Topic Tuesday // Living with BPD - your questions answered // 3 Oct. 7pm - 9pm AEST

Mr shaz have major depressive and other diagnosis @Former-Member xx

For those who may have missed the question we are up to:

You’re right, @Phoenix_Rising — it is all trying to get help.

But when people talk about ‘manipulative’ behaviour, they are referring to behaviour where a person does something on purpose, to make another person respond in a certain way (regardless of what the inner reason may be).

Sorry I haven’t made it any clearer—I’ll try to think of another concrete example.

Manipulative behaviour by people with BPD, is almost always done out of desperation, because a person is trying to deal with inner pain and/or they are terrified of abandonment.

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Is there a way to explain BPD without people getting confused, scared, or mixing it up with bipolar?

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If someone who knew nothing about BPD asked me to explain it, I would say that I am hypersensitive to emotional stimuli. That is, I get super big feelings which flood my brain such that the thinking part doesn't work so well. In terms of distinguishing it from bipolar, I guess the easiest way to explain the difference would be to run through the diagnostic criteria for BPD and BP with them.

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@bookish wrote:

You’re right, @Phoenix_Rising — it is all trying to get help.

But when people talk about ‘manipulative’ behaviour, they are referring to behaviour where a person does something on purpose, to make another person respond in a certain way (regardless of what the inner reason may be).

Sorry I haven’t made it any clearer—I’ll try to think of another concrete example.

Manipulative behaviour by people with BPD, is almost always done out of desperation, because a person is trying to deal with inner pain and/or they are terrified of abandonment.

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@Former-Member People do things on purpose all the time to elicit help. I stand at the counter of a shop to make the shop assistant come and serve me. Is that manipulative?

If someone tries to elicit help due to pain, desperation and a fear of abandonment, surely that is help-seeking behaviour??? I truly cannot understand this concept. But I have been trying for twenty years, so it's totally ok if you can't make it clear tonight @Former-Member.

Is there a way to explain BPD without people getting confused, scared, or mixing it up with bipolar?

With 9 diagnostic criteria and lots of possible combinations of those, I would just explain what BPD means for me, in simple terms.
My emotions are often overwhelming.
I often use maladaptive coping strategies.
I have a poor (virtually non-existent) sense of self.
I am terrified of abandonment so I rarely let people in (that way they can’t abandon me).

And I would encourage them to ask me questions.