Diagnosed BPD, in a Quiet Hell

>>17415001
I wish you the best, and i wish i could advise you anything at all.
I was diagnosed borderline back when i was 19, and since then i haven't found a single therapist who would agree to help me with this, expect this one guy who simply gave me some meds and told me to keep taking them
took these meds for over two months. didn't hel, didn't come back for more.
I'm traped in a hell where even i can't stand myself, not to mention my surrooundings, and i can't get out.
If there's a hope for you you're still not stuck in hell. You're still moving, unlike me.

>Getting it together has created this massive void in me

Have you thought about taking up new hobbies or a sport ?
Maybe something you can get passionate about and add some excitement to your life.

>>17415020
>i cant stand myself
You're more than the sum total of your parts, and those things you cannot stand about yourself might not even be a part of you. Imagine if someone you love became severely burned...wouldn't you still love them the same? Maybe you love their mind, or their voice, or their intentions.

Do you dislike your own thoughts? Maybe they aren't so bad. There's no way to gauge all of your thoughts in total as worse than someone else's. Personally, I have considered some of the worst things imaginable, or maybe just fantacized. I still try to love myself. You should too.

As for the therapists turning you down solely due to your diagnosis, if that's really what is happening, they're outdated and/or incompetent hacks. Continue looking for help.

A lot of people with BPD have learned helplessness, and truly feel helpless, but if your only wish at the moment is to get therapy and experience peace, I promise you can achieve that.

>>17415001
How old are you?

>>17415037
guitar
working (heh)
body art
songwriting (bad songwriting)
photography
kind of collecting/curating media
philosophy
cooking

Its all a little bit solitary atm

>>17415045
21

>>17415049
You're still young enough that the prognosis isn't terrible. You need to be in therapy, preferably more often than once per week. The tough part about treating personality disorders isn't the symptoms, its that they're literally perversions of development. They take time, hard work, and an experienced therapist to deal with because you're going to need to painstakingly redesign all of the maturation and individuation you've done for the last decade or so. This isn't a matter of fixing you, its a matter of rebuilding who you are and how you look at the world. If you're in an urban area with a deep bench of psychologists, you have a shot. If you don't, you should consider moving.

If neither of those options appeal to you, well, the odds aren't good. Theres a reason I don't see 40 year old borderline men in my office despite specializing in Cluster B: they tend to kill themselves or find their way to prison.

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>>17415001

You, my friend, are in luck.

New Years Eve 2013/2014 I was going to hang myself from the closet with my belt.

My grillfriend came home from work early and caught me writing my notes. She had me admitted to a inpatient crazy hospital.

I spent 6 days there and was diagnosed with having BPD.

I just kinda dealt with it until six months ago. My shrink suggested Lamictal and said it was hit or miss with his patients; for some it was THE drugs that helped them in all areas across the board (including BPD) but with other it did little to nothing.

Well long story short, I'm been on 200 MGs of Lamictal for two and a half months now and it has completely turned my life around mentally and emotionally.

Also, look into DBT; it's a type of therapy specifically for people with BPD. The handbook used to teach the class has been THE BIBLE for the DBT therapy but it was written 25 years ago.

Just last year, she finally released the Second version which has tons of new findings, studies and information.

DBT can last up to 18 months but it's supposed to be the best possibly way to learn how to cope and manage your BDP.

I'm actually going in tomorrow for an intake and will start the twice a week program in two weeks.

One session is with an individual therapist and the other is with a group of roughly 8 to 12 people.

I'm 30 years old and I just figured out what has been helping me fuck my entire life up but this is where I turn it all around.

Lamictal and DBT, senpai.

You have the information from someone who is/was in your shoes; what you choose to do with it is now up to you.

Good luck, senpai.

>>17415058
>Also, look into DBT;

It only works if you're going to do the intensive style and can find a clinician who is also a borderline and thus has poor enough boundaries to behave like Linehan.

Its fashionable, sure, but most places have watered it down and don't have the...unique perspective Marsha's crazy ass does.

You're going from a life of insane, rollercoaster-esque thrill at the expense of your sanity, stability, and health to one of organized, "settled down" life.

In other words, you've gone from being living the life of painful excitement to one that your every day joe deals with. It's a huge, huge change to make and you're going to feel real fucking bored about it for awhile.

>>17415057
I'm in Trenton. There's a rail line to every major city. Thank you for the advice. That's what I tell others, to move if necessary.

Do you have any commentary to follow the part about suicide? Like, what is "rebuilding how I see myself and the world"? Is that a term for changing deep-seated ideas and opinions?

>>17415075

Well I've never really had any type of defined self-image or beliefs.

Laws, ethics, morals, rules are all man made and therefor imperfect plus they change over time.

My mentality was: "Why obey them then?"

I didn't and have gotten into a some pretty bad trouble over the years.

Dump as much as you can about how you see the world and just take it one day at a time, one step at a time.

>>17415070

Worst, case: placebo effect.

The drugs are working wonders too.

>>17415075
Commentary about suicide? Well, that void you're feeling isn't going away on it's own. Neither is the instability, the rage, the idealization and devaluation. Its all going to be there forever unless you do something about it. As you get older, its going to get worse because the consequences will become more severe. In high school you might lose a friend or ten. What do you think you'd do if you lost a job you depended on, your kids, your house? Men are more likely to complete suicide overall, so when it gets to be too much a lot of them succeed in taking their leave.

As for rebuilding yourself. The personality disorders are different from, say, depression. They're not states someone is in, they're tightly packed traits. If you think of personality development as a road, someone with depression might have potholes that need to be filled in, but their road is still going where its supposed to. Someone with BPD has a road thats five or six degrees off from where its supposed to be headed. You might not notice it in the first mile, but over a few hundred more you're not where other people are. The work, then, is dragging the road back on course.

I'm not just talking about your ideas and opinions. I'm talking about how you see yourself, how you see others, the ways in which you expect relationships to work, the basic things you believe to be true about the world, all of that needs to change. At the same time, you need to work on building ways of managing the extremes, the feelings, the instant and intense reactions that are already fucking up your life.

>>17415058
I own the 2nd Edition and I'm on a low dose of lithium and Remeron, with Clonazepam for any panic that might crop up.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm very glad you are doing better. I think the DBT program in this area takes Medicaid, and I will be going in the next few months. My biggest goal is to make enough money at work to buy insurance and see a therapist who specializes in cluster b and I get along with, because I the work I did with a high-risk psychologist for three months might have extended my life a decade...

good luck to you, f.am, and I hope the program works well for you. what you learn should at least protect you, if it doesn't help you feel better.

>>17415070
Also the therapist needs to be hot. <3

What is wrong with Linehan and her boundaries? I understand she's a new age catholic woman but that doesn't automatically invalidate her work. Before her, the majority psychologists were turning Borderlines away, letting the world have at them and vice versa.

That's the cannon, at least. Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about.

>>17415098
Worst case is he runs into a shitty DBT program and ends up in prison because the social worker he started fucking dumped him and he set her porch on fire then needed six cops, a face full of mace, and enough volts from a taser that he spent his first twelve hours in lockup marinating in his own waste to bring him in.

DBT can go bad, hard. And thats if I buy the underlying premise that it works at all, which I'm still not sold on.

I'm not surprised the drugs are working wonders. I prefer the atypicals for getting BPD under control while a patient is in therapy, but Lamictal can be the right call as well. Glad you're seeing an improvement.

>>17415111
Unless you're into bears I might not be the one for you, then.

Anyway, the problem with Linehan is that she's a Borderline and she is not well controlled. Her technique might be great, although I'm suspicious as hell of any manualized treatment, but I wouldn't want to work with her again and I absolutely wouldn't be in treatment with her.

>>17415112
you really must specialize in cluster b, because you're being pretty dramatic

atypicals feel like getting hit with a cartoon mallet, although they certainly do get people under control. I'd say start with atypicals to stop the patient from wildin' out, and then switch to something that helps.

>>17415126
I'm actually describing a patient I just started working with.

As for the meds, you're pretty much describing what the psychiatrists I refer to favor. If anyone needs a cartoon mallet, its a Borderline when the associations start to loosen and we see why Klein talked about a borderline between neurotic and psychotic.

>>17415123
>wouldn't want to work with her again
the person I know who met her was hurt and offended by her

small world

that's a sample size of two but still 100% had bad interactions with her...

I see her as less of a doctor or even Zen master, more of a person who pulled themselves out of the mouth of madness and then had the courage to reverse some of the damage and inspire others to stop ditching their clients

all in all i'm okay with her

but I see your point about dbt not being all that is necessary. some disorders don't respond to talk, but of course you need to make lifestyle changes if you want to get better, so talk therapy is needed for that aspect.

i'm thinking that if I can maintain relationships with people and participate in society that I will feel much better. That's the type of stuff I'll need talk therapy to assist, with stuff DBT doesn't touch on. DBT (or more like the ideas explored in DBT) saved me from the damage I was doing to myself and made existing more tolerable.

>>17415140
Also, to be completely fair, I have some ideological differences with Linehan that color my view of DBT. I'm part of the tradition that never really gave up on the Borderlines, so the idea of her as a savior feels a lot like a marketing pitch.

Still, if it works for you, go for it. I'd still advise you find someone for continued work after the 18 months of DBT to deal with some of the structural changes you'll need to make for long term maintenance, but thats something I'd suggest for pretty much anyone on the old Axis II.

>>17415072
this was my first impression too

>>17415046
You could try something exciting (which will vary depending on you).
Think mountain biking, skydiving, rock climbing, shooting, etc..
No harm in trying.

>>17415134
seems like we're in agreement about a lot.

I remember they put my Seroquel up to 300mg, once I started thinking that the only facility willing to treat me...was the enemy or some such loosely thought out shit.

I'd refer someone to the Princeton Healthcare System. I hear it's good for more than just mental health, of course.

They have this big glomp of personality disordered people in their teens and 20s, because there is literally NO other place covered by insurance that doesn't dismiss or misdiagnose them.

I am grateful for my cartoon mallet, and the attention of that BPD clinician.

>>17415187
I think patients with personality disorders should focus on finding clinicians in private practice over group practices or institutions. Institutions tend to be risk averse and don't like high-impact patients. I know when I refer them out (I have to sometimes, I'll only take on 4 or 5 Cluster B patients at any given time) I only refer to sole proprietors.

>>17415100
I see your point about the suicide here. Luckily my philosophy doesn't allow for suicide over something like a fluctuation in emotional pain, however severe. So, the only way I would complete a suicide is if I drastically changed my philosophy or just went insane. When insane, I am more likely to ask for help than give up.

I don't have any intention of letting this go untreated. Feeling loosely connected to reality is the least pleasant part. I remember developing this as a kid and having it in the back of my mind that I could ride out any disappointment or loss...but I don't know how to ride out feeling like I'm 2 inches from a TV playing the Truman Show 2 starring Anon.


>picking up the road and dragging it where it needs to be
I want to be a good friend, worker, and citizen, one who likes himself. Is that where the road needs to be headed?

>the instant and intense reactions that are already fucking up your life
*sweats profusely*

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40 year old BPD here, been in and out of therapy most of my life but only did DBT with one therapist and was not impressed with how fast she rammed through the material. might try it again at some point, idk.

am monitoring this thread with great interest.

not to hijack but I have a question for OP or any other BPD's here: have any of you found any relief with standard CBT? I've done some of it with therapists, and it helps up to a point, but after that point it stops feeling like I'm restructuring my thoughts in a positive way and starts feeling like I'm just brainwashing myself. anybody else have this? it's like I'm trying to change faster than I can change or something.

>>17415201
>Is that where the road needs to be headed?

I'm not your shrink, but the externality of those goals concerns me.

Get into treatment, get into the cycle of idealization and devaluation with your therapist, both of you will survive it, and you'll move onto that corrective emotional experience they're always prattling on about at conventions.

>>17415209
>30 years of fighting in the psychological community: the post

>>17415222
I'm not sure what you mean, can you explain?

>>17415200
I know what you mean from the patient side of things. I'm just saying when inpatient/intensive outpatient is necessary, I'd say that place works for PD'd people, whereas most don't.

They say there that the goal is to get people in specialized, individual sessions.

Once a week at least. That is funny, because I am on Medicaid, and there are literally two PsyD's in the entire county available to me. Medicaid, the bare minimum. It's because they are black and couldn't stand having all white clients, knowing that black people on Medicaid were going unhelped.

>>17415227
Theres been a fight between clinicians over how we should look at mental illness. On one side are the analysts who argue that mental illness is symbolic and the symptoms can be understood. On the other side are the behaviorists, who argue that we should really just be training people out of their symptoms and talking them out of their negative thoughts because whats underneath is irrelevant. You've got a few people who try to blend the perspectives, Linehan being one of them but she needs those grant dollars so she plays the manualized treatment game, but they're not well represented in the actual practicing world.

Your post just sounded to me like a sales pitch for traditional analysis, what with talking about how things were moving too quickly, how something was missing, and how CBT only works in the short term.

>>17415123

I need a male therapist; women are just too soft.

The first time I tried DBT with the first edition, I got a FRESH, green, still wet behind the ears out of grad school social worker.

She couldn't handle the shit I told her.

I need someone who will not sugar coat shit and tell me the cold hard truth.

I'm the 30 year old guy on Lamictal.

>>17415165
it is a marketing pitch. it's the same as 12-step. i'm an alcoholic and it's say 1945...

i'll take it. ya dig?

and yeah I want to be in the most correct therapy setting, but it costs all this money I don't have at the moment. I'm living as cheaply as possible...

My current psychologist has seen me once (I just found one who completed school I can afford) and instead of starting on the BPD she started on the trauma. I don't know what to think of that, but it's something so I'll go with it.

>>17415241
ah ok, I thought that might be what you meant, thank you

>>17415235
I hear you on inpatient, but thats primarily to keep someone from killing themselves or others. I don't see the point of inpatient hospitalizations outside of that. I've never actually seen IOP be much more than revenue generation.

Its unfortunate you're having trouble finding someone who takes Medicaid. That said, I don't take Medicaid because they make it very, very difficult to take it. The application process is a nightmare, the documentation requirements are higher than any other insurance, theres an onerous amount of additional paperwork, and for putting up with all that you get half of what other insurances pay and sometimes wait six or eight months for even that.

>>17415250
Too bad you aren't in Chicago.

>>17415251
12 Step doesn't work, though. The statistics on it are terrible. AA is literally worse than no support.

Starting on the trauma, though? She might be new but she has the right idea.

>>17415185
I think I'll do musical performance or something. Even if I'm not an impressive musician, I can enhance these people's tastes.

That's good thinking, something more engaging. Thank you.

>>17415213
>the externality of those goals concerns me

so you weren't lying about being a therapist
maybe that's why I feel so empty. I'm denying a lot of how I feel at the moment. I turned away that girl so harshly and abruptly, with the knowledge that there was a 25% (ballpark) chance I didn't need to. That's one of those intense immediate reactions you were talking about.

Not looking for a response, just showing you I roughly understand what you're saying.

Splitting was the reason too, another thing you mentioned.

>>17415209
>have you had a good experience with CBT?
It helped my interpersonal skills a lot. I just needed the pointers, none of the paper homework stuff. I guess you can call anything CBT.

>>17415070

I'll spare you the details but I'm on probation and was violated pretty hard in January.

Ended up spending a month in jail and losing all of my privileges.

I played my last trump card: my very recent diagnoses with BPD. They said if I got into a program then I could get everything back upon completion.

The meds have helped a TON but I'm just doing the DBT for the certificate I get upon graduation; I may learn a few things here or there but I'm just in it for the piece of paper.

So I keep my nose clean, finish the program and I'm back in their good graces (for the most part). Trust is going to take awhile to build back up but I'm patient.

>>17415252
also I should add I wasn't trying to shill for traditional or any other kind of therapy. I've found traditional analysis can devolve into navel-gazing pretty quick and leave me more in the doldrums and feeling more stuck than before. at least CBT - when it's working - feels like I'm doing something.

>>17415264
>tfw I just admitted DBT is twelve-step
o i am laffin

the people in it aren't worthless, at least not all of them. you remember that. i'll remember that.

>>17415255
>Medicaid woes
yeah. the state loves to be ineffective. every state, apparently. kristie's trump endorsement and hotdog delivery to his mouth has been pretty direct and no-nonsense though.

someone who knows what's going on (non-profit counseling CEO) with human services said they might be doubling what Medicaid pays therapists, but I don't know about his level of certainty.

>>17415250
>she couldn't handle the shit I told her
>I needed a male
did it need to be a male who felt that he could take you? what were you telling her?

>>17415241
>things were moving too quickly
>something was missing

well that describes about every scenario ever

also of course the symptoms need to be understood

you can't treat a PTSD person like a bipolar person they are just different

where's the debate?

>>17415308
I never said anything about anyone being worthless, just that comparing DBT to 12 Step isn't the best comparison. Hell, I'm not a fan of DBT and I recognize its miles better than AA.

As for Medicaid, well, part of why I got into this business is I liked the idea of not having a boss that hovers over my shoulder and picks my pocket.

>>17415321
>where's the debate?

The debate is in the basic way we conceptualized mental illness. Its not that one treatment fits all, its the question of what these things we're looking at mean. There is a very real argument within the psychological community about whether or not we should have aligned ourselves with the medical community and whether we have any business calling what we do science.

>>17415325
yeah I phrased that wrong, directing that at you. sorry.

What I mean is that a lot of good people's valiant efforts get wasted or go unrecognized because they were indoctrinated into some kind of cult, and it pisses me off. It makes me angry that people these days need to be Buddhists just to sit in silence. The idea that every charitable organization should be headed by some sort of religious ideology is completely destructive and annoying. I want to see the death of traditional religion and cults.

>>17415333
yeah but if you've really considered being a therapist from every angle and completely decided that you're going to do it in a traditional, licensed way, what good is wondering whether or not it's a science?

you already know that parts of it may be science, and parts of it definitely aren't. the question is, does it change what you're going to do? if not, why even waste thought on it?

>>17415348
It absolutely changes what we're going to do, especially at the level of research. The Behaviorists, who badly want to be accepted scientists, have strongly advocated for an empirical, objective, easily measured, university-grant-friendly outlook. The existentialists and analysts have argued against that, instead wanting to have an outlook more like an applied humanity, focusing on case studies and the like.

Its an interesting fight if you're in the community, but I can see why it wouldn't seem like a big deal to someone on the outside.

>>17415041
>You're more than the sum total of your parts
Constructivism is just reductionism that ignores the existence of scale. It's wrong and nothing in our universe has been observed to behave that way.

So no, anon is most certainly the sum of their parts, and this defines the total number of states they can occupy relative to any given environmental stimuli and a given starting state. This is the limit of their experience, and this is their nature. The human body is a machine.

Same thing applies for more abstract concepts.

>>17415373
I'm not saying it isn't interesting. I just must not be involved enough to know how the debate hinders either side from pursuing what they want to do. You said it has to do with funding?

if you align yourselves with the medical community it lends an air of legitimacy that makes it a lot easier to get insurance plans to cover mental health services.

with what it costs to run a psychology practice, and the kind of fees you have to charge to stay in business, it's pretty hard to keep clients *and* get paid unless you either take insurance or only have rich clients. I do know of a husband and wife (a shrink and a psychologist) who don't take insurance, but literally every other practice I've heard of does. with therapy running $50-$150 per session or more, it's fucking hard to afford unless your insurance covers it. so clients and providers both want it covered.

but to do that, you have to make it look like there's science behind it, which of course there is - but because each person has a different personality and set of issues, I'm guessing you have problems with repeatability that, say, physicists don't have. and each therapist is a person and may rub some clients the right or wrong way regardless of their actual skill. so it's also an art. insurance doesn't want to hear that, they want measurable risks. they want to hear what's wrong and how you, the provider, are gonna fix it so they don't have to keep paying out for the same thing. so you kinda have to look at this individual human being whose traits, behaviours, problems etc. are like a watercolour of colours all blended together; pick a reasonably well-defined area within the parameters set out by the diagnostic criteria; and try to draw an outline around it that matches one of the approved shapes that insurance recognises and will pay for.

>>17415407
Philosophy is part of it. We're as bad as the Abrahamic religions when it comes to little differences of opinion. Funding is another part, but that tends to be in the universities.

>>17415412
i'm totally a fan of philosophy, but there's this one song I like about how a person can spend their entire life thinking about what it means to be alive and what you're supposed to do with a life, finding no definite answers and then dying

the chorus is basically like "I am here. This is what I'm doing. Be okay with it." It really helps me when I'm feeling like I'm on TV and not in real life, because stopping everything to pay it full attention only works in moderate doses.

>>17415410
>$50-$150

lmao in this area it's $200 to $600, because they can get away with that here

>insurance doesn't like that
but biology is under the same kind of scrutiny that psychology is *to a degree*, and nobody is like abandoning the field or stopping biological treatments

also if you do x and the patient comes out y, why get all hubbub about the in-between? insurance wants the patient to be well, so that they don't have to pay for treatment. If something completely silly like looking at memes on the internet kept clients health and not needing treatment, wouldn't they in theory pay for meme treatment?

>>17415448
>also if you do x and the patient comes out y,

Except theres pretty much no objective means of tracking progress in therapy. The trappings of science are convenient because it allows everyone to take what we do on faith.

>>17415001

It's like throwing out all the shit in your room. The feces on the wall from 3 years ago - gone. The half-torn half-written journal from puberty? gone. That stain on the carpet from that bitch that burned a candle too low? gone.

When you get your life clean, it can probably feel sterile. The character seems gone.

What you do then is re-fill it will cool things. Hobbies. Great stories. Etc. That's what people with "straight" lives do. But the hobbies they pick aren't drugs and abusive relationships.

The hobbies are instead things like books, philosophy, nerd rage arguments, etc. Or perhaps you are more physical, and you should go hiking, dancing, hunting, whatever.

My parents went full speed ahead into re-enacting 14th century american culture. Hell, I camped in a teepee as a child. They taught, for fun, various schools on how to do shit. They canoed in some amazingly beautiful places. They currently, in their retirement, travel all over the world for fun, talking to new people, going to small town museams or whatever and seeing every tourest trap around. They're not bored and they don't feel empty.

I currently raise kids, read, program, an obsess mildly into like 10 different hobbies. If I had time and money I'd add in a few more as well. I really want to learn blacksmithy, and I want to write a book on my own philosophy at some point (no, I'm not a philosophy major, it's just a nice arrogant hobby i have). I collect textbooks. I would love to design a house (no, I don't know how to do that either). There is plenty of stuff to fill the room.

Good luck anon!

>>17415454
this, plus therapy relies on a trust factor more than medicine does. if your doc gives you the correct antibiotics, those antibiotics will work regardless of whether you think they will or not, and regardless of what you think of your doc. therapy, not so much.

>>17415471
this is very true. tough to do if you don't have a lot of money. but there are some good cheap hobbies out there too.

also, you might not be well-versed in being loving towards yourself. that is another thing that you can work on that will help feelings of emptiness.

>>17415454
Oh, I see. I can kind of see why they would want it to be considered an art then, if the best result is taking the therapist and client's word for it when they say they're better.

What else can you do though? Without psychology taking in the mentally ill, you get the justice system and welfare state doing it.

>>17415471
If I had to align myself with a religion, it would probably be Zen. I don't necessarily consider you arrogant for wanting to philosophize and/or understand philosophy.

Hopefully these activities will fill the void. At the very least, they will distract from it. Thanks for the good luck wishes, and please do enjoy your hobbies.

>>17415485
>well-versed in being loving towards yourself
Even though some of this standing up for myself looks like those immediate, intense reactions you described, it does make me feel more valuable and safe. I'll be having a complete, not tattered wardrobe for the first time ever pretty soon too. I also lend myself to charity and doing enjoyable things with other people, to help myself feel like a decent person.

thanks for all the help, guys

this was an amazing turnout. I'm not sure how this much help came out of an /adv/ thread

i hope some people who relate to my post found a little bit of hope here

>>17415537
thank you too OP, best of luck!