Do I have borderline personality disorder?
Borderline personality disorder is a mental health condition characterized by emotional instability, impulsivity, and disturbed interpersonal relationships. BPD affects both children and adults, but because it's not well-known or widely discussed in society, many people don't even know they have it. In fact, it's hard for me to believe I have it
How did I find out that I have borderline
I have known from March 2022 that what I am struggling with has a name and it is bipolar I know from the same time that I have borderline. Both diagnoses were difficult to swallow at first, however borderline scared me more.
It's a personality disorder, it's not a drug-controlled disease. I heard about borderline in the context of myself during my first therapy in my life, which I went to after my first depressive episode nearly 10 years ago. Then, during the therapy, a slogan came up once that I have borderline personality traits. Features and disorder are two different fairy tales. Although the word borderline scared me then, it for a long time faded from my memory in the context of my person. 5 years ago, when the second episode of depression appeared in my life, I also started therapy immediately - then I asked the therapist if I had borderline personality disorder. She then, having known me for some time, reassured me, saying that yes, I have a lot of personality traits, but she would not qualify me as a person with personality disorders on this background. It calmed me down enough that I stopped delving into the topic at that moment.
In the course of my five-year treatment for depression, I was in a very bad condition during one of my psychiatric appointments before being diagnosed with bipolar disorder. It was a hard time in my personal life - the psychiatrist gave me a referral to psychotherapy, including on this referral, apart from depression, also adjustment disorders. This is how I found a clinical psychologist in my health center, which admittedly had no vacancies for therapy at the moment, but offered to conduct tests to find out what was really wrong with me. After the first series, she proposed extending them with the MMPI sheet
What is MMPI
The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) is the most widely used and researched clinical assessment tool used by mental health professionals to help diagnose mental health disorders.1
Originally developed in the late 1930s, the test has been revised and updated several times to improve accuracy and validity. The MMPI-2 consists of 567 true-false questions and takes approximately 60 to 90 minutes to complete; the MMPI-2-RF has 338 true-false questions, taking 35 to 50 minutes to finish.
check more: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-minnesota-multiphasic-personality-inventory-2795582
Me and MMPI
We met several times to complete this test. After I finished it, we were supposed to meet to discuss its results. It only happened after almost 8 months. Before that, I ended up in a psychiatric hospital, then I was depressed for a long time, and honestly, I was not very interested in the results of these studies. In fact, nothing interested me - you know, depression. But after I found out that I was bipolar, I remembered these tests and wanted to know their results. And I met. And from these results it turned out that I have borderline personality disorder.
What is borderline personality disorder
entire paragraph from: https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/borderline-personality-disorder
People with borderline personality disorder may experience intense mood swings and feel uncertainty about how they see themselves. Their feelings for others can change quickly, and swing from extreme closeness to extreme dislike. These changing feelings can lead to unstable relationships and emotional pain.
People with borderline personality disorder also tend to view things in extremes, such as all good or all bad. Their interests and values can change quickly, and they may act impulsively or recklessly.
Other signs or symptoms may include:
Efforts to avoid real or perceived abandonment, such as plunging headfirst into relationships — or ending them just as quickly.
A pattern of intense and unstable relationships with family, friends, and loved ones.
A distorted and unstable self-image or sense of self.
Impulsive and often dangerous behaviors, such as spending sprees, unsafe sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, and binge eating. Please note: If these behaviors happen mostly during times of elevated mood or energy, they may be symptoms of a mood disorder and not borderline personality disorder.
Self-harming behavior, such as cutting.
Recurring thoughts of suicidal behaviors or threats.
Intense and highly variable moods, with episodes lasting from a few hours to a few days.
Chronic feelings of emptiness.
Inappropriate, intense anger or problems controlling anger.
Feelings of dissociation, such as feeling cut off from oneself, observing oneself from outside one's body, or feelings of unreality.
Not everyone with borderline personality disorder may experience all of these symptoms. The severity, frequency, and duration of symptoms depend on the person and their illness.
Am I borderline?
Tests are one thing - it's just a tool. How I feel about these statements above:
Point 1 - absolutely.
Item 2 - I don't know. I have maybe one or two friends - very patient, enduring my often long periods when I do not give a sign of life, because either I am depressed and I do not want to complain to anyone about how shit I feel, or I am hypomania and then I do not waste my time on relationships with people. Besides, in fact, I am terribly afraid of people and close relationships with them. A situation when, for example, you call someone every day and talk about crap - it's terrible for me, really. I have no such need and it would be very tiring for me.
But I think it's more like being introverted. Although if it were about, for example, my beloved, it would not be a problem. When it comes to the family, it is similar, although completely different. Family is a family, I know that because we are a family, I can count on them in a crisis situation and I know that I am able to provide such support myself - but such everyday relationships are there, I do not need them and I forget that others can need. In fact, as I wrote it, it turns out that I should also write in this point - yes, this applies to me.
Point 3. Absolutely. I don't know who I am, who I was, what I want to achieve.
Point 4. Of these things, I am most certainly affected by impulsive spending and substance abuse - I drink alcohol, although I know I shouldn't
Item 5. Yes, it happened. Several times - does this qualify me already? Fuck
Point 6. Yes, in depression, absolutely
Point 7. I experience this type of thing only in situations when a trigger related to my husband fires and his abandonment by him, betrayal and a whole avalanche of emotions related to it. It only happens in this area, it can smash me to dust for hours or days. In other areas, I don't see anything having such an effect on me that it could change my mood drastically
Point 8. Yes. Of course. I often think to myself that there is nothing in me and that I am worth nothing.
Point 9. Yes. If something sets me on fire, it's hard for me to embrace myself. I often experience this at work when I have to collide with some stupid clerk. But just as often, when I talk to, for example, my mother - but a relationship with my mother is a topic for another post, or maybe even for a few posts, or maybe even for the entire book ... but yes, these are situations where one word can introduce me to boiling state.
Point 10. I don't know what's going on.
Fuck, anyway, out of those 10 points, it turned out to me that 9 out of these 10 symptoms in some area of my life affect me. Fuck, so it's not just a rigid, asexual test result for answering yes or no ..
When I watch videos on tik tok or instagram, where people satirically say that they have borderline, it seems to me that this does not apply to me - I do not change my mood every 5 minutes, but if I am stable, it is for a longer period of time, when I am depressed it is also for a long period of time - but it can be very easily interrupted by some trigger related to my husband, then I can collapse to the bottom and of course no one understands it. But it happens less and less ... Are you sure Joanna? My last episode took place on August 30th, only 1.5 months ago ... That's the first time in my life I had a cut ... Is it often or rarely? How do I know?
Borderline - it scares me
While I have come to terms with the diagnosis of bipolar disorder, I have accepted - as far as borderline is concerned - I cannot swallow it. It scares me. As for bipolar disorder, I have a feeling that it's not my fault, that it's a disease, that it can happen to anyone, that I don't have much influence on it - then when it comes to borderline - I feel guilty about it in some way. That it's my fault, that I have it, that I'm fucked up, that it's incurable, that that's what I am - fucked up. Maybe that's why I would like so much not to think about myself that I am borderline and when I watch these mocking videos I think with relief - phew, this does not apply to me, so I'm not borderline. On the other hand, I understand these videos so well, as if it applied to me. And you, have you come to terms with the fact that you are bordeline? How to do it? I am waiting for some wise advice on how to deal with it.
