Anyone with experience with bordeline personality disorder.. what are some symptoms?

Question

I have been dealing with emotional problems for most of my life. seen a therapist for anxiety and depression. I just took welbutrin and it felt like a week long anxiety attack so im dont with that. I then came across BPD and find the symtoms very similar to my overall personality. How can you feelt terrible all the time but that is your personality. How could have doctors overlooked the obvious symtoms?

Answer 1

   You can check the symptoms below, but know that a licensed psychologist will need more information than just a check list to give you a diagnosis. Many psychiatric disorders mimic each other, so even if you think you have BPD, you may not. See a professional.

*  frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.

    * a pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation

    * identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self

    * impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, s*x, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating)

    * recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior

    * affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days)

    * chronic feelings of emptiness

    * inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights)

    * transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms  

Answer 2

Someone with BPD is volatile, short tempered, and very manipulative in his/her realtions with others. They will constantly seek to overwhelm a person with their needs, and ofttimes, those needs are irrational and serve as a tool to control and manipulate others. They will never be able to feel good about themselves, no matter how much others compliment them or go out of their way to amke them feel better. There are many issues involved with BPD such as self-esteem, anger, frustration, etc.

You need to talk to a psychiatrist about this. Just because you tried one medicine and it failed is no reason to quit. Wellbutrin is an older medicine with a higher incidence of side effects than many newer drugs. I tried it and Prozac, and they both did the same thing to me that they did to you. I then took Effexor (which is an older, but different drug) and I felt like myself within a matter of days. I couldn't believe how well it worked. I took it for 2 years, and have now been off of it for a year with no more depression. SO, there is hope!

A great reference is a book called the DSM-IV, the diagnostic and statistics manual, edition 4. It outlines all medically recognized psychological disorders, and it's what psychiatrists refer to when diagnosing patients, among other things. The catch to that is, the symptoms of some disorders overlap with other disorders, so you need someone with training to get to know you so that they can make an authoritative diagnosis. A good doctor will rule out other possible origins, like your situation in life, metabolic disorders, past abuse, and drug use among others.

You seem to really care about your mental health, and that alone is the best thing you could hope to have going for you. Sit down and think about what things are good in your life, and try to maximize those things. Conversely, think about negative things that affect you and try to minimize those things. I can tell that you have the motivation to achieve happiness in your life, so I think you'll do fine as long as you continue to work to get better!

Answer 3

Lots of times doctors don't like to diagnose BPD. That's because it carries a stigma, and also because insurance pays for anxiety and depression treatment, but doesn't always pay for BPD since it's classified as a "personality" disorder, and the illogical thinking is that it's therefore not a medical disorder. (There are not enough rolleyes in the universe for the arbitrariness and irrationality of our current psychiatric classification system).

Also, it's really not clear what BPD is - there's lots of controversy whether it's related to bipolar disorder, or whether it's it's own kind of affective (mood) disorder. Most people with BPD will have mood disorders at some point. And anxiety is really common. So it's not exactly wrong to equate BPD with anxiety and depression.

Also before you freak out on the idea of having a personality disorder, realize, most people who fulfill the criteria for BPD don't fulfill it within a few years. It's not a permanent condition (at least not all of it) and people do get much better.

Anyway I've linked to the diagnostic criteria below. They don't tell you so much about how it feels so much as what people with BPD *do*. It's irritating - BPD, unlike most other psychiatric diagnoses - is often described in terms of how it makes other people feel, and how people with BPD appear from the outside, rather than how it feels from the inside.

I'd say that how it feels is best described as being totally emotionally raw. Like there is virtually nothing that can happen that won't have a huge effect on you. And that distorts your thinking, your behavior. It makes you desperate and irrational.