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Question: If You've Been Told You Have Complex Trauma Does That Mean Bpd?

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Queen Boudica

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I've been told that damage from complex trauma due to childhood abuse and the associated toxic stress that leads to effectively brain damage and constantly alert fight or flight mechanism is classified in the DSM as Borlderline Personality Disorder.

Is that true? I have the triggers, I have anxiety and deep depression and I have extremely bad self-image and little confidence. But I never thought I had Borderline Personality because of that.

Now I am told that is the DSM diagnosis. And I am in a state because I don't think I match BPD. And being given that diagnosis when I saw the extreme behaviour of my mother and sister and I have tried so hard not to be anything like them, has just knocked me back down again.

my sister had BPD and I know what the symptoms were for her and these are listed below and I don't think I match enough symptoms for that:

Marked mood swings with periods of intense depression, irritability and/or anxiety lasting a few hours to a few days. -
    • YEs I am depressed - hardly surprising, considering everything that has happened and yes of course I suffer from anxiety, that was the result of the toxic stress in both my childhood and marriage, so yes I have a continuously primed flight or flight system.
    • Don’t think I have mood swings, I am depressed all the time, just when I stop and think about it then it overwhelms me.
    • I get panic attacks bad ones. Not mood swings.
    • And I get triggered - not mood swings

Inappropriate, intense or uncontrolled anger. -
  • Don’t think I have intense uncontrolled anger. My mother, sister and my ex had that, I don't think I ever get to that kind of state

Impulsiveness -
  • Don’t think so, think I am reserved and scared to do stuff and have to psych myself up.
Recurring suicidal threats or self-injurious behaviour -
  • Considering how depressed I am and how my whole life has been turned upside down and how much I have been through yes, there are moments when feel like I want to die. I think it is like that quote from Stephen Fry “It’s like contemplating a future-less future and so you just want to step out of it. The monstrosity of being alive overwhelms you.”
  • I have never once attempted suicide and there were times I did want to really die after he was violent or abusive to me.
  • A lot of my sisters suicide threats were about attention. Last thing I ever want is attention. And if I do ask for attention, it is because I really do need help, and afterwards I am ashamed for having needed that attention.
  • Yes I was bulimic and that was a way of coping the extreme stress.
  • Considering all I went through, I should be an alcoholic, using drugs, promiscuous, smoking etc. None of which I have done, which a typical BPD would do.

Unstable intense personal relationships with extreme black and white views of people and experiences, some times alternating between “all good” idealisation and “all bad”.
  • Exact description of my mother.
  • Considering I stayed with my exh for 24 years, not unstable on my part, he was the violent abusive one, I tried to do as much as I could to stabilise not that it worked. I would not classify our relationship as intense.
  • As for few friends I have had, I never had unstable relationships with them, never argued or fought with them or said a bad word to them. I am still in contact with most them. My difficulty is making friends, not losing them.
  • And I don’t think I have extreme black and white views of people Except Tony Abbot and his cronies of course who are complete arseholes.
Marked persistent uncertainty about self image, long term goals, friendships, values.
  • Agree, I do have terrible self-image and self-doubt. But then my mother planted that in me from early years and my ex h compounded it. Years of that, very difficult to shake off.
  • Yep uncertainty about long term goals - hardly surprising, considering and the fact I am so unconfident and don’t believe I can do stuff.
  • friendships, yep find it difficult to make friends, because of my lack of self-image.
  • Values - Think I have very strong values and ethics. So that is untrue.

Chronic boredom and feeling of emptiness.
  • No I’m not bored, I have worked hard and done an awful lot and still do. I have too much in my head to ever get bored.
  • Feeling of emptiness - well I’m depressed, so that goes with the territory
Frantic efforts to avoid abandonment either real or imagined
  • No - there has never been anyone to abandon me. I actually feel like I abandoned my sister. I accept that I will probably be alone, not making any frantic efforts to avoid it.
 
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My pyschaitrist said to me the last visit that with BPD sometimes meds don't have a lot of good results, I sat there and thought I dont have BPD of any sort. Then came home and googled it and Disassoicated Identity disorder is under BPD and I have DID as well as other stuff so I thought ok maybe that comes under that. If you have complex PTSD do you have disassoication maybe he was meaning something like that.
 
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Thank you @anthony that is always what I thought I had, PTSD + DID, + comorbid GAD and depression. Even though he never discusses diagnosis with me as he said from the beginning he doesn't believe in labels, but he originally told me I had complex trauma, and I know I dissociate, that was my means of survival. But one time I asked him point blank if I had BPD and he said No I had the trauma that had led to me being more likely to get into abusive relatioships which is what happened.

Then yesterday, because I have been studying about toxic stress and affects of abuse on brain development and there is clear evidence from brain studies that abuse in childhood can lead to complex trauma symptoms I said to him how come they don't classify complex trauma in the DSM as a diagnosis. And he said they do as Borderline Personality Disorder. And then I was upset and telling him I am nothing like my mother and sister who have BPD but he didn't say I didn't have BPD just that it can be managed if you control your emotional regulation (although I think I was dissociating by then). But afterwards when I came out I got really upset and I looked up the symptoms for my sister and I had always thought that complex trauma was PTSD + DID so I don't understand how he would say that complex trauma is BPD. And why he would let me think that especially when he knows I have so much fear about being like my mother and sister and so much fear about mental illness. Think that is really cruel
 
@anthony said
Complex trauma is not a BPD diagnosis, no. Complex trauma is just that... complex. The typical outcome is PTSD + Dissociative Disorder.
@anthony
Sorry to sound really dumb but if you have PTSD + Dissociative Disorder does that come under a BPD or is that different
 
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BPD is a personality disorder. Dissociative disorders are varied.

@Lizio, unless you have been told you have DID, then I would not assume. There are dissociative disorders other than DID. DID is an extreme, and quite honestly, over-diagnosed and misdiagnosed. DID is actually quite rare... it just thrown around though as if it's an every day thing nowadays.
 
Well that is the problem I guess, no-one is really explaining it. I have been too afraid to ask about the dissociation, I do dissociate, but I don't think it is extreme.

I was told I had complex trauma and explained triggers and told it had changed my brain chemistry and we have worked on the panic attacks, which didn't work so now I am on antidepressant. I am very depressed.

Now he is saying damage from childhood trauma, which I thought was my complex trauma is classified as BPD in the DSM and then talking like I have BPD. With no explanation of why, except that DSM link. and talk about emotional regulation. I don't think I have BPD if I go by the symptoms that the psychiatrists diagnosed my sister with. and having seen how she was.

Too afraid of the whole diagnosis of mental illness when I saw what happened with my sister. Complex trauma, anxiety, depression I could see a way of trying to overcome, but BPD is another level altogether.
 
Now I am told that is the DSM diagnosis.
I've been told that damage from complex trauma due to childhood abuse and the associated toxic stress that leads to effectively brain damage and constantly alert fight or flight mechanism is classified in the DSM as Borderline Personality Disorder.
I am confused. Have you been told that BPD is your diagnosis? I think perhaps you are confusing your symptoms with an assumption of a diagnosis.

There is a lot of debate about developmental trauma being the basis for BPD but nothing is conclusive, and there are plenty of people with the diagnosis and no declared history of trauma.

I too have complex childhood trauma and my diagnosis is CPTSD. - yes, I know it is not (yet) a 'real' diagnosis but, the point is to work with the symptoms rather than the label. Labels are very demoralising and stick with you, however symptoms can and do improve through therapy.
 
You should simply have, PTSD with dissociative sub-type. It exists now. Complex trauma, as a majority, create dissociative and depersonalisation symptom clusters. These two clusters are now sub-types of PTSD diagnosis.

If trauma is the cause, then you have PTSD with sub-type.

Read https://www.myptsd.com/threads/ptsd-diagnosis.87466/ (scroll down to the diagnosis - Diagnostic Criteria for 309.81 (F43.10) Posttraumatic Stress Disorder)
 
BPD is completely different from complex PTSD. It is possible to have both, and maybe BPD is more common among people with complex PTSD, but it's definitely not always the case. Just like how not everyone with PTSD also suffers from anger issues or depression.

Also, many disorders tend to overlap in their symptoms. If I were to take a test for GAD right now I would probably qualify for the diagnosis. That doesn't mean it would be correct.

In short, having one psychiatric disorder may increase the likelihood of having a comorbid disorder, but I have never heard of a disorder of which diagnosis always means you have another disorder as well.
Correct me if I'm wrong, though :)
 
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