softboi-bunny asked

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Hi, my GP is concerned that I could have BPD or Bipolar. What are some things i should know about bpd and how it is diagnosed?

borderline-alive

Hello there. BPD and Bipolar are often very hard to differentiate when diagnosing, so often times doctors aren’t sure which a person may have, but they can also overlap. I see from your page that you’re 20, which is good cause BPD can’t be diagnosed until 18+ as it starts to develop but shows full symptoms around 18. Diagnosing BPD can take months and can be really frustrating, honestly. It is really ruling out a lot of things and figuring out heo you react to certain things as well. Psychiatrists are supposed to spend 6 months diagnosing any personality disorder before putting it on their record, but a lot don’t.

As for what you should know about BPD… Borderline Personality Disorder is a big inability to cope with emotions. It’s like most people feel emotions on a range of 0-5 and you feel them with -500-500. This can make people with it manipulative at times, or blowing up from the smallest thing, or explaining over and over how they feel because they don’t want to feel it alone. In addition to this (TW) a lot of BPD do self-harm/have some sort of eating disorder (often binge/purge) in an attempt to cope with their extreme emotionality. BPD stems from fear of abadonment, as well. Often times, people with BPD will cling to those around them in an attempt to ignore a painful emptiness inside. They look for people to fill that emptiness, but in fear of abandonment, can lash out and/or be posessive. This can take the form of suicide threats if they leave, begging them to stay when to their perspective they weren’t going to leave, and massive confusion and conflict between friends. BPD friends are often known for their overly caring complexion, which makes friendships nice at the start until the fear of abandonment and/or emotionality kicks in. There is also the black and white thinking, that leads to the perspective that all things are soley good or bad, no in-between. Splitting is important to, which I’ll get to in your other question in a bit (irl things came up).

The biggest thing about getting diagnosed though: it doesn’t change who you are. It’s been a part of you, and you shouldn’t think because of the diagnosis that you’ve changed to the outside world.

Most people do not understand BPD people, especially when they’re healing. They’ll ask them things like “wait now you like this? I thought you hated that? What happened to x viewpoint?” but that’s because you’re limiting the emotionality, learning to control it, and expanding your viewpoint.

BPD has no cure, as it is a personality disorder. A lot of treatment is mood stabilizers and other meds to help with symptoms (ex: i have sleeping problems and aggitation so I have a med that helps with both), as well as something called DBT. DBT is Dialectic Behavioral Therapy, and it’s all about working on understanding how the outside world percieves your actions and words, because it wont be the same as you think it is with BPD.

Let me know if you want to know anything else. I hope this helps! Stay hydrated!! :)