Borderline

 So when I made the last post, I was still kind of annoyed. You have to understand that the first time borderline personality disorder was brought up by a psychiatrist was around 14 years ago. My first time inpatient my psychiatrist printed out a bunch of stuff on borderline and gave it to me, but then we kind of never discussed it again. At the time, I honestly didn't see it, but now I think certain BPD traits were more obvious then than now. My moods were all over the place and I was discovering a bunch of anger that I had avoided for years, and it was coming out sideways at the therapists and psychiatrist of the eating disorder program I was in. Then I finished the program, and borderline wasn't discussed again for years. 

I can't remember when it came up next. I may have been reading about it on my own by then or maybe my therapist and I had been discussing it.. but that was probably the same therapist who was convinced that OCD is the root of all my problems. I did try to find a DBT group at the time, and the therapist for one I looked at told me I didn't have enough life experience to fit in with the group. I'm assuming the statement was based 100% on my age because he hadn't talked to me long enough to know my life. The next time I really remember borderline coming up was when I was inpatient for either drinking or depression. The psychiatrist basically said to me "you have a personality disorder, so medication isn't going to work." I know there is some validity to that statement, but it really seems like he just wanted an excuse not to deal with me anymore. Also, he didn't diagnose me with BPD. No one had diagnosed me with it. 

Fast forward to 2020 and the million times in treatment. While I was in residential over the summer, I actually brought it up with the therapist because I had found a really good book on borderline that I was reading. She didn't want me reading it because I guess she wanted me focused on her theory that my problems are all due to some repressed trauma. I continued to read the book because by this point, I fit the criteria better than I had back in 2007 because I'd had several suicide attempts and drinking in addition to the self harm and bulimia. Then I went to another rehab later and had the horrible therapist who supposedly specializes in personality disorders. Maybe he does and it's just overshadowed by him being a horrible, little, hateful man.. anyways.. He talked about separating myself from the borderline, which is something I had been working on. He also accused me of doing everything for attention.. not just the self harm but any time staff found me crying and got concerned he said it was for attention. This led to me being afraid to talk to anyone when I was upset because of what he would say about it. If I asked for help, it was for attention, but if I bottled it up and self harmed then that was also for attention. There was no way to win. As far as offering any solutions, he would just say he didn't have enough time to work on it with me... how if he had longer then he could have helped me. He did make the point that I probably wasn't diagnosed because insurance doesn't want to pay for treatment for borderline. 

So I think my current psychiatrist thought that she was suggesting something new. I think it was supposed to be a revelation that made my life make sense. It was not something new, and it was not something I'd had really good experiences with before. It had been thrown around by psychiatrists who didn't know what to do with me. I had been told not to think about it. I had been told that insurance doesn't cover it and had it used to say that I made myself sad for attention. I had twice tried to get into DBT groups and once been told I didn't have the life experience, and the second time admittedly it was my drinking that made them turn me down for the group (different group/therapist and I don't blame them for that decision). What upset me when my psychiatrist brought it up was not that she said I had borderline, it was the way she made it sound like knowing that I had it would make everything make sense. She made it sound like it would make everything easy. I just have to separate the borderline pain from the depression and figure out which is which.. like that's an easy thing to do. Yes, sometime I can tell when it's the borderline. There's a sort of mental pain that is almost impossible to stand that is clearly different from the depression. There's also the impulse to do something self destructive when anything goes wrong or any feeling is too much that I know is the borderline. Knowing that can be helpful, but it clearly hasn't fixed things. 

She also brought up DBT, and I don't know if she realizes that DBT therapists are not easy to find. There's not a lot of them, and I have no idea how many take my insurance.. Also I don't have a car, so I have to rely on my parents to get me to therapy.. and that's a whole big guilt issue. So this isn't going to be I suddenly know my problem and just have to find one of the magic therapists to fix it. I have to find a therapist that is close enough, that takes my insurance, that is accepting new patients, and will work with me and not just hear how I'm doing and insist I need to go inpatient (which puts the whole process on hold). I have to keep myself alive long enough to do the work, and that's not an easy task. The suicidal thoughts have been increasing. It's probably bad that I'm purging at least once a day now. I have been self harming. Honestly if I tell my psychiatrist about the bulimia and the self harm, I am betting even she would start suggesting inpatient even though she's said we're trying to avoid it. 

Oh and she said she was interested in the borderline criteria regarding intense/unstable personal relationships and how that applied. Now I'm trying to figure out why.. because I think my mind is assuming she is asking because of something I said about a particular relationship. My response was that it used to be an issue, but that now it isn't so much and issue since I have no friends. She said that that will get better, and I will have friends. I'm now wondering if she thinks I have that sort of unhealthy relationship with someone currently in my life. While I have a history of idealizing therapists and doctors (mainly determining my whole self worth based on what they say and their opinion of me), I'm not doing that right now? My relationship with her is.. I tolerate her because she's making an effort to treat me which is more than my last nurse practitioner, but I also resent her cheerfulness and the increasing number of meds I'm on. Nothing about that is intense because I really just don't care. My IOP therapist.. I care very little about anything she says and am not even remotely honest about my life. And my parents.. well that's probably not healthy, but I don't idealize them or devalue them.. they are just my parents who I have to live with right now. So I am paranoid about why relationships was the diagnostic criteria she seemed concerned with. Although she also brought up the recurrent suicidal threats/gestures as being part of why she thinks I have it, and I agree about that.

Wow, that was a much longer post than I expected.. and not very organized. I just needed to get some of that rant out because it's been in my head since wednesday.