• 💖 [Donate To Keep MyPTSD Online] 💖 Every contribution, no matter how small, fuels our mission and helps us continue to provide peer-to-peer services. Your generosity keeps us independent and available freely to the world. MyPTSD closes if we can't reach our annual goal.

Other Personality disorder or ptsd?

Status
Not open for further replies.
No, but I have been told that I have a personality disorder... Although NOT by the Psychiatrist that diagnosed.....
 
Often times personality disorders (borderline) develop because of untreated PTSD. That's what I've always been told, anyway. In about a week I'm going to a conference on personality disorders, so I guess I'll find out then, eh?
 
I was wondering because sometimes at least in my experience people will think because you are "needy" or "can't get over something" maybe "are stuck" is a better term that all the sudden you are a boardline. I have run into this a couple of times, even though a mental health expert has never said I have a personality disorder and various psych's that are friends kinda laugh it off. Boardlines will take others down with them, or blame them, for instance a boarderline would say, "I am going to kill myself now because you didn't come over and help me". Of course they would never actually do it but they might attempt it to prove a point.

I think it is confusing for those that know just enough about mental health to be dangerous but aren't professionals. They see someone who is bringing up issues from the past that are hard to work through and don't understand the difference.
 
Hi there! I think a lot of the confusion occurs because symptoms of personality disorders (especially borderline personality disorder-BPD) can result from traumatic events, as can PTSD.

The diagnostic criteria for BPD include people who have difficulties in forming and maintaining stable relationships often due to trust issues or fears of abandonment, people who have a disturbed self-image, people who have sudden changes in mood and may self-harm...etc. Many people who have been through trauma (particularly including people who have suffered abuse) have these 'symptoms' as a direct or indirect result of the trauma. So people are often diagnosed as having both PTSD and BPD. In some cases where clinicians are unaware of the underlying trauma (and resulting symptoms of PTSD), people will be diagnosed just with BPD.

Being diagnosed as having only BPD can be very unhelpful for people who also have PTSD- it is really important that the PTSD is recognised so that people can receive the most appropriate treatment. Unfortunately people who are diagnosed with BPD on its own get a really hard deal with mental health services, because many professionals don't believe that personality disorders are actually an illness or think that people diagnosed with them are 'attention seekers' (often due to repeated self harm) or 'trouble makers'. I have seen this attitude again and again both in my personal experience and my professional experience in the mental health system. A few years ago I was given the diagnosis of BPD (in addition to bipolar and PTSD- which I know I have) and fought to have the BPD diagnosis overturned because of the implications for me of having it on my record. Fortunately it had been diagnosed by a doctor who didn't know me or my history and was immediately overturned by my usual consultant who said that the diagnosis was ridiculous.

I don't know much about the attitude to BPD in the US but here in the UK it's not a good thing to have.

Hope this helps a bit! KB
 
I agree with Keenbean re the attitude to BPD in the UK - definitely not a good diagnoses to have. I have a diagnoses of complex PTSD with borderline personality 'traits'. Sometimes I wonder if that's a kinder way of saying that I am borderline - often difficult to tell as I find generally that people are not very 'straight' with you when you have a mental health diagnosis.
 
A few years ago I was given the diagnosis of BPD (in addition to bipolar and PTSD- which I know I have) and fought to have the BPD diagnosis overturned because of the implications for me of having it on my record. Fortunately it had been diagnosed by a doctor who didn't know me or my history and was immediately overturned by my usual consultant who said that the diagnosis was ridiculous.

I had a similar experience. Almost 10 years ago I was labeled as BPD by a doctor in a community psych hospital who had only met with me once for a few minutes. It went into my file and then the diagnosis and mental health care providers attitude toward it followed me for awhile. When someone would see BPD in my chart, the way that they spoke to me and treated me changed dramatically. It was horrible. When I was finally able to again afford a private psychiatrist, I was reluctant to share my records or this diagnosis with him because I didn't want him to make assumptions about me before getting to know me for himself. I've been with that psychiatrist for about 8 years now and he thinks a BPD diagnosis for me is absolutely ridiculous. For a long time, when I first started seeing him, during therapy sessions he would point out things that I had done or said that were completely opposite of what someone with BPD would do in an effort to reassure me that it had been an inaccurate, careless diagnosis.
 
Evidently the VA thinks I am Bi-polar, throw that in with PTSD and Major Depression....... I'm ready to leave the Country and become a Buddhist Monk..... I would if I didn't have 3 kids to raise on my own....
 
I know, don't you like it when they throw all this other stuff on top of the diagnosis. Yu don't want to be BPD in the US either, a Psychiatrist wouldn't touch you and therapist would want to get rid of you because the word is there is no treatment. When I was going to the Psych. she said " I can't help you if you have a personality disorder, you are just that way"...I thought "great". She said that I might have a personality disorder, I told my therapist that and he said " absolutely not, we have been working together for 3 years, I would know that by now"...that put me at ease. Even with PTSD I am glad it could be explained to me but there is no "cure" no magic pill, it takes lots of damn hard work to get well, sometimes more than we can muster up.
 
To be honest the whole concept of personality disorders really annoys me. Of course there are groups of people who have similar traits or difficulties or whichever 'symptom' of a personality disorder you wish to choose. But research has estimated that 20% of the population would be diagnosed as having a personality disorder if everyone went through the diagnostic procedure. Do 20% of the human race really have a psychiatric illness?! By definition, this statistic would mean that those with a personality disorder are by no means abnormal or in a small minority!! It is the diagnostic system that is insane, not 20% of our population! Well, that's my view anyway. I'm not saying that lots of these people don't suffer from difficulties or distress, but so do lots of 'normal' people...it seems like we are inventing diagnoses to suit everyone! And then when we give them that diagnosis we treat them extremely poorly because of it...the world is mad!

All the best people, KB
 
You know, I studied abnormal psych in nursing school and I thought I had all the answers, but then I delved into metaphysics and found I didn't even have the questions.

BPD, Bi-Polar, Anxiety Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive disorder, PTSD....the insurance companies need codes and names to get the docs paid.

We are all just people. None of us is perfect. There are no perfect families so we are all screwed up at least a little - some more than others. Don't get caught up in the words or the label the docs are giving you. Do the things your therapists ask of you and forget about the diagnostic code. We are are souls on a journey.

Kat
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top