I have Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).
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For the record, I also have Major Depressive Disorder, cPTSD, ADHD, and a history of codependency.
These are all things I live with every day and work to manage and improve around. Some of them are more responsive to therapy and behavioral changes, some are more responsive to physiological interventions like medication and Transcranial magnetic stimulation. There is hope for recovery on most of these, and it’s also something where having a culture and society that isn’t structured in a way hostile to our brains would help a hell of a lot. So let’s all work to end stigma and make this world less hostile to folks with different kinds of brains, please friends?
@JoscelynTransient And this doesn’t change the things I’ve said about you being awesome and wonderful. You are
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R relay@relay.mycrowd.ca shared this topic
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For the record, I also have Major Depressive Disorder, cPTSD, ADHD, and a history of codependency.
These are all things I live with every day and work to manage and improve around. Some of them are more responsive to therapy and behavioral changes, some are more responsive to physiological interventions like medication and Transcranial magnetic stimulation. There is hope for recovery on most of these, and it’s also something where having a culture and society that isn’t structured in a way hostile to our brains would help a hell of a lot. So let’s all work to end stigma and make this world less hostile to folks with different kinds of brains, please friends?
@JoscelynTransient *hugs hugs hugs* as a bipolar and trauma girlie I understand and support your struggle to be seen as a whole person
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I have Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).
If you have stereotypes, expectations, or assumptions about what that means, then maybe this is a chance to reconsider or change them. If you think of me as a friend, as caring or supportive, as interesting or fun, or as a community member you like, then maybe think about how just because someone has a personality disorder doesn’t mean they can’t be these things.
There’s A LOT of stigma around BPD. Many people use it as a synonym for “abusive,” which is not only wrong, but makes it pretty damn hard for people with the disorder to get mental healthcare that can help. The vast majority of people with BPD are survivors of trauma and it often is comorbid with cPTSD, disorganized attachment history, and codependency. The difference for it versus those other things that research suggests is a genetic component where our nervous systems are hypersensitive to certain kinds of things, leading to developing the disorder when exposed to trauma and intense stress.
There are also useful skills, therapies, and interventions that can help you or your loved ones with BPD. It’s still hard, but I know it’s improved my life to finally work on it and make progress on my mental health. Can it be overwhelming and hard when someone with BPD is in crisis? Of course, especially if they haven’t gotten the right kinds of help and support. But so is everyone who is in crisis. As someone who has helped people with just about every disorder and people with no diagnosable disorders when they are in a mental health crisis, it is challenging to help folks when the shit hits the fan and you have to adapt your strategies to the person and what will help them.
People with BPD are not uniquely terrible or bad or evil or abusive, and I choose to be out about having it so we can begin to challenge the stigma around this.
#BorderlinePersonalityDisorder #BPD #EndMentalHealthStigma #EndStigma
@JoscelynTransient@chaosfem.tw as someone who just got it confirmed that she has BPD, I thank you for posting this.
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I have Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).
If you have stereotypes, expectations, or assumptions about what that means, then maybe this is a chance to reconsider or change them. If you think of me as a friend, as caring or supportive, as interesting or fun, or as a community member you like, then maybe think about how just because someone has a personality disorder doesn’t mean they can’t be these things.
There’s A LOT of stigma around BPD. Many people use it as a synonym for “abusive,” which is not only wrong, but makes it pretty damn hard for people with the disorder to get mental healthcare that can help. The vast majority of people with BPD are survivors of trauma and it often is comorbid with cPTSD, disorganized attachment history, and codependency. The difference for it versus those other things that research suggests is a genetic component where our nervous systems are hypersensitive to certain kinds of things, leading to developing the disorder when exposed to trauma and intense stress.
There are also useful skills, therapies, and interventions that can help you or your loved ones with BPD. It’s still hard, but I know it’s improved my life to finally work on it and make progress on my mental health. Can it be overwhelming and hard when someone with BPD is in crisis? Of course, especially if they haven’t gotten the right kinds of help and support. But so is everyone who is in crisis. As someone who has helped people with just about every disorder and people with no diagnosable disorders when they are in a mental health crisis, it is challenging to help folks when the shit hits the fan and you have to adapt your strategies to the person and what will help them.
People with BPD are not uniquely terrible or bad or evil or abusive, and I choose to be out about having it so we can begin to challenge the stigma around this.
#BorderlinePersonalityDisorder #BPD #EndMentalHealthStigma #EndStigma
@JoscelynTransient the symptoms of BPD are basically the same as disorganized attachment, ADHD and unmanaged or even managed CPTSD. They have also done multiple studies showing that clinicians drastically over diagnose it even in trans people with no symptoms.
It's very stigmatized.
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For the record, I also have Major Depressive Disorder, cPTSD, ADHD, and a history of codependency.
These are all things I live with every day and work to manage and improve around. Some of them are more responsive to therapy and behavioral changes, some are more responsive to physiological interventions like medication and Transcranial magnetic stimulation. There is hope for recovery on most of these, and it’s also something where having a culture and society that isn’t structured in a way hostile to our brains would help a hell of a lot. So let’s all work to end stigma and make this world less hostile to folks with different kinds of brains, please friends?
One thing I think can help people understand Borderline Personality Disorder is to realize it functions a lot like relationship-based PTSD.
Basically, what happens when you get activated or triggered within friendships/relationships/etc is that our nervous system goes into full fight/flight/freeze/fawn. Our nervous system is screaming at us that this small disagreement or misunderstanding is do or die, life or death, the most immediate and urgent thing.
Now, think about what happens when someone is drowning and their nervous system is doing that. When I was given basic training around what to do when someone is drowning, the first thing they said was don’t swim up next to them and try to pull them out by hand - a drowning person will push and pull you down into the water with them and drown both of you. Instead, you throw a life preserver and pull them in to shore.
It’s a lot like that. Your nervous system says it’s drowning, and you need to push and pull with everything in you to survive…only that push and pull is relationship and social dynamics. Understanding that’s what’s going on for me has helped me step back, ground myself, and reassess as I do practical things to de-escalate my fight/flight. People can also help by being around but maintaining important and key boundaries to help me feel safe but not push and pull them under.
So if you know someone with BPD in crisis, put yourself in their shoes. While this thing that is exploding may seem like small beans to you, their nervous system is screaming at them that it is life or death. Hopefully that can help in finding compassion for them
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@JoscelynTransient the symptoms of BPD are basically the same as disorganized attachment, ADHD and unmanaged or even managed CPTSD. They have also done multiple studies showing that clinicians drastically over diagnose it even in trans people with no symptoms.
It's very stigmatized.
@CharlotteEowyn yep, the cluster b personality disorders heavily overlap with those, and understanding it as a trauma disorder really helped me in managing it better. It has elements that extend past cPTSD and disorganized attachment, but I don’t know that you get BPD without those in the mix.
And it does have major problems with overdiagnosis. As one YouTuber put it, some people basically just treat it as “annoying bitch syndrome” and it gets tossed on women and gender minorities by doctors excessively to pathologize actual needs, which fucking sucks. It’s still very much a thing, but it helps to really contextualize it and see what is going on with it
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One thing I think can help people understand Borderline Personality Disorder is to realize it functions a lot like relationship-based PTSD.
Basically, what happens when you get activated or triggered within friendships/relationships/etc is that our nervous system goes into full fight/flight/freeze/fawn. Our nervous system is screaming at us that this small disagreement or misunderstanding is do or die, life or death, the most immediate and urgent thing.
Now, think about what happens when someone is drowning and their nervous system is doing that. When I was given basic training around what to do when someone is drowning, the first thing they said was don’t swim up next to them and try to pull them out by hand - a drowning person will push and pull you down into the water with them and drown both of you. Instead, you throw a life preserver and pull them in to shore.
It’s a lot like that. Your nervous system says it’s drowning, and you need to push and pull with everything in you to survive…only that push and pull is relationship and social dynamics. Understanding that’s what’s going on for me has helped me step back, ground myself, and reassess as I do practical things to de-escalate my fight/flight. People can also help by being around but maintaining important and key boundaries to help me feel safe but not push and pull them under.
So if you know someone with BPD in crisis, put yourself in their shoes. While this thing that is exploding may seem like small beans to you, their nervous system is screaming at them that it is life or death. Hopefully that can help in finding compassion for them
@JoscelynTransient@chaosfem.tw thank you for putting this into words. My nervous system 100% does this.
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@CharlotteEowyn yep, the cluster b personality disorders heavily overlap with those, and understanding it as a trauma disorder really helped me in managing it better. It has elements that extend past cPTSD and disorganized attachment, but I don’t know that you get BPD without those in the mix.
And it does have major problems with overdiagnosis. As one YouTuber put it, some people basically just treat it as “annoying bitch syndrome” and it gets tossed on women and gender minorities by doctors excessively to pathologize actual needs, which fucking sucks. It’s still very much a thing, but it helps to really contextualize it and see what is going on with it
@JoscelynTransient I am honestly not convinced it exists but I am convinced the cluster of symptoms exist and can be treated.
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@CharlotteEowyn yep, the cluster b personality disorders heavily overlap with those, and understanding it as a trauma disorder really helped me in managing it better. It has elements that extend past cPTSD and disorganized attachment, but I don’t know that you get BPD without those in the mix.
And it does have major problems with overdiagnosis. As one YouTuber put it, some people basically just treat it as “annoying bitch syndrome” and it gets tossed on women and gender minorities by doctors excessively to pathologize actual needs, which fucking sucks. It’s still very much a thing, but it helps to really contextualize it and see what is going on with it
@JoscelynTransient also: right
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One thing I think can help people understand Borderline Personality Disorder is to realize it functions a lot like relationship-based PTSD.
Basically, what happens when you get activated or triggered within friendships/relationships/etc is that our nervous system goes into full fight/flight/freeze/fawn. Our nervous system is screaming at us that this small disagreement or misunderstanding is do or die, life or death, the most immediate and urgent thing.
Now, think about what happens when someone is drowning and their nervous system is doing that. When I was given basic training around what to do when someone is drowning, the first thing they said was don’t swim up next to them and try to pull them out by hand - a drowning person will push and pull you down into the water with them and drown both of you. Instead, you throw a life preserver and pull them in to shore.
It’s a lot like that. Your nervous system says it’s drowning, and you need to push and pull with everything in you to survive…only that push and pull is relationship and social dynamics. Understanding that’s what’s going on for me has helped me step back, ground myself, and reassess as I do practical things to de-escalate my fight/flight. People can also help by being around but maintaining important and key boundaries to help me feel safe but not push and pull them under.
So if you know someone with BPD in crisis, put yourself in their shoes. While this thing that is exploding may seem like small beans to you, their nervous system is screaming at them that it is life or death. Hopefully that can help in finding compassion for them
@JoscelynTransient RSD and emotional dysregulation from ADHD are very much the same thing (ask me how I know!
)Not surprising that they often get misdiagnosed as one or the other and are frequently co-morbid
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@JoscelynTransient I am honestly not convinced it exists but I am convinced the cluster of symptoms exist and can be treated.
@CharlotteEowyn so, the thing that does make it most likely distinct are studies demonstrating heritability and likely genetic predispositions. Saw one psych the other day discussing the consensus on this, how studies find the vast majority of people with BPD have both family history and trauma (like 80% or something like that).
With most mental health conditions, the diathesis-stress model is key for understanding: there is some predisposition (genetic, environmental, mix) and some exposure to an environmental or life stress that leads to development into a disorder. The theory for BPD is that some folks have nervous systems more sensitive to social and relationship trauma and stress, since not everyone exposed to those develops BPD. This makes sense to me, with the added diathesis of cultures and societies layering on intersectional stress and limited options/resources based on sexism/racism/transphobia/etc.
In a different world, BPD might not even be a thing, same with Autism or ADHD as disorders. Just different neurotypes.
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@JoscelynTransient@chaosfem.tw thank you for putting this into words. My nervous system 100% does this.
@sky yeah, understanding this changed how I responded in the moment when it happens. I can step back and go, “okay, brain is screaming that this is a 10 out of 10 emergency…but is it? Hmm…it’s a disagreement with my wife about when the dirty dishes get washed…okay, that sounds like actually a 2 out of 10 conflict, maybe time to spiral down a bit and recalibrate”
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One thing I think can help people understand Borderline Personality Disorder is to realize it functions a lot like relationship-based PTSD.
Basically, what happens when you get activated or triggered within friendships/relationships/etc is that our nervous system goes into full fight/flight/freeze/fawn. Our nervous system is screaming at us that this small disagreement or misunderstanding is do or die, life or death, the most immediate and urgent thing.
Now, think about what happens when someone is drowning and their nervous system is doing that. When I was given basic training around what to do when someone is drowning, the first thing they said was don’t swim up next to them and try to pull them out by hand - a drowning person will push and pull you down into the water with them and drown both of you. Instead, you throw a life preserver and pull them in to shore.
It’s a lot like that. Your nervous system says it’s drowning, and you need to push and pull with everything in you to survive…only that push and pull is relationship and social dynamics. Understanding that’s what’s going on for me has helped me step back, ground myself, and reassess as I do practical things to de-escalate my fight/flight. People can also help by being around but maintaining important and key boundaries to help me feel safe but not push and pull them under.
So if you know someone with BPD in crisis, put yourself in their shoes. While this thing that is exploding may seem like small beans to you, their nervous system is screaming at them that it is life or death. Hopefully that can help in finding compassion for them
@JoscelynTransient ...huh. Now why does that feel so familiar?
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R relay@relay.infosec.exchange shared this topic
