Ptsd and self injury or is it just bpd?

[texaskitty]

I have PTSD from sexual abuse as a child. The self injury didn't start until I was in my 40s. Some therapists say the self injury is Borderline Personality Disorder, like thats what defines BPD. But I've suffered from the PTSD since the trauma as a child, but didn't resort to self injury until many years later.

Is self-injury learned from others? Like using web and print resources and finding out other peoples problems and then taking them on? Is this possible? Does this happen? I don't know anymore. I am on disability now and am very isolated. I go to a therapist and a group once a week. Most of the time I read or watch TV. I lost my insurance and that provoked a med change and now I can't sleep or just sleep a couple of hours and thats it.

I was at the donut shop at 6:15 a.m. this morning having been awake all night. I then slept the rest of the morning. Its terrible to have your days and nights mixed up. I hope to get the drug company to send me my med, but its going to take time. I keep waking up when I do go to sleep with nightmares I can't remember.

I have hijacked my own thread. Sorry.

Any input is welcome.

TexasKitty

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Self-injury does NOT define borderline personality disorder. There are NINE criteria for borderline, and you must have five of them to be diagnosed with it....Self-injury is only one of the criteria.

I had borderline pinned on me just because of self-injury, however I am not borderline.

Self-injury is not exclusive to borderline personality disorder.

 

[texaskitty]

Yes, I think I remember there being other symptoms necessary for a diagnosis. It seems though that the BiPolar and Borderline diagnoses are the diagnoses du jour, and get thrown around a lot. I wish it didn't matter so much to me what my diagnoses are, but it does.

Thanks for helping.

TexasKitty

 

[Tinyflame]

I dealt with periods of self-injury twice in my life and would say they were just another unhealthy attempt at "coping" and trying to make the pain manageable, and to avoid suicide. Also, as an attempt to isolate myself.

It made no sense to me, whatsoever, I thought it was just "nuts". Later, I read it is a way that the mind and body "relives"/ "replays" a trauma, maybe in an attempt (though misguided) to (psychologically) feel what has been avoided, or to come out with a "different ending".

It was only when I could, looking back, afford myself the same empathy as I would to a stranger, that I could cease on that form of self harm.

Think guilt & shame had a lot to do with it, too.

Hang in there.
:Hug_emoticon:

 

[texaskitty]

Thanks Junebug, my therapist has also told me that self-injury is a coping mechanism and that I need to learn new better coping mechanisms (no matter what the diagnosis is). I just wish I wouldn't keep going back to it when times are tough.

Thanks, TexasKitty

 

[Tinyflame]

Hi TexasKitty,

We usually all as human beings do that, -our Achilles heal, so to speak.

Take heart, it's slow but possible to exchange it for better coping tools.

 

[midi]

I didn't learn self-harming from others and I think we just do it automatically, when we're hurting. I'm a PTSDer, not a BPDer and I've been self-harming for I don't know how long.