BPDRecovery.com: Forums

HI
I am a bit scared and shy about coming here. I have not yet been diagnosed with BPD but I looked it up and looked at the DSM and I believe I have 5 of the 9 traits.
I also attend Al Anon and Adult Children of Alcoholics forum boards, I as yet have not been to face to face meetings. I am looking for a psych that can help me but its difficult.

I am not too sure what more to say ummm... I think I am BPD due to my interpersonal relationships and my romantic relationships. I feel like I am slowly going insane and I am totally illogical and I have no idea what I am doing, thinking, feeling or supposed to be feeling or thinking but I know what I am doing is destructive. I just can't seem to stop it. My husband does things to annoy me (he smokes too much pot for my liking), and that is a long story, but I feel so betrayed and abandoned when he does it, or goes fishing or basically wants to do anything without me...... I often think just ending it would be easier than trying to put up with this life...

Anyway.. that was a bit of an emotional vomit wasn't it??? sorry. I am 40 years old and have been with my husband for 5 years, married for just over one. Divorce has been mentioned several times. I have been divorced previously and had three other defacto marriages (living together relationships).

I really honestly feel like I am going insane.. I am hoping that I can get some help. NOt sure what to say, but hoping that I find understanding here, and I will try to work out how I can be looked at for a diagnosis officially, or have it rebuked and find out I am really just a nut job....

Sorry did I say something wrong here.. I notice other people introducing themselves got lots of replies but I have none here....

hey there linda
this board has been rather slow lately... so it's not you, it's jsut taht it's been slow going here.

welcome onboard

hope you'll get DBT... it's the most effective method for treating bpd, according to what I read online... there's an online yahoo groups for dbt... i also have a dbt workbook which i downloaded for free from the internet...

happy hanging around here.

linda,

Welcome.

Yes, I agree with MM, the board has been less active lately. So glad you have found your way to this board. This is a good place, and I hope you will stay awhile. I notice you're in Australia---could the time difference explain the lack of responses? I come in several times a day, and this is the first I've seen your post. Of course I tend to inadvertently miss posts somehow,ha,ha.

I'm not up on the best therapuetic techniques for bpd. I find for myself, coming here has helped me quite a bit. I was diagnosed back in the 70's, but it really wasn't until I found this board that I think I've really improved. Just knowing there are so many others who have had or are having the same thoughts and behaviors as I has been wonderful. To know one is not alone can be a good feeling. You sound very motivated, and IMHO, that's a very large part of the road to health.

Dagwood

what kind of opportunities are there for you to get therapy or medications? Don't know what kind of health system you have in Australia

Thanks for your replies,
I was starting to get a bit worried I had done something wrong.

I work as a Nurse in the AOD and mental health field funnily enough. I have grown up with addiction all around me. I have lived through soem hellish relationships and always thought externally for the cause.

It was only this year that I have gone to any form of counselling becasue I am actually in a good relationship and I feel I am making it bad.

so that prompted me to look at me. I am also now 40 and feel its time to think a little differently as a grown up would. I find lately I have been 'listening' more to others, to me, putting patterns together and I did some research on Abandonment theory that I thought coudl apply to me. That led me to BPD which I had never even considered before apart from a diagnosis of the people I work with (I have recently changed jobs so not working wth clients anymore).

I read the DSM IV on the disorder for the first time and it was like a lightbulb going off in my head. I just sat there nodding and nodding and nodding and identifying with so much of it.

That was only this week. Tuesday in fact. I am still a bit 'up in the air' with what to do with this new information. DBT sounds great and I find it is in line with Al Anon which is something I know a fair bit about.

I guess I am scared that if I go to the Dr and he tells me that I do NOT fit this diagnosis... then what is it that is wrong in my life??????? I am just basically sitting a bit scared right now and boards are a great way to get info while I am sitting at work.

My other difficulty with treatment..... my work.... bit of a clash hey. Also, I live in a relatively small place and there are not many services, and the local government mental health treatment centres do not cater for personality disorders as they are full up of 'serious' mental illness cases such as the floridly psychotic which I am not.. also.. I want to maintain a working relationship with those people which I currenlty have.

So................ I am sitting and pondering.

hey there

sorry got no answers to your questions...

but let us know how the pondering's going ya?

Hi Linda. Don't lose hope, it gets darkest before the dawn. I haven't been on this board long, but can tell you that it is helpful for me anyway to have a place to vent feelings. I have not been diagnosed BPD either, but have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and have a lot of BPD characteristics like you, especially with abandonment. Hope that you find a place here and check back often. It's harder going it alone. : )

Hello.

I am new here. Happy to have found the site with so much helpful information. I am 36 years old. Also trying to find myself and find some answers. Its difficult enough dealing with the effects of BPD, even worse dealing with it alone. So here I am, trying to fix myself and connect with others with the same symptoms. Even as simple as reading these posts, makes a woman feel not so lonely sometimes.

Hope we all find our way

Thrume,

Welcome to you! Glad you found your way here. Yeah, I know how good it is to know we are not alone.

Dagwood

I know what you mean ... I have only been here a short time myself, but already I am a 'less lonely' feeling woman, too.

("Welcome" linda and Thrume, to the forum!)

I went to the GP yesterday and got a referral to a clinical psychologist.
I coudln't tell the GP what was really going on for me, really are we supposed to open up about this confusing stuff in a 20 mintue appointmetn.
I lied and told her I was feeling depressed adn wanted to see some one 'good'

so, now I have to tell the psych that I lied to get to see her and I don't think I am depressed and the referral is wrong.... I have to get an appointment first I guess.

Anyway... I guess I am on the road to finding out if I am 'diagnosable' or not?????

The bottom line is that you know you are not well, not yourself, so telling a doctor that you are depressed seems a logical way into the system to me. You cannot be expected to diagnose yourself.

Hey Linda. =)

Glad you found your way here, new myself... but for some reason I feel this place is exactly what's needed for people who "know what's up", that just need a hand at the moment, which I've learned, never hurts. =)