Q. BPD is a new diagnosis for me, & frustrating because of how others treat it, in addition to all of the problems it has caused me. Why do hospitals treat you well & sympathetically when they think you might be depressed or schizophrenic, but angrily discharge you with the advice to "find a therapist" once they find you to be BPD??
Why do psychiatrists claim that someone with BPD is "fully responsible" for how they feel, their thoughts, their actions, while a depressive or schizophrenic is not? Are we supposed to be "used to" BPD & know, instinctively, how to live with it? Why are doctors always fighting with each other when it comes to treatment of BPD? Why do some want to just cast us out without treatment being set up, telling us to survive when it is our survival skills that are most at odds with the world??
Why do the doctors mistake BPD for other conditions?
Why is it called a "mental illness" in some quarters, but just a "different personality" in others?
Why does EVERYBODY seem to think they are borderline nowadays? Are they? Everyone I speak to claims to feel "just like [me]" when it comes to symptoms, but then they survive in the world, with others, while my BPD interferes with what they take for granted!! Why does nobody seem to take BPD seriously, except for people on here?
A. A good and appropriate ventilation. I am reminded of the line in A Man for All Seasons where Sir Thomas Moore (played brilliantly by Paul Schofield) is addressing Parliament during the reign of King Henry VIII. He talks about the theory of how the earth is shaped. Some claim it round, and some claim it flat. But regardless of which laws/beliefs are enacted it will not change the scientific facts and the truth.
Regardless of what a person believes, e.g., doctors, therapists, social workers, nurses, etc., their job is to get you better. Their beliefs are irrelevant if they are not true, and their enactment of those beliefs--telling you to get a grip on it, turning you to another therapist, downplaying how badly you feel, are inappropriate. That behavior is a malignant form of counter-transference (how the doctor or therapist sees and treats you). It dose not matter what they think, it matters what they do. Sorry to get so high and mighty about this, but it is part of my Hippocratic oath to help ill people, not to yell at them for being ill. I become enraged at the way borderlines are treated in most settings.
Observations on the ill-treatment borderlines face is all too true. Many of us are trying to make a difference, but it is hard for a number of reasons. About 100% of all psychology classes teach BPD is a personality disorder, with the inference also taught that people with it are just manipulative. There is no data to back this up, but like the use of medicinal leaches for bleeding a patient to make them better only 100 years ago, it is a belief that is firmly entrenched. It will change with time, but it will take time. Unfortunately, folks like yourself are exposed to double jeopardy. Not only do you have a biological illness, but you are ridiculed and made to feel worse and denied treatment by those sworn to help you.
The diagnosis is common (thus its showing up in so many), possibly over diagnosed, but almost uniformly inadequately treated. There are a large number of biological treatments for BPD. The reason there are so many biological treatments is that BPD is likely a heterogeneous disease like depression or hypertension or asthma -- more than one cause in all cases. Look for a doctor who has read the literature. There really are more and more out there. Your comparisons to schizophrenia and depression are interesting for another reason. Both of these were viewed as personality disorders within the past 35 (schizophrenia) and 25 (depression) years. It takes time to change how psychiatrists, social workers, psychologists, nurses and the whole system practices. No excuse, just a fact.