The BPD Bunch: S2E 1 - BPD Diagnosis Stories

foreign [Music] the BPD bunch is back and we are so excited to see you for season two I'm your host zany and today I'm here with Alex Sophie Darren Georgette and Moe hello where in the world is everyone coming from I'm in New Jersey oh New Jersey is really amazing it's not the armpit of U.S I promise I'm from Ohio in the U.S I'm in Vermont today I'm from London in the UK I'm also from London in the UK and I'm in New Mexico in the U.S so we're kind of split across the pond today so for our first season we laid the groundwork by talking about the nine BPD symptoms our experiences with them and what helped us to overcome them and in our second season we're still going to be talking about the various challenges of living with BPD and how we manage but we're expanding our topics to all kinds of different things and today we are going back to the beginning to talk about our diagnosis stories so it's cool because you know we all deal with you know the same diagnosis but I'm a feeling that everyone's gonna have like something else so I was diagnosed with uh BPD in the early 2000s like 0506 I was in my early 20s and I I didn't know anything about personality disorders or really any type of mental health disorder other than depression and anxiety so when I was in boot camp my symptoms just got worse and worse and worse and I couldn't figure out what was wrong I felt helpless and so I graduated boot camp and then I went to my schooling down in Texas and things went from bad to worse and I admitted myself into the hospital and that's when I learned that I had borderline personality disorder and I had no idea what it was they didn't really explain it very well to me or at least that's my memory of it I'm guessing they probably did tell me a little bit about what I have and how to help myself but when they first told me I was just overwhelmed with so many emotions I was a little bit grateful that that there was something wrong with me that I could put my hands on and like know how to maybe address the problem but I was also really upset because I had no idea what the heck they were talking about and I thought that they were just gonna say you're depressed so here's some pills and be on your way uh that's not how it worked and so I spent the next few years just knowing that I had borderline personality disorder and not having a clue what to do with it and I also knew that a lot of people had negative opinions about it including um like therapists like if you would look for a therapist that would say you know sometimes they list what they treat and I almost never found borderline personality on that list of things that they treated so it was it was overwhelming it was scary at first kind of like they left you in the dark a little bit they're like here here's this here's this name for what you're experiencing now good luck right that's how it felt you know um yeah it was a lonely and scary time for me did you get any given any literature or anything like that at the point of diagnosis or was it literally go and explore yourself it was just go and do your thing um I didn't receive any info on it I I do remember like going to the library and like looking online and stuff but back then it was just there weren't a lot of like positive resources you know I was very lost and lonely for a few years after I found out yeah well I really relate to the whole like give not given a lot of information because uh I mean my story was very similar my diagnosis story is both really long and really short because I was diagnosed when I was 15 but I didn't fully accept the diagnosis or get the right treatment until I was 28. so it wasn't even until a conversation that I had with my parents a few years ago but I even realized how early I'd been diagnosed because at the time I was in treatment for an eating disorder and I was so obsessed with my eating disorder behavior that I didn't really pay attention to anything else the psychiatrist who diagnosed me basically was like well she has BPD we don't have the resources to treat her um but gave my parents a list of people to call none of us had ever heard of BPD we didn't know what it was or what to expect and when my parents called that list they were either told that I couldn't be helped or that I was probably going to kill myself wow nobody wanted to accept that outcome but nobody really knew what to do with it either so I kind of just coasted for a while after that and everything eventually fell apart when I was 20 and that was when I really remember the BPD diagnosis coming to light it was after a really dysfunctional relationship finally ended over the course of that relationship I tried to end my life multiple times and I had a really hard time believing BPD was my issue I thought everyone else was crazy I went into an inpatient hospitalization program and a partial inpatient hospitalization program and while those programs definitely kept me alive their attitudes towards BPD did not really help me to accept my diagnosis the predominant View at the time was still that BPD couldn't be cured and so when we would go to talk to people about my diagnosis we got a whole bunch of really confusing answers some people told my parents well we can't tell her she has BPD because then she's going to make it her identity and she's just going to get worse some people said well it's not curable so what's the point some other people said well the diagnosis doesn't really matter so much another one that was really confusing to me was somebody was like well you too high functioning to have BPD and that one really did not make sense because I was as low functioning as low could be I had already dropped out of school twice I couldn't keep a job I had tumultuous relationships with almost every single person who met me so I was like what the heck does that mean like how how is that high functioning when you were functioning at that level was that for like it like until then that you were 20 and like got your diagnosis again I mean before that I was kind of maintaining a couple of things but I had already dropped out of school a couple of times uh By the time somebody was calling me high functioning so I didn't really know what they were talking about I guess they expected someone with BPD to just literally be screaming a hundred percent of the time and like always out of their mind I don't know when all of that was happening I was still kind of getting over this breakup and for me so many of my BPD symptoms really come out around relationships so once I got over that I was kind of able to maintain a little bit I still wouldn't say I was like high functioning but I was able to sort of Coast for a while I got into another relationship and when that one ended and I again felt like I was like my life was over my parents flew down to New Mexico they had discovered that more helpful attitudes about BPD were coming out so they sat down with me we went through the DSM again and they were like you know I think we really think that this original person who diagnosed you when you're 15 sounds right and I after 13 years I was finally willing to admit that that diagnosis was probably right and I was fortunate enough to get into a DBT program near me and they were like Yep this is VPD and the rest is history um so zany um you were diagnosed when you were about 15 and then um you know you went several years without really accepting it so do you think you were like just in total denial like you didn't want to deal with it or do you think that you are so focused on your eating disorder that you just you thought your issues were a result of having an eating disorder in the beginning I was just kind of indifferent because I didn't really know what BPD was and I was so focused on my eating disorder behavior that that was really all that mattered and then when my relationship ended and BPD was brought up to me again I think that was when I was really in denial because I felt like accepting the BPD diagnosis would mean that I was some in some way like that I would have to take responsibility for the things that had gone wrong and in my life and I I did really really didn't want to do that and then I think eventually when I you know in 2017 when when we went through it again that was relieving because at least then people had felt there was an answer right it wasn't like this is this incurable thing you have it was like this is a thing turns out it's very treatable here's the solution let's go get it and that was that was a big relief I think that I could have been diagnosed as early as 14. I spent two weeks in patient when I was in high school um it was after a breakup and I was completely falling apart completely suicidal um and self-harming and you know it's interesting like they didn't even give me any sort of diagnosis after my time in the hospital they didn't even like say I was depressed like I remember asking my therapist afterwards like did they give me a diagnosis of depression and she was like um I don't think so you just you just have an ADHD diagnosis that's it and I'm like okay so I did talk therapy and like you know I love my therapist but it wasn't like anything that was going to help set me I wasn't learning skills I wasn't learning how to regulate these things and then when I got to college and I became really interested in personality disorders just because like I think that's what I gravitated towards in my psychology background so I I remember looking at it for the first time and looking at the symptoms and being like hmm that's weird that kind of explained some of the things I've dealt with in my life but then I just kind of like whatever I'm like I'm I was doing fine at the time too that's another thing that can be confusing is that like BPD isn't always crisis like you can go through periods of Crisis that are triggered by things so it's like I would have periods where I was doing really well you know I was in a like a solid relationship for two years like you know everything seemed fine I was okay and then when that kind of crumbled and I also was living with a roommate who was bringing up a lot of the symptoms for me I was looking at um criteria for like other diagnoses like for other personality disorders um like for a class of mine and I saw the the list of symptoms again and I was like all right like this is like this is really like describing it but the thing is like in the DSM the way that symptoms are described is pretty vague and I think that it's like you can look at something and be like nah that's like kind of extreme too it's like you don't see there's no Nuance in there my psychiatrist in college told me during my senior year I brought it to her and I said you know I think I might have borderline personality disorder and she goes you know I've actually thought that since your freshman year I just didn't want to say anything because I don't have expertise in it I'm not going to diagnose you now um so then after I got out of college I was still confused because I explained a lot of things for me um but every time I went to a new psychiatrist they would be like no way like you have a good job you know you're doing really well you have friends you have relationships like you're doing fine um you know I was planning to go to PhD at that point like everyone thought I was just really motivated whatever I'm like um yeah but I really think this and it took me a long time of trying to convince my psychiatrist that I had it um and she didn't believe me for a long time but then I went through breakup and I completely broke down again um probably like one of the worst like times I've ever had and then she was like okay I I see it now and uh I mean luckily it was like part of a bigger hospital and I was like basically sent straight to like you know full-on DBT um so that was like the start of like finally getting the treatment I needed and I try not to think like wishing I was diagnosed earlier because then I get like you know bitter and resentful and I don't want to be stuck in that space I'm just glad that I you know was able to get the treatment like early at least early in my early 20s um but it is frustrating sometimes because it's like there is that high functioning piece that's like like I knew what was going on with me I knew and people were saying no because they don't see it everything's behind closed doors I'm not gonna break down in front of people all the time I'm pretty good at masking Sophie what is your uh diagnosis story so first of all I didn't choose BPD BPD chose me let's just put that out there um I um had zero idea I was living my life you know but I had a lot of inner turmoil um and was in and out of uh therapy from the age of 17. but no one it never got picked up on anybody's Radar really until 2018. I think I was struggling a lot from an incident that had happened in 2010 and I like kept it to myself I didn't report it I didn't do anything about it I didn't speak to anyone and um it started to really affect me and I just lost myself um and I did a series of terrible things or what I thought was really terrible and it really haunted me um and that caused me to um harm myself so I attempted to take my own life I had been um referred to see a psychiatrist and I saw her for about six sessions and at the end she said yeah you have BPD or I believe it's BPD and I said what's what is I just I was speechless like I couldn't believe it I was just completely completely in denial and uh I went through like a psycho education course which was about 12 weeks like an introduction to mentalizing based therapy there were people in my group at the end of the group they were like well what are we supposed to do for a year and a half of being on a waiting list because on the NHS there's like you know it's the waiting list is packed so you wait on a waiting list sometimes for three years sometimes one and yeah people were super distraught and some people were just like What if I take my own life during that this time that I'm waiting and when it came around to me I was like do you know what I'm furious I don't even know why I'm here anyway like I don't have BPD what the hell like I'm just gonna take matters into my own hands and I'm gonna read self-help books and that's what I did I started reading self-help books and stuff um and then I think a year and a half or two years later came off the waiting list went into mentalizing based therapy and even then I was in denial up until the last like maybe nine months so the treatment is 18 months long uh depending on which service you're under and I think the treatment started to make me more self-aware and aware of what other people are going through I read the symptoms again and I was like really you didn't realize that you had BPD okay Sophie all right um yeah it was a massive denial were you in denial about having any type of mental health disorder or was it just BPD because you didn't want to admit it I was really upset I was really hurt to find out that I had BPD um because I guess um it's pretty stigmatizing and nobody wants to think of themselves as impaired and that's how I felt like if I was to take that on I guess like myself sometimes I always used to think come on man you can just get up click your fingers and you'll be all right like just go go to work have proper relationships stop arguing with people like or don't have intense emotions all the time or whatever don't shut down I thought I could click my fingers and now it's like there's more of a gray area I do think oh just get up and get on with it and then there's this other side that's like or if you could don't you think you would like don't you think you would be successful by now and whatever else um so yeah there's like this constant sort of argument going on um but compassion's winning for sure like or being more empathetic towards myself good so so what's your story there yes one fairly late uh as a diagnosis um I was diagnosed in my um how can I put this politely fourth decade um and um it came as a relief um it's fair to say that I have experienced symptoms my whole life um for a variety of reasons um and because of the time I grew up and also coming from a rural background no one had any idea of what BPD was um I would even say that probably medically everyone I saw growing up wouldn't even though they were trained medical professionals probably didn't know what it was it was never even discussed it was just put down that I had uh depression or I had anxiety you know there was used to be a saying in the family we got the black dog we have the black dog that follows follows us and you know it's sort of it's almost like in our DNA in my family that we have depression and you know I think it it was just accepted and lived with thankfully um my psychiatrist who I was seeing and I probably owe them my life I will be quite clear in saying that just turned around and said has anyone ever discussed Borderline Personality Disorder with you I said no and they said go go away and read about it and we'll we'll discuss this and where we go with it and obviously you get out of the room you sit in the car and you on your phone and you look at the nine trades and you think yes hello this is me this is my my this has been my life but I spent you know over heart the vast majority of my life not knowing what I what I had and what was happening to me um and it's a horrendous experience that is but so when I say it was a relief it was a huge relief it it made it made my life more sense in my life it made it my existence understandable but then you come across things and you start reading it from a male point of view and you think well I'm not a teenage female so how can I have this condition you know I've got a beard for goodness sake this sort of thing nobody nobody is on there going I've got a beard you don't see any male commentary on this at all when I was done of and so that was my first thing my question when I went back in was yeah but I'm male this isn't me and so once you come past that Sigma and you start to actually dig deeper you do start to see well actually yes the problem is that the male psyche kicks it that oh that's just go over it and stuff you know you can't experience this and whatever but I'm also incredibly glad that I was diagnosed at the age I was diagnosed because if I'd have been diagnosed when I had first experienced symptoms or was first conscious of it and was first taken to medical professionals we're talking pre-internet which sounds a crazy statement doesn't it but it we're talking sort of you know 90s here free internet imagine being diagnosed with it and walking out of room and the only you know literature you've got to work with is what you can be handed to by a medical professional or what you can go to a library and read had I been diagnosed at that point I very much doubt I would be him having this conversation now because it would be a horrendous thing to read about and it would be a terrible thing to sort of the sort of just the weight that would be on you and because you don't have then social media you don't have the internet to go there are other people who have this all over the world there are other people who are functioning there are other people who are dealing with it there are other people you can talk to and so that's why I'm very glad that I did get diagnosed later in my life and for me very different from a lot of other people it's just it was a huge sense of relief wow I feel like your story says a lot about you know I like what you said about like how it would have been really scary me diagnosed in the 90s and so much has changed since then and like you know like there was this whole issue with like people not die giving the diagnosis because then it's like stigmatizing or there's there's no treatments for it but now it's like we know that there are effective treatments for it and there's like you know there's so much benefit in getting the diagnosis now but I see I see what you're talking about but it would have been scary back then to get it nobody put a label to it and it's when a label is put to something that actually it starts to it's like a jigsaw falling into place well I don't know if Mo would agree with me on this because I think we were diagnosed about the same time too like the mid-2000s right well yeah it really was kind of like here's this obscure diagnosis that isn't treatable and everyone thinks that you're just gonna kill yourself before you turn 25 so good luck yeah and there's no like there wasn't any sense of community either like Darren brought that up you know you just it was lonely it's a lonely feeling Georgette I was also diagnosed and had a urine put it this fourth decade I can look back and see how I was showing symptoms of it um as a teenager but nobody knew though that what was going on inside because I'm an incredible actress so it was very easy for me to carry myself in a certain way and really not reveal to anyone what was actually going on inside so when I got diagnosed I had no idea anything was wrong with me even though looking back I can see that there was a lot going on um my marriage at the time was in a really bad place we weren't very good for each other but also it was crumbling kind of under the weight of this undiagnosed untreated disease you only know what's in your head right you don't know how other people think so I thought that the way I thought and felt in the way my relationship was and the way we would fight was very normal you know if I was doing this behind closed doors I thought sure Alex was doing it Mo was doing you know what I mean and all these people were doing it but who like talks about that or who talks about their innermost thoughts in a group with people you don't I didn't think I had any kind of diagnosis I thought it was just really unhappy but again I had this constant kind of suicidal ideation and I was extremely disregulated emotionally so in 2020 I had three hospitalizations in a four-month time span and there were a few times in there that I probably should have been put in the hospital but avoided it so the discharge from my first hospitalization I was there for about five days I got discharged and I was looking at my discharge paperwork in the car on the way home and I saw major depression which I was like like I could see that and then I saw borderline personality disorder and I had no idea what that meant I'd never heard of it um I really just no clue and I freaked out um I thought that I'd just been on a psychiatric ward and it was the first time that it ever happened to me so I already felt like oh my gosh like this doesn't happen to normal people like what what's wrong and then I saw that and I equated it with something incurable and when you Google it when you do a quick Google you're that's what you're seeing my spouse at the time was really glad that I got the diagnosis um because I think he had spoken with his therapist and they had kind of guessed that that's what I had but you know obviously didn't tell me um I really couldn't accept my diagnosis at all I I was like there's no way that's true um I looked at the nine symptoms and I got really focused on um well I'm not a really risky person and I have friends and I've had the same friends for a long time and I've never had a lot of problems with my friends and I just got fixated on that um that this this couldn't be true and um I think really at heart I was terrified I was absolutely terrified that this could be what I have I really thought I was gonna you know be live out my days either in a institutionalized or never seeing my children again um I thought I could lose my job I thought I could lose everything that I had worked for in my life I did get criticism for not accepting it like quickly I'm sad about that because I feel like this is something that it can be so it's life-changing and um I don't think I think sometimes you do struggle to accept something like that and there's no you know time period in which you need to like meet that metric of accepting it but um after after I finally accepted like okay maybe I do have this I started learning about it and as I started learning about it it became a little less scary I learned about it through Instagram I'm not ashamed to admit that it's a shame that that's how you have to learn about it that was how I found like a community um that's how I felt not alone like I'm not because because in my little town in my little County in my area I didn't know people who it's just it's really disheartening to hear that they just put it on your discharge papers and didn't even say anything to you about it I was actually shocked too because I'm in healthcare I'm a nurse and and as a nurse I was like how did how do you put something on discharge paperwork and not talk about it you know so I was disappointed and shocked too wow my eyes at that like big time makes you wonder how many people have had that similar experience but haven't had the knowledge or gumption let's say to go and dig a bit deeper yeah does anybody how did like the people around you react to your diagnosis I feel like the most stigma I encountered was from the mental health like professionals themselves like most of the people that I met had never heard of BPD so I kind of get to explain to them what it is from my perspective um and kind of dictate that narrative which has been great what is everyone else's experience with that but but I think that's wrong I think medical profession isn't necessarily going to help us there's going to be good that's going to be bad with that but I think we have the ability to control the narrative as you said there so when I sort of reached out to people to explain it I put things with it I would put like either images or actual you know paragraphs or sentences or something to help assist them understand it and I've all you know I would sort of say you know let's talk about this you know it's important to control the narrative I think because yeah if you just say I I've been diagnosed with this and leave someone to go off and find out about it they're gonna find the worst my spouse's reaction was relief because he had a name to put to what he was experiencing um my family if there's like zero reaction I think even my dad probably doesn't believe that anything's like wrong but I think that's more of a reflection like if there's something wrong with this kid there's something wrong with him for me it was like I ended up getting my parents a few different books about BPD um and they read one book and they were like this isn't you like this is really extreme and then I would like okay show me an example like what what do you think is Extreme and they would read it to me and I'm like yep that goes on that goes on in my life just because you don't see it does not mean that I haven't been through experiences like that at this point I'm actually really open with my parents about these different things and um so they they see it a lot more now I don't honestly like remember exactly how my parents reacted when I told them that I have BPD I know I told them that I was getting hospitalized uh because I was hurting myself and I didn't really know how to explain to them um how much I was suffering sorry this is hard to talk about um I was just embarrassed and ashamed I grew up with this idea from my dad that I was like lazy and like stupid and stuff and so I think my dad just kind of thought like oh there's Michelle all being stupid and lazy she just wants to get out of the Navy so she's gonna go to such an extreme that she's gonna like hurt herself which I don't know if that's what he thought we've never talked about it but I think um like in my family you just kind of deny stuff like that and then hope for it to go away or disappear so I didn't have a very supportive system back then so that was my experience of just being told I was just seeking attention you know it sucked but luckily I do have a few family members who get it and they're supportive so that's that's good enough for me you know I think a lot of people don't really understand it and because I'm good at masking like I go out and I'm always joking and stuff even if I feel awful a lot of people only see like the jokey part of me so it's really really hard to believe and even for myself now is still hard for me to like validate myself and be in it with conviction that actually I'm healing from something and I've been in pain I think there was a very important relationship in my life while I was going through recovery that there of the fixed mindset that like therapy isn't a thing and like because they didn't understand which I which I get um I was made to feel like it's not real and when you really love people and you're close to them it can really affect the way that you see things but I knew that I was suffering and I know that I still suffer but because it's invisible someone can just say to get over it I have difficulties being kind to myself anyway foreign I think it's just the way that I grew up you know I think it feels lonely regardless of if there are people who understand you and you listen more and gravitate more towards the people who um you gravitate more towards the people who say that just get over it open a window or there's no there's nothing wrong with you um when clearly you feel it you live your life every single day okay what I found is actually that since my diagnosis is that friends have become more important and family less so yes I think it's more the other way around for me to be fair like my mum my sisters um have been like the most supportive um I think friends do try and they'll sort of check in like how are you doing or whatever um but yeah I think a lot of my friends when I speak about my BPD a good portion of them are kind of like um yeah yeah um yeah I don't want it to be the black and white thing so um like if you don't show interest then you know off with your head because maybe some people don't know how to react looking back I probably wouldn't have told as many people just because especially back then like most people don't really know what BPD is and if they do they probably don't have a great idea of what it is even if you tell someone who you love and who you know loves you unconditionally they might not have a great reaction and that'll just make things worse for you I think that's the most important thing is just being careful about who you tell you know and also keeping it in mind that if someone has a not so great reaction it's it might not be because they don't love you or they don't care about what you're going through they just they don't understand it and they have no idea what it's like to feel the way we feel people who find out now have social media and they have a way to connect with other people and people are more educated about BPD and it's it's not the end of the world anymore so I totally agree I think a lot of the things that I experienced then wouldn't be an issue as much today I mean it does still happen sometimes but I think one of the biggest things that I learned from the whole experience that I do think is still relevant now is that just because somebody works as a mental health professional does not necessarily mean that they know enough about BPD specifically to accurately diagnose or treat it I mean there's over 400 diagnoses in the DSM so it's not like there's only a few things to choose from and a lot of things overlap you know some psychologists might be really really good at identifying and working with mood disorders but not as good with personality disorders it's one thing to read a symptom in the DSM and understand the words on the page but it is a completely different thing to understand how that actually plays out in real people's lives and I think I learned to be more Discerning in who I go to for help making sure I'm asking questions about someone's experience and their confidence in dealing with BPD you know making sure I'm seeking people out who understand the real life expressions of the disorder not just you know what they learned in school or what they read from a book because it's not the same right and and I think this show in particular really exemplifies the fact that one symptom can feel very similarly internally to all of us but Express itself in vastly different ways knowing what I know now because I like you know now I've been in grad school like I literally study BPD so I know like all the Nuance about it and everything and I understand also like because of shows like this people understand that there's Nuance to the symptoms it's not just the way that it's listed so like if I had this knowledge back then I would be able to say to the doctor like you might not think that I have identity disturbance because I know what I want in my life but that doesn't mean that if I go through a breakup I don't feel completely worthless and like I've no idea who I am you know yeah I still have these like goals for myself that I've set for myself in life but like there's still identity disturbance and they're my my identity was based on having someone else in my life the the conditions and everything you've been diagnosed with it's not continuous there are going to be times where you display it and other times you don't but right you know the doctor or the psychologist is judging you on that period of time you are with them exactly and when you're in the room with them yeah and it's reliant on you to be able to display that actually you have experienced some of these things in your life at other times that they're not manifesting it or showing it at this point right is that you know it just reliant on your ability to be able to be a good Storyteller in some ways or at least be able to get it across that that is the case whether they believe you or not it would be a really good idea like as things happen to like write down you know this is an example of this symptom and like how I experience it so that when you get to the doctor's office and they're asking you or you want to like explain to them what you're going through then you can like at least have a list because otherwise other like otherwise a lot of times you show up and they they ask you about your life whatever and like half the stuff you wanted to say goes out the window you know it's like really hard to just think about everything and especially if it's like a 30-minute session with a psychiatrist or something so it's good to have like examples yeah especially because one of the things that I know a lot of people with borderline personality disorders struggle with is this like when you're feeling okay you mostly remember the times that you feel okay and when you don't feel okay is when you remember all the times that you don't feel okay I think it is a really good idea especially if you're in that emotion moment to make a few notes of what is going on right then and there so that when you go in to see someone you can say this is what I was going through this is what it was like at the time I think that is a really good idea when I'm experiencing extreme emotions I have a very poor recollection after the fact for anything except describing that feeling I can't tell you what people said I can't I can't recall things in like a logical factual way I can just what I really recall is like images and my feelings so it is helpful to have things written down nobody knows everything and giving those in your there for a limited amount of time so giving them like hey I've looked into this like I'm suspicious that this might be what I have here's how it plays out in my life just gives them more information that is really helpful and then hopefully a good practitioner if they don't feel comfortable with that will be able to refer you to someone um within their Professional Network that might feel more comfortable um diagnosing you or treating you for some people in our audience you know access us to an official diagnosis may be a challenge so what are some of your thoughts on the you know some of the the challenges associated with self-diagnosis it's not always the best thing to to diagnose yourself um especially with a lot of misinformation out there like you know there's a lot of stuff on social media that's not accurate um so it's it's definitely a precarious thing but you know it's it doesn't really matter what the name is for it you know it's really just like what you're dealing with so if you are experiencing symptoms of BPD it doesn't matter if you have the label or not if that's what you're experiencing then you know you don't have to convince anyone of a diagnosis you know there's still these traits there's still these behaviors and you can just go based on that and like you know understand that and try to seek treatment that will help you target those things travel it is important not to commit too hard to a self-diagnosis just because there's a lot of different disorders so many of them do overlap and they can look very similar on the surface so I'm not saying that you know don't you know you don't tentatively give yourself a label just that it is also important to leave the door open for other possibilities I mean even if you do have an official diagnosis it it can be helpful to leave just leave in your mind a door open that this may not be the whole picture um and that being said if you can't get a diagnosis because of access getting treatment is probably also a challenge and I think a lot of the things that you can learn to manage the symptoms are helpful for people whether you actually have BPD or not like a lot of the emotion regulation skills that you they teach in DBT can be really helpful even if you don't actually have BPD you know a lot of asking questions that you learn in mentalizing base therapy can be really helpful even if you don't actually have BPD so while I realize it's not exactly the same thing as being able to have a personal therapist or a team there are a lot of different resources online to teach some of these skills and we will put some of those links in the description down below so that if you are one of these people who is struggling with access it's again does not replace therapy but hopefully some of these things could help you regulate your emotions a little bit better I wish that it wasn't so stigmatized um so that I didn't have that feeling of getting a death sentence and I that's why I wanted to be part of this is because I've kind of made it a thing with myself that I am very open about it in the hopes that it destigmatizes the diagnosis and then I also would I realize now it's manageable it is treatable um if you have the right treatment for yourself and if you're willing to put the work in working I think another thing that's important is somebody mentioned earlier about um like am I going to lose my job am I going to lose all of these things it's it's almost about that point where you get to where you have to prioritize it's like okay well there's no point having a job if you're not going to be around for it so you have to get yourself on the correct path first and then the world will come with you unfortunately the world is moving more in our Direction anyway sort of as far as understanding and and a key a key thing as well is also ask questions mm-hmm but get out there and ask questions and you know nobody's going to think of less of you for knowing more hi so I think that's important yeah that's good and I'd also say and when I'm saying this I'm saying it to myself give yourself time because that's not not something we do when you feel shame you want to run away from that feeling and when you think of how am I going to get better you want to run towards better but sometimes you have to lay on the floor then crawl then walk holding on to stabilizers then by yourself you know and then run so yeah but myself I've tried to rush everything like everything has to be quick Pace because you don't want to feel uncomfortable but discomfort's part of the journey denial was probably part of the journey for a lot of people as well give yourself time the end so thank you everyone so much for watching I know that was kind of an emotional episode but hopefully it makes you feel a little bit less alone and that you also have some ideas on where you can go to move forwards in your own recovery if you like what you saw make sure you like subscribe turn on your notifications so you don't miss a single episode next week we will be back talking about one of the most common co-occurring conditions with BPD and that is substance use disorder so make sure you tune in for that and we will see you next time bye [Music] foreign

Channel: The BPD Bunch

Views: 3,598

Keywords: Borderline Personality Disorder, The BPD bunch, BPD bunch, BPD, BPD Recovery, Mental health, EUPD, Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder, mental illness, borderline personality, borderline, personality disorder, emotion dysregulation disorder, emotion intensity disorder, recovery, functional recovery, diagnosis

Id: wYFvY4qI16w

Length: 45min 33sec (2733 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 22 2023