Topic Tuesday // BPD Awareness featuring SPECTRUM VIC // Tues 1 Oct, 7pm AEST

I might be the only person I've come across who actually likes the name, but not for its original etymology.

I often feel like my thoughts and emotions are pulled in different, opposing directions and I'm trying to walk along the diving wall between them. Sometimes I slip down into one side and can't see the other.

Not here my sister @BlueBay xxxx

Hey there @Former-Member welcome 🙂 Hit "reply" on any post to contribute or ask a question. It'll then post it in the thread alongside all others responses. If you would like to tag someone directly (Such as myself @Former-Member ) Simply put an @ in front of their name.

@cutiepiekitty Yes, there's lots of views about this issue. Some people use them interchangebly. There is certainly a lot of overlap between symptoms when you look at the lists. What's most important to me is how the diangosis makes sense to the person it is applied to - whether it resonates for them, whether it helps guide them towards the sort of help that may be of use etc.

@Former-Member

The way we think and speak about BPD is important. It’s understandable to focus on the problems of living with BPD – ie. the symptoms and the challenges they bring – because that’s the most visible aspect of the illness. But this can easily miss the function underneath someone’s experience.

Many of the symptoms of BPD are very adaptive. A person might self-harm because it’s their most effective tool for managing or expressing how they feel. Another might find themselves in unhappy relationships because being alone feels so much worse. A third might struggle to speak at all, because staying quiet was the best way of keeping safe in the past. By themselves any of these strategies would be fine except that they cause knock-on problems for the individual or those around them.

So although everybody with BPD is different, there are usually good reasons for why any of us act the way we do, and often we can be unaware of what those reasons are. I think approaching BPD from this perspective is a lot less stigmatising since it starts with respect for the person at the centre of it, is less judgemental of their symptoms, and also helps to map out what recovery might look like: perhaps by finding less harmful ways of managing feelings, or better ways of navigating relationships, or practicing more effective ways of communicating.

@Former-Member @AndrewSpectrum @JulianSpectrum

I don’t tell anyone. The only people that know is my hubby children and treating team. I didn’t go into detail with my kids.

Can’t tell my parents or siblings or friends. Fear of being judged, talked about and ashamed.

Too hard to explain. It feels I’m flawed as a person which I probably am 😢

@Former-Member

We don't often talk about the BPD diagnosis other than with medical professionals.

For people close to us providing support we have sent them a link to a credible fact sheet and encouraged them read it and to ask questions. This is because it is not easy to explain. For us anyway .

@Former-Member

I think this is a really challenging point to think about. On the one hand, for some people, becoming aware of the specific criteria of BPD or the general sorts of difficulties someone with the disorder can experience can be very helpful. Within this it is important that we recognise it as a legitmate and often debilitating mental health difficulty, rather than seeing it as ‘flawed/bad’ personality.

On the other hand, to meet the diagnostic threshold for having the disorder you need to have any 5 of the 9 DSM criteria. What this means in practice is that you can meet the criteria for having BPD in far over 100 different ways. Research continues to find that people with BPD tend to also meet the criteria for having several other sorts of mental health disorders. Putting this all together, people can have very different manifestations and experiences of their difficulties. As such, I think describing BPD could be improved by not just relying on symptoms lists that have no personalised context. In our clinical work, I prefer to explain the diagnosis in a way that is specific to the difficulties the person is experiencing and their experience in life to date, as it tends to have more relevance, meaning, and context. As Andrew has said, crucial to this is seeing the person at the centre of all of this, rather than a collection of symptoms. If we start from this position, symptoms that can seeming confusing or contradictory can start to seem more understandable if we understand the person’s history, the functions of the behaviours, and the context around them.

@AndrewSpectrum I don’t feel embarrassed or judged on here. I know I get the support becayse others with BPD understand.

I’m really enjoying tonight chat 😊

@Lise07 It's good to hear that the term can still have some helpful meaning for you and captures something of your experiece.