BPD Ptsd and bpd - how can you tell if a person has both?

[anthony]

Well, I wasn't going to mention that one Kers... but seen as though you raised it... BPD is typically found in persons suffering complex PTSD due to the nature of the trauma, being majority childhood trauma, ongoing, which has serious effects and majority of the time causes complications in social development, mental development, etc... hence the BPD if not other personality traits.

Now... This does not mean that if you have complex PTSD, that you have a personality disorder. This is why I wasn't going to mention this, because people can tend to go off and think because they have one thing they must then have the other. Not all with complex PTSD have BPD or other personality disorder... but it is quite common, lets just say that.

 

[Deleted member 541]

Kers, the name of the book is, "Stop Walking on Eggshells." So you got that right..... I read it quite a few years ago, and thought it was a great book. Yes, I did see some *traits* in the book, that I could associate with my own behavior, but overall I think that anyone of us, that read the book, could say the same thing. The book was really good, I recommend it for anyone dealing with, or that knows someone with BPD!!!!!!

 

[anthony]

Wendy makes a good point... in that you can read just about any book and near associate things to yourself, you can make them fit, though it does not mean you have something. Many fit PTSD symptoms, but very few overall actually have it in the scheme of society numbers.

 

[Seeking_Nirvana]

Wow, thanks everyone for responding. I'm going to buy that book Wendy and kers, and ask my husband what he thinks because he knows me best. However, our relationship has been unstable since his family caused me problems with their constant intrusions, and one of them comes in here and reads my posts. *whack job*

At first that pissed me off but I figure if she is that insecure and nosy then maybe she can learn a thing or two about needing some therapy while being in here LOL

Also, thanks Anthony for letting me know your opinion because I posted more in here than what my doctor sees of me anyway.

Tammy

 

[Seeking_Nirvana]

Hi P.E.
I will PM you and you do the same for me if my posts get weird. I noticed Nicolette stated Fin answered her own posts and I guess I missed it because I'm not in here but maybe once or twice a week. I feel bad using Fin as an example to try and figure this out, so I will leave it to my doctor to help me with this instead of posting anymore about it out in the open.

Thanks everyone
Tammy

Seeing that Fin is banned scares me because I am afraid that I will be next! But I don't think my posts are anything like hers. If they ever get that way, please PM me asap!

 

[TLight]

I was first diagnosed in a half hour interview with an SSD doc with BPD. I got books on it from the library immediately. I must say, I do certainly have abandonment issues, but I'm not the slightest bit manipulative or clingy....however, anger gets out of control easily, I severely dissociate at times, and my moods are trouble.

My T explained to me that I have PTSD with BPD traits that come out at times. Therapists don't usually 'like' to treat people with BPD cause they are time consuming and there is often little result.

After 4 years, I've had some results. My hot and cold with people has to do with trust issues, which, of course I have with from the sexual abuse. Who wouldn't.....but the hot/cold of BPD is definately more pronounced I think.

Anyway, one time in a fit of rage, my T pointed out that I was displaying my BPD traits......it really sunk in. After that, I'm aware and I can stop myself from the hatred that comes out sometime when I perceive I'm being treated badly.

ANyway, my two cents. I think there is another thread on this somewhere.

 

[anthony]

Tlight, well said. Here is the problem with PTSD, and this is the same as I have said time and time again about multiple diagnosis when PTSD is present. Due to the nature and severity of symptoms PTSD presents, it is extremely easy to take those symptoms, then apply them to a wide range of other disorders and label you. The problem though... you don't actually have the other disorders, you have PTSD. PTSD is one of the most severe diagnosis in the book... For example, the Australian military has only two methods in which you can get pensioned for war service... lose a limb or have PTSD from a recognised combat zone. The Australian Government puts PTSD equal to losing a limb, that is how serious it really is. People just don't get it, nor do many of the shrinks... or they do, but don't care, instead just want kickbacks for prescribing lots of useless meds which majority of the time do more damage than good because the illness isn't actually present to treat.

PTSD has something like 20 symptoms, + or -; BPD has a handful, off which you need like five or something to be diagnosed. Look at the diagnosis for BPD and you will find five matching symptoms to PTSD. So again... screwed up diagnosis labelling.

Unless you had it before PTSD, before trauma, it is very unlikely you will actually have the other diagnosis. If you work through trauma, you reduce the symptoms of PTSD, thus you no longer even fit the mould for most of these other diagnosis in the first place... because PTSD is typically lowered enough to anxiety and depressive states, anger is usually removed... paranoia still present and usually slightly agoraphobic, though that is more to control your own anxiety levels, not avoid society itself.

It is very much a destructive cycle when you get into labelling when PTSD is diagnosed.

 

[Keenbean]

From a clinical psychology perspective, this problem occurs across the whole range of psychiatric diagnoses. Every diagnosis has symptoms which overlap to a lesser or greater degree with another diagnosis, which is why so many misdiagnoses occur. And yet two people can be diagnosed with the same disorder without a single common symptom. Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder actually have the highest rate of being misdiagnosed as each other, as there are so many symptoms which can occur in both illnesses. Many people just think that bipolar disorder is only about moods, but it also has a very high occurence of psychotic symptoms as well, as with schizophrenia, and is often treated with drugs which were originally developed for schizohrenia. The system is a crazy one, but I believe it will eventually be changed for something better- a lot of work is being done behind the scenes on this issue right now.

With reference to BPD and PTSD, in my experience most people on psychiatric wards who have BPD (around two thirds of patients on psych wards have a personality disorder) have been abused in some way, usually in childhood. In many people this can affect the ability to form bonds, which can sometimes result in the symptoms of BPD. Then some of these people go on to develop PTSD as a result of the abuse, thus end up with both diagnoses. BPD is not a 'nice' diagnosis to have. These people are often treated by the mental health profession as being manipulative and as troublemakers, and some professionals don't even treat it as a 'proper' psychiatric disorder. Treatment is therefore often inadequate for BPD, although it is slowly improving, at least in the UK. I guess the other issue is that it is estimated that one fifth of the population have a personality disorder, which is another reason why personality disorders are often not treated as illnesses- there is a question mark as to whether 20% of the population can actually be 'ill'.

The other difference between BPD and PTSD is that PTSD definitely has a better long term outcome (on average, of course). Most people eventually recover from PTSD, and it tends to require far fewer inpatient stays than BPD. Once the person with PTSD has recovered, their diagnosis becomes a thing of the past. This is only after a long slog of course, and people may relapse, but most are eventually free of it. Unfortunately with diagnoses like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and BPD, the person will carry that diagnosis and illness for life, and will never be free of it.

Hopefully with all the research that is going on at the moment, treatment and the chances of an accurate differential diagnosis will improve. Here's hoping!

Best wishes to all,
KB

 

[starshine]

A psychotherapy course trainer who specialised in attachment based body psychotherapy referred, in a course seminar I attended, to borderline personality as being created by relational trauma. Trauma in the widest sense - ie. abandonment, lack of responsiveness - especially when very young, rejection, shaming, constant criticism, withholding of love, unjustified punishment etc. And of course all the more overtly, obviously traumatic kinds of neglect and abuse.
Living a life in the aftermath of that, and especially with any PTSD - full or 'sub-threshold' on top of that, is challenging to say the least, a real mine field.
Many people with symptoms that meet a diagnosis of borderline personality can feel like they have no skin, emotionally or physically already, from very early on. Later life traumas can create a severe overlay of vulnerability.

For instance. The first criterion of borderline is 'frantic attempts to avoid real or imagined abandonment'. This is usually a result of having been abandoned or emotionally neglected when very young [viz. relational trauma]. When very young, when newborn, if mother or other care giver doesn't hold us emotionally or physically enough or at all or in the right way, it can feel catastrophic - before the ego has developed, we rely on care giver/mother to 'hold us together'. If this didn't happen or didn't happen enough, that imprint of feeling we're falling apart emotionally can become deeply embedded. It follows us through into adult life, and can make us cling desperately, because we feel our very survival is at stake and that our world and our very existence will collapse if the other isn't there.

Do you see the connection with PTSD style imprinting? It's just a different resonance of trauma.

 

[Jenfa]

You know what's weird is that the first stay I had in an inpatient setting when I was 15, that was the very first diagnosis that was pinned on me. The hospital was well aware that I was 15 in an adult unit, and was also withdrawing from drugs but as you can see, diagnosis get flung everywhere. It's like the monkey house. Nobody knows it stinks because everyone's wearing it.

The thing I wish I knew to do was to get a second or third opinion. It seems like a taxing thing to do when you've just found out that there's issues that need addressing but seriously, get them. You will be happier in the long run for a few reasons. One is how your progress can be recorded, as in accurately. Two is you don't have to go through years of taking meds that are really going to mess up your insides. Brains included in those insides, mind you. Third is the reason why a lot of people give up. Your mental health record will follow you for your entire life. Believe me, you want it to be accurate and to the point. Doctors do not always put the links together in a file if it's extensive and full of questions by other doctors that were guessing. If your file is messed up enough, you may even get flagged as either a problem patient or drug seeker. That's what happens when people are taking meds for things they don't have. The meds don't work and they need something else, but you will always be treated as your file states in the present, not what it should have been in the past. Good luck, I hope you find the answers to everything and can start to get some momentum! It helps so much.