BPD Could bpds be npds with ptsd?

[EveHarrington]

You know how PTSD diagnosis is much more involved than simply reading down a list of symptoms?

That principle applies here, too.

You’re reading down a list of symptoms of NPD and BPD and making conclusions based on an uneducated understanding of the symptoms. This isn’t an insult, it’s a fact.

If you’re not a doctor or therapist, you most likely don’t understand the intricacies of diagnosis, so here you are arguing about how BPD and NPD are the same (or whatever) when the truth is that they’re not.

I’m not trying to be rude, but NPD=BPD? Are you kidding me? Please stop trying to play professional.

 

[Friday]

t's an inverted way of looking at it all, I know, but just because the BPD diagnosis came first, and then the PTSD diagnosis, doesn't mean that BPD is a valid diagnosis. I suggest that we MAYBE could take it out of the cluster B package all together. And divide the people who now have a BPD diagnosis in two groups:
- PTSD sufferers (c-PTSD) = those 50% of BPDs that van Kolk wanted to rediagnose as c-PTSD-sufferers, and not personality disordered individuals (the victims), and
- NPD (those who engage in splitting, manipulation and lacking empathy) with trauma (so, NPDs with PTSD)

Hope that made it clearer?

Xposted, with you.

Although the constellation of symptoms thing applies here, too.

Because what it sounds like is that you’re attempting to do away with BPD entirely and move everyone in it into one of two different diagnosis.

Here’re the problems with that as I see it :

1. CPTSD is not synonymous with BPD. BPD is a very specific symptom set that many -if not most- people with CPTSD don’t meet. A lot do. Especially those with certain kinds of childhood or developmental trauma. (CPTSD is also not synonmous with childhood trauma; repeated combat tours and prisoners of war are also included in the diagnosis, and the symptoms’ expression tend to be very different than those people with childhood trauma. Not always, but often.) It’s very similar to a squares and rectangles thing, with CPTSD having the much broader definition (rectangle) and BPD the much narrower definition (square). Not everyone with CPTSD will also have BPD.

2. There are people with both CPTSD & BPD, as written.

3. There are people with BPD who don’t meet the criteria for NPD. At all. Nor for PTSD, much less CPTSD.

4. “NPD with trauma (so NPD with PTSD)” ... trauma does not equal PTSD. If I’m remembering correctly something like 80% of the population experiences CritA trauma. That doesn’t mean that 80% of the population has PTSD. Trauma alone is not enough for a PTSD diagnosis. Just like complex trauma alone is not enough for a CPTSD diagnosis. There are lot of different possible disorders resulting from (or exacerbated by) trauma & complex trauma.

I don't agree with people who do not have personality disorders being diagnosed with personality disorders.

Yep. Misdiagnosis is generally considered bad.

 

[alt]

I see some validity in your reasoning @lillesnille . I was misdiagnosed with BPD...

I'm so sorry you have suffered like that. It was a hard read. And you must have felt very scared and alone a lot of this time. I'm so happy you receive help now! I wish the same for anyone suffering like that, and I hope you heal completely now, with these people out of your life! :)

I don't think people who have no experience with personality disordered individuals can understand the depth of their diagnosis, and that statement includes a lot of professionals. Thus why the diagnostic system is so symptoms based and thus why misdiagnosis happens. I just believe it will one day be better with a better diagnostic system, and I gave my input to simplify it. I believe all cluster Bs have a very similar core issue, more similar than people seem to understand, also reading this thread, I think that is due to most people watching symptoms rather than the underlying cause. And that underlying cause is guarded by these individuals so hard that ONLY those exposed to them will understand. They don't exactly tell anyone about their issues, as they don't necessarily see it as an issue, but a tool. Maybe thus it is useful to diagnose on a spectrum like now, as @Friday says above, since we might have to rely on external symptoms.

I think however, you understood where I came from. That's because you "know" and the others don't.

 

[ILoveLife]

I was misdiagnosed with BPD, in my case substance abuse was the correct diagnosis. It was talked about me having BPD recently, but my pdoc disagreed so there's that.

The thing about diagnosis is that they aren't supposed to act as labels, which seems to be the premise you're basing your ideas in. They're clusters of symptoms to determine treatment, that's all. Different symptoms, different treatment.

Same with other mental illnesses, such as several disorders manifesting psychosis. By this logic (trauma = ptsd) then psychosis = schizophrenia... And we know that's not the case.

 

[alt]

I was misdiagnosed with BPD, in my case substance abuse was the correct diagnosis. It was talked about me...

I guess treating symptoms only heals the symptoms, not the cause?
Though I also guess it's the best we have at this point, so you're right.

My logic behind this thread was that, to treat the cause, a better system is needed.

I'll use PTSD as an example. While it is USEFUL to treat symptoms - learning to wash your clothes and live routine lives, in order to get a better quality of life - a lot of people still never heal. The underlying cause of PTSD, what is that? They may find out that it is - for example (hypothesis following) - HPA-axis imbalance due to exposure to stress over time, knocking this stress-axis out of balance. We don't know too much about how to treat such an imbalance. As in, if anger issues are caused by HPA-axis imbalance, then an easy treatment for anger issues would be diagnosing through brain scans and then fixing the imbalance. Voila - PTSD gone, and all the symptoms including clothes piling up and anger management issues as well. (it's an example. We don't know the underlying cause of PTSD for certain, and we can't diagnose this way easily, so we can't do this today, but this development happens fast).

Treating the symptom - learning to control the anger issues may of course help in the balance of the HPA-axis also, but it is a slower treatment when done this way, and anger may not be the only consequence of a disorder.

I'm sort of thinking that in the future we'll know better how to treat causes directly, by diagnosing better, say based on brain scans as in the hypothesis/example above. And then maybe we could directly heal the HPA-axis balance through adjustment of this balance and the anger issues along with all other symptoms would just be gone. Instead, today, we treat symptoms and hope that will cause the imbalance to heal by slowly training the imbalances back into balance.

The same way, it may be easy to heal cluster Bs, whatever their imbalance is, and if their underlying cause is the same (as I theorized in this thread), then that kind of a system that I proposed would be easier. But this is obviously some day in the future. For now the diagnostic system of symptoms is the best we have. So I agree with those saying it is how it has to work. I hope it'll be better soon, though.

Maybe I'm getting too imaginative here....:p

 

[ILoveLife]

I guess treating symptoms only heals the symptoms, not the cause?

Depends on the disorder.
But yeah, right now it's basically what we've got.

 

[silvery]

I do understand what you are meaning and think most here answering do too.
I think you have however misunderstood a few fundamental facts about personality disorders and trauma.

As others said trauma doesn't always = PTSD. Lets take early trauma here as that is what is relevant for personality disorders. It probably results/is one factor in a whole range of reactions: depression, anxiety disorders, somatic problems, PTSD, a whole range of personality disorders (including antisocial etc), insomnia, workaholism, addiction, eating disorders, dissociative disorders etc. If you really want to focus just on the cause and not so much the effect you could probably do away with most of the PD's. Some of the writing on cPTSD alludes to this. PD's with lack of empathy may have hereditary or physiological influences but there is often still an environmental catalyst.

Also everyone with a particular PD does not look and act the same. Thats the case with all of the PD's. There are many criteria and people will have different combinations of these as well as other personality traits. PD's are merely a messy means of attempting to group together problems people have when relating to themselves and others - so that it is easier to plan relevant treatment for them. It is merely a means of structuring treatment. Its not like saying "that is a parrot and that is an eagle". PD's are messy constructs.

Psychiatrists often diagnose people with a combination of PD's because people are not clones and PD diagnoses are messy constructs. Or they will diagnose someone as having PDNOS.

It is a terrible shame when people are misdiagnosed and I suspect BPD is one of those where that more commonly happens. When that happens the person doesn't get the correct treatment as is intended but usually gets treatment that is unhelpful or even dangerous.

You might also find it interesting to read up about the ICD cPTSD research and guidelines where they differentiate very clearly the line between BPD and CPTSD. Again, diagnoses are not absolutes. Its merely humans attempting to group issues for treatment and understanding. Its not like diagnosing a virus.

 

[solar]

OP You've made it very clear that you have NO IDEA what you are talking about, you also have a very childish view on all of this which is extremely cringe worthy. This entire thread is offensive to me. You're only spreading more false ideas and lies about all of these disorders.

I have NPD with ASPD traits and cptsd with a focus on dissociative symptoms and fragmentation. Please tell me great one which disorder do I actually have. :tdown::cautious:

 

[Deleted member 46752]

For those of you who have PTSD after narcissistic (NPD) or borderline (BPD) abuse, you will possibl...

this hits home, thanks for this thread its putting a lot into context