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My name's Pete. I'm not entirely sure if I have BPD or not, but it's certainly a possibility. I am going to a therapist and one thought I may be bipolar. Anyway, I just recently sent this email to my psychologist listing responses to the symptoms of BPD that he wrote. Does some of this stuff sound like borderline personality disorder to you? I also have OCD, social anxiety disorder, and some generalized anxiety disorder.

1. I don't really fear abandonment.
2. I would say many of the relationships that I've had are unstable. For example, the two girls I've liked. I liked them both, then hated them, then liked them again. When I hated them, for example that one girl Nancy, I would do stupid things like when I told her I was going to kill her. For the next two years, I was frantically trying to apologize for what I had done and was still trying to get her to like me. A few other times after that I threatened suicide, and at one point my uncle had to come over my house to talk to me because Nancy had called him in tears. I tried calling her house one more time after that, and her father answered and scared me. That was the last time I ever tried to make contact with her. I don't really have many friends, and the close friends I do have sometimes grow distant. I've been pretty close to my one friend Timothy for a long time, though. When people start to like me I get nervous and then act weird, causing them to not like me again. I think I'm starting to grow out of that though and like people more than I hate them now.
3. As for the identity disturbance, I don't really know what that means. My self-image is definitely unstable though. Sometimes I feel like I'm on top of the world, other times I feel horrible. I hate and love myself at different times, but most of the time I think I'm always right.
4. I would say I'm very impulsive. For example, the thing I was telling you about the other day with the dominatrix. Also, the time I threatened to kill Nancy. All the other times I threatened suicide to her and Janelle. When I went to my friend Tim's church, where Janelle was, I would often get angry for no reason, just because I felt like everyone hated me or I wasn't making enough headway with the girl, I would storm out and walk home. There were also the two times I tried to kill myself, both by overdose. For some reason I made it out both times without being admitted, mainly because I really didn't want to be. It probably would've helped, though. I always felt a little bit better though after the suicide attempts, kind of like how you feel better after crying. I felt renewed or invigorated or something. As for all the promiscuous online things I've been doing this past year or so, it started when I lied to my best friend in order to get money out of him. I told him my computer was broken, and so he lent me money. My computer really was broken, but all along I intended to use the money to buy a camera for use on the internet. I did just that, hiding the box out in the backyard and sneaking the camera in to my house. My parents bailed me out of that one, giving me the other thirty dollars I needed to fix my computer as well as taking the camera away. There was also the time I was on Prozac towards the end of the 2009 school year and became incredibly irritable and impulsive. I was writing things on my walls to remind me to never give up and that God hated me and that my parents were the enemy and they wanted to hold me back, etc. I wrote this things in pen, too. We had to repaint my walls. Occasionally I still write things when I'm frustrated. Around that same time I went out into the street and yelled things like "I'm going to kill myself!" and cursed my parents a lot in this fashion. Dr. Quinn felt that this period of markedly bad behavior was a "manic" phase brought on by the Prozac. This was one of the reasons he felt I was bipolar. I'm sure there's more impulsive things to list here, but those are the ones that stand out in my mind.
5. I definitely have anger problems, especially against my parents. I guess that could be normal teenage anger, but I don't feel like it is. I always get frustrated when I feel like they doubt that I'm going to be successful in life (that's more with my dad). I hate it when my dad suggests careers to me, such as being a teacher or something. I already know I want to be a politician (though I doubt that's going to happen) and feel like if he suggests anything else he somehow doubts my potential. One time I got really mad at him and attacked him, which resulted in him breaking one of my front teeth. I had to get a fake one. He started crying after this because he felt so badly. That was one of the few times I saw him cry. I've also gotten into the occasional physical scuffle with my mom, but she starts them sometimes. She'll hit my lightly for something and then I'll get really angry and hit her back. So yes, I have pretty bad anger problems and can get mad at pretty small things.
6. I used to have depersonalization a lot more often than I do know; it usually just occurs when I'm in an anxiety provoking situation. It's getting less, though. I feel like all of the medications I was on were making my anxiety worse. I don't really feel anxious that much anymore, though. It's still there, just not as prevalent.

Anyway, I feel like there's definitely something in addition to my anxiety disorders, whether it's BPD or some other personality disorder or bipolar. Thanks for reading all of this...

Hi Pete -

I don't know if you have BPD or not. We can't really advise you on that, because it really takes a mental-health professional to make that determination, and none of us here are qualified. If you are seeing a PhD-type psychologist, he should be able to give you a diagnosis. If he's just a mental-health counselor or social worker, then I think you should see a psychiatrist. (Not that I have anything at all against counselors or social workers -- my own therapist is a social worker, and she's wonderful, but she defers to psychiatrists for diagnosis and wants my medications prescribed by a psychiatrist vs. my regular doctor.) I think you definitely have something going on besides anxiety, whether BPD or bipolar or something else, and you should press to get the appropriate diagnosis, so that your treatment is more likely to be effective.

You're welcome to post here, with or without an official diagnosis and even if you don't have BPD, as long as you keep the focus on you and looking for strategies for managing your thinking and behavior.

Glad you found us!

Welcome to BPDR Pete. I commend you for trying to get to the bottom of your issues. It can be very difficult to figure out exactly what's going on with us. As Sari mentioned, we're not mental health professionals so we certainly won't give you a diagnosis. What we will give you is tips that have helped us cope through situations that may be similar to yours.

hi pete,

glad that you are here.

how old are you? are you still in school?

what's your favorite way to spend your free time?

lbjnltx

I'm sixteen years old and am home schooled.

hi pete,

how have you been lately?

what do you like to do for fun? are you an only child?

lbjnltx

Nope, I have an older sister.