Scared of diagnosis

[tjo73]

Recently I was diagnosed with BPD and I'm having real problems accepting the diagnosis. It hasn't help that neither of my previous shrinks who seen me bothered to tell me that this is what they felt I had, I had to find out from a CPn when I was taken to the hospital by the police. I was told that was what the shrink had written in my notes and told to look it up on the internet. I'm really scared about the implications of this diagnosis, particularly what it will do to my chances of ever working again and what the reactions of other people will be if they find out. Somehow it just felt easier to deal with when I thought that it was just severe depression that I had. How did other people feel when they were diagnosed with BPD?

 

[*Sapphire*]

Hi tjo73

I've had a similiar experience to yours. When I was about 16/17 they wrote down borderline personality disorder with a question mark next to it. Apparently they don't normally diagnose someone so young which is why they question marked it. I also thought borderline personality disorder meant that you are on the borderline of having a personality disorder no one explained that it was in fact a particular type of pd!

Somewhere between then and three years ago no one told me that I had it and when they did they assumed I already knew.

I had a whole range of reactions, at first I was scared and upset, I asked them to change it! I was scared because most of what I knew about PDs was through the media and it was not good news. I also thought that it meant I was one step closer to having other pds such as psychopathy!

Once I read more about it and did my research I found that none of the above was true and it does not indicate the kind of person you are at all.

I also found that it was good to communicate for the first time with others with similar experiences as no one i met up until then really understood my difficulties. The diagnosis also got me to reflect on my life and perhaps why and where it was going wrong. In fact in the end that diagnosis started me on a journey of self reflection and analysis, it opened my eyes to how I perceive the world and how i fit in it. The label didn't help but reading about the symptoms, experiences, causes and treatments really helped.

After some treatment for BPD I recently took a DSM test and now I don't even show up on the BPD scale and if a new psyche saw it they wouldn't diagnose it going purely by that or i feel by an assessment of me today.
Therefore I don't believe that a PD diagnosis has to be or should be a permanent diagnosis.

I think when it comes to labels these days like BPD I just tend to ignore them. They are usually given so that appropriate treatment can be funded and given. I now prefer to think of my mental health in terms of my experiences rather than a label a stranger has slapped on me.

 

[starfish]

tjo73 and saphire77

i found both of your posts very moving ,thankyou .

 

[*Sapphire*]

I'm glad to hear that dolores.

BTW tjo73 I work full time and do voluntary work on top. It has never been a problem with my jobs. If an employer asks I tell them that i've had depression but I tell them no more. If they ask to see a medical report then I let them have access to my records. My current job did this and my GP did say in a letter I pre-read that I had a secondary diagnosis of BPD and did not give any more details. They are quite clever about how they word things on medical letters, their perogative is usually to help get people back into work after being off sick, not prevent it. Anyway my employer employed me and nothing came back about it.

The only problem I've had in the past with jobs is staying at the most two to three years in one. I find I get bored easily, plus I'm a bit of a perfectionist and enjoy the challenge of a difficult role so when I reach the top of my job I move on to start a challenge again elsewhere. Others would call it being a masochist!

I did attribute my leaving jobs due to my BPD, but after analysing it I realise that I can't attribute my every thought and action to BPD thinking and I did move jobs to other jobs with a higher salary (except this one). That's the problem I have now, I look at my reactions sometimes and think it is a bpd one when it's not. Sometimes you can over-analyse your life in terms of your label. Try not to let it overwhelm you, you are still you.