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BPD Ptsd and borderline personality disorder

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is it possible to confuse PTSD with borderline personality disorder?
 
is it possible to confuse PTSD with borderline personality disorder?

I think overwhelming emotions are common for me, and I have been doing some DBT work. BPD seems fairly broad and less disruptive in reality (not to diminish its significance necessarily) - are you concerned re a professional misdiagnosis?
 
Absolutely yes. And because trauma is hard to talk about, and not even something you're aware of straight away, it often takes a while for the ptsd diagnosis to come about. Whereas BPD behaviours (often also stemming from a history of abuse), are often pretty obvious straight up.

It's fairly common for people with csa in particular to get diagnosed with BPD, or bpd traits, early on, and much later get diagnosed with ptsd.
Because of the evolving concept of complex trauma, someone can get initially diagnosed with bpd, but later get diagnosed with conplex ptsd, which can often make the borderline diagnosis redundant because the borderline symptoms are actually symptoms of the complex ptsd.

I know a scary number of people who got diagnosed with bpd early in the piece, and sometimes years later, when it became apparent they were suffering from complex trauma, the borderline diagnosis got dropped altogether. Having said that, the 2 conditions can coexist, and for people with complex trauma who have emotion dysregulation issues, the bpd-based DBT treatment can be really effective.

The impact of complex trauma on emotional regulation and personality presentation is undergoing some fairly dramatic rethink at the moment, and so while it's still easy for the 2 to make diagnosis complicated, hopefully a better understanding will lead to more accurate diagnosis and more targetted and effective treatment...hopefully!
 
I think overwhelming emotions are common for me, and I have been doing some DBT work. BPD seems fa...
Someone told me they have PTSD but after looking at bpd they have 5 or more of the sings. I also didn't realize you could get bpd from getting raped
 
Yes. It's possible to misdiagnose PTSD for Borderline
Yes. It's possible to misdiagnose Borderline for PTSD.
Yes. It's possible to be comorbid and have both PTSD & Borderline.
And, yes. Trauma -like rape- can cause or exacerbate several different disorders. Not just PTSD.

Just possessing the symptoms of any one disorder is not enough to be diagnosed with it. Why? Because all disorders share symptoms. Anyone who has PTSD shares symptoms with many many many other disorders... And vice versa. A person has to have the entire constellation of symptoms + causes AND have those things not better explained by another disorder OR be excluded from the disorder AND rule out physiological contributors BEFORE being diagnosed with it. Beyond that? All symptoms are normal human characteristics taken to the extreme aka pathological. Every single human being on the planet have traits found in disorders, without actually having them be a symptom of anything, except being human. Being able to tell what's just jumpy versus what's hypervigilance? Also a component of diagnosis.

It's not as simple as reading symptoms off a checklist.
 
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Turnabout being fair play, as you're asking us personal questions:

Has losing a friendship sparked an interest in psychology, or are you still obsessing over someone who has threatened you with a restraining order? As trying to rediagnose someone, to the point of reading through other disorders -personality disorders, no less- and trying to match them up, with someone who has repeatedly asked you to leave them alone, feels pretty stalkerish.
 
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I agree with @Friday.

Your former friend with PTSD has moved on. I really hope that you do the same. I don't think it's healthy for you to be doing all this second guessing about someone you now only "know" from social media. It's kind of creepy that you're keeping tabs on her from afar. I've been stalked before and I think you have no idea how much you WILL hurt her if she finds out how much you still think about her and talk about her and monitor her social media accounts. I really do pray you walk away now and she never finds out so that she doesn't have another fear slammed on her that could take many years to overcome.
 
I also didn't realize you could get bpd from getting raped
Not common. As has been said, personality disorders usually form through childhood; they cannot be diagnosed until the person has completed adolescence. Individuals suffering from complex trauma in childhood/adolescence, and those who fit the profile for the (emerging) diagnosis of CPTSD, can be mis-diagnosed as having Borderline Personality Disorder.

And no, we can't diagnose over the internet - but I'm gonna go ahead and give you my thoughts, just in case they may be helpful. The woman you have described does not come anywhere near the diagnosis of Borderline, in all the posts of yours I've read. It would have been more typical (symptom-wise) for her to have engaged without ambiguity in almost a kind of 'forced intimacy', followed by conflict related to her past traumas, followed by an abrupt break in the entire relationship. That's not a fact of how people with Borderline progress - but it's an example of what is meant by the chronic instability in relationships piece of the diagnosis. There's a pervasive pattern of getting extremely close, then self-destructing.

From everything I've read, you were friends, and you weren't sure if out was friends heading towards more. When you started progressing towards 'more', she backed off, hard, and you struggled with that. I don't think it had to do with PTSD, or sexual assault, or BPD. I'm sorry to say it, but I think she just didn't want a relationship with you in that way. And everything else has just been allowing you to throw up reasons why it was not as simple as: she didn't want to date you.

Borderline is an incredibly complex diagnosis. Diagnosing personality disorders is not at all simple. I strongly encourage you to stop this line of thinking.
 
Turnabout being fair play, as you're asking us personal questions:

Has losing a friendship sparked an i...
Sparked a interest in psychology, mental health technology and mental health law
 
First, the symptoms do cross but no. If diagnosing is correct the DSM state you must fit 7 of the 9 symptoms of Borderline. That's a lot and many are more specific Borderline and not so much PTSD.

They are very common cormobid together. That's much more common than to be misdiagnosed one but to have the other. I can't even think of enough cross over symptoms that would cause a misdignosis like that.

From everything I've read, you were friends, and you weren't sure if out was friends heading towards more. When you started progressing towards 'more', she backed off, hard, and you struggled with that. I don't think it had to do with PTSD, or sexual assault, or BPD. I'm sorry to say it, but I think she just didn't want a relationship with you in that way. And everything else has just been allowing you to throw up reasons why it was not as simple as: she didn't want to date you.

Agreed! @Statsattack, this must be TERRIFYING for her, no matter what disorder(s) she has. You have to see that you are dragging along, trying to find reasons why she didnt want to be with you, when all along any normal, non-mental disorder people have a right to say "i dont want to date; please go away" and that is what she has been SCREAMING loud and clear and that is truely apparent in all of your posts.

I tried to help you grieve the relationship and helped to talk you into therapy but you won't let go of the relationship in order to grieve the relationship. I know you have a therapist but this isn't healthy, at all. You need to talk to your therapist, full disclosure, and let that therapist guide you.

Even if she was wanting more eventually (though, like I said a while back, stop thinking she will ever come back as if you do then you can't truely grieve the relationship and let go as you need to) but even if she did, what does backing up and leaving her be hurt? It doesn't. It opens you to get therapy to get your head on straight and start to move foward in your life and it gives her the space she is so despertly screaming for.

In other words, you aren't saying "fine, its over, dont come back". You are saying "ok, i will give you the space you wish for. I will go to therapy and better myself and you are welcomed to come back if you wish but I am now moving foward in my life". Which would be the healthy thing to do. Not grasping for a mental disorder "excuse" for why she doesn't want to be with you. She doesn't need an excuse. She doesn't want to be with you. Point, period. That's it. Leave the poor girl alone!

Borderline is an incredibly complex diagnosis. Diagnosing personality disorders is not at all simple. I strongly encourage you to stop this line of thinking.

Agreed, fully! BPD is complex and very missunderstood. Nothing about diagnosing it is simple.
 
is it possible to confuse PTSD with borderline personality disorder?

OMgosh. Totally. So many therapists dx PTSD victims with BPD which is unfair. They are very different. Marsha Linehan in one of her books said that A LOT of BPD is CAUSED by trauma. So they should scrap the dx of BPD. It has very negative connotations now.
 
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