know is there anything you'd like to say to me no I don't think so I think so well I mean I don't think so we'll find out all right what about your current therapist she's wonderful and and you feel you can definitely be frank with her and tell her about your feelings about things that come up or she just says something you don't like or I think so I hope so I've had her for two and a half years now so great um when the whole thing happened with the last boyfriend slash not boyfriend she was able to tell me what happened about how I was afraid to be it didn't occur to me about I was afraid to be abandoned and then I pushed him away when I felt like I was being abandoned and then we had different values and value systems are better when they're aligned with partners and she said that the research has indicated that people can have different interests but if their values aren't aligned then the relationship is a little bit more to so it sounds like you're learning a lot in this therapy and and it's really helping understand yourself and your relationships and maybe this thing about not dating right now and taking is kind of taking a hiatus so you feel stronger and you understand more why certain things happen in relationships like what happened in this relationship which was after all a really good friendship that's a hard thing to lose do you have any contact with that person no so fear of Abandonment I hear that that's a major major theme and you know I keep coming back to those comments about explosion um because I think there's also fear of the anger and the capacity to hurt other people not just to be hurt but for you to hurt other people so therefore you stay you know keep things somewhat you know not superficial but not a deeply intimate situation for fear that something's going to come up in you that's going to be harmful to the other person you won't be able to keep boundaries you'll fall into something yeah um no definitely so definitely do you have any sense of where that comes from that sense that there's a toxic part of you my history sorry yeah I know my history just I mean I can become so cruel I'll take something that someone is very insecure about and then at some point something will happen and probably them leaving me or the threat of them leaving me or something and then I'll hurl it at them and then to them it's something that is very raw and you know this sort of vulnerability and then I've poured acid on it hmm as those are the things that I think about a lot because I really I really don't like that about myself and I I really I first of all with the relationships I'm not saying this for pity I'm really not why would anybody want to be with me and I don't I mean even if I did become the most stable person in the world there's so many even these like their girlfriend would have you know all of her information on the internet and then I have scars all over my arms I have a tattoo here that I hate I my foot is permanently messed up and then I I don't have a family I don't why would anybody want to be with me but even if there was somebody who did want to be with me what if I pushed them away and did something awful again and then I would hurt them so it's almost like I'm it's almost I just don't it's almost it's it's like this last Act of you know self-righteousness like I'm not dating I'm saving the world for myself I'm kidding I'm very much kidding but um I think dating right now is not is not and plus I I have a problem where I prioritize the other person above my own anything that has to do with me so I don't think that that's very good for this nasty and career I'm trying to build yeah and those are two very different things I mean there is a time when one wants to put one's energy into work and school and you know sort of figuring out who you want to be in the world what you want to do with your life and then there's the relationship issue so there's two separate things it makes sense you know you've just started grad school you don't want your energy deflected and particularly if you get very dysregulated around relationships yes exactly but I'm hearing something also it's you know in a way more profound which is just that sense of being unlovable being damaged being you know why would anyone want to be with me and you know that's that's a way of experiencing yourself in relation to other people that I think can be worked through it can be understood where that comes from it's only part of how you experience yourself but it's very powerful it's powerful enough to keep you out of relationships so do you mind if I ask you a few more questions about that you're so nice I appreciate your kind I vote because you're asking if you can ask questions I really appreciate that thank you I should probably try to do that when I'm speaking with clients I would just ask questions yes please thank you well I'm wondering you mentioned you know that you have a problem with your foot and you have you have scars all up and down your arms and I assume that comes from having cut yourself earlier starting how old were you when that started when my I don't know when the actual cutting started when my mom would be abusive I would start digging my nails into my skin and then if there was blood then I felt Vindicated it was the only way that I could um I don't know it was the only way that I could keep myself I don't want to stay safe but it was the only way that I could keep myself from actually having an outburst or making it worse and and she was very very volatile I I don't know when the actual cutting started I don't know what year I can almost guarantee that it had to do with the holidays so it was probably a Christmas of some like I know that I was out of the house I know that I was probably in my early to mid 20s and then after my father died that's when it that's when it really I don't want to say took off but is when it became a very habitual and not around the holidays just whenever I got upset in your early to mid 20s oh well no that's probably when it started and then when my dad died which was 2010 and then in 2011 I was numb to everything and then at the end of 2011 that was when I had a suicide attempt and I started working with Jill I want to say the month after that but that's when The Cutting really really really really started after that so between 2012 to 2014 it was pretty bad myself it's it's embarrassing I always wear long sleeve clothes though and what about your foot this is my fault I had this I was my boyfriend at the time was going to leave me so I hit a window on the second floor and it was a really bad accident and like the leg right here it was just flash hanging down and there was a lot of the soft tissue was just hanging off my leg two of the arteries were cut they were able to sew one up I'm not sure how that works and the nerves were all damaged on the the bottom part and so I've had seven surgeries now they um I toes because the nerves were cut they started curling in like this I hope it doesn't continue like this for the rest of my life but they just keep taking bits and pieces off of the ends of my toes because I mean it's I don't know they just do and um but it's every time they do I can walk better so it's okay but you it doesn't keep you from walking no I mean it did for a while but not anymore but you're fully functional yes definitely I don't consider myself disabled anymore but I definitely was for a while so you put your foot to the glass it wasn't my best moment I'll say yeah um but it sounds like you've come to grips with it and uh they're doing everything they can to make sure you stay fully functional yeah definitely so that's that's really important um you know I think that level of self-destructiveness and self-hatred is something that is it's very powerful you know it's it's one of the most powerful things and um it's almost worse that you experience it and you don't lose touch with reality do you know what I'm saying some people some people can't really sort of come to grips with the gravity of their self-destructiveness um so they kind of dissociate from it they don't you're not doing that I mean you're really looking at it Square in the face and saying you know it was pretty horrible and I did some pretty terrible things to myself and that's something to be mourned and to come to grips with right and then to let go the leg part the fact that it doesn't work the way that it used to or that the self-destructive behavior I'm sorry I didn't quite hear the question which part should be more and I apologize that you did those things to yourself that you were so punishing to yourself that sometimes that's something to be mourned just like if you lost a relationship you'd mourn or your father right you've experienced you know what feels like catastrophic loss and this is you know a loss of something of uh let's say bodily Integrity or whatever and in my experience you know having worked with lots of people who've been very very self-destructive that there is a morning process and then you know hopefully one like all other morning processes that comes to an end and so maybe you're still going through that of coming to grips with what you did to yourself with the consequences for you mostly more than anybody else has been and then trying to find your way through that and uh and to let it go and that's a process again that definitely makes sense and you know it would make sense to not want to get too quickly into a relationship yeah that you're what you know what you're going through and your own feelings about your body I think that's an important place to start and to feel good about yourself and your body because obviously there's a lot of positive things there too you know although I think it's hard for you to see that

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Id: 8L1qhjQx73E

Length: 33min 58sec (2038 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 27 2023