1. Try not to be female (for borderline personality disorder).
2. Do not argue your point-of-view with the professionals.
3. You cannot be seen to like some staff members more than others (this is splitting behaviour).
4. Do not under any circumstances harm yourself. This will more than likely be seen as: (a) manipulative, (b) attention seeking, or (c) a communication of your distress caused by your underlying personality disorder.
5. Do not make statements which can be interpreted as ‘black and white thinking’. For example, ‘The nurses all hate me’. Try instead to make unrealistic, robot like, rational statements such as ‘Enid, Mary, Silvia, John, Mark and Boteng have all shown epic distain at my presence on the ward, but an agency nurse once smiled at me in 1992.’
6. Do not admire or pin any hope to a professional who appears to understand the social context of your distress (this is idealisation, my dear).
7. Do not complain about anything. Ever.
8. Try to avoid working with professionals who look a bit tired. If they eventually go off sick you will inevitably be blamed for this. (Naturally, because you are a difficult patient.)
9. Things you can talk about: how medication is helping you, mood swings (but only extreme ones that last long enough to fit within a diagnosis of bipolar; that’s an okay one as Stephen Fry made it a bit edgy). Do talk about how much the system is helping you, be eternally grateful to every professional you meet, tip your hat slightly to the side and say the words ‘Thanking you kindly for your help, sir/madam’.
10. Things you should not talk about: abuse of any kind, patterns in your relationships because of this abuse, existential dilemmas, perceived flaws in the system or anything to do with individual staff members
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2. Do not argue your point-of-view with the professionals.
3. You cannot be seen to like some staff members more than others (this is splitting behaviour).
4. Do not under any circumstances harm yourself. This will more than likely be seen as: (a) manipulative, (b) attention seeking, or (c) a communication of your distress caused by your underlying personality disorder.
5. Do not make statements which can be interpreted as ‘black and white thinking’. For example, ‘The nurses all hate me’. Try instead to make unrealistic, robot like, rational statements such as ‘Enid, Mary, Silvia, John, Mark and Boteng have all shown epic distain at my presence on the ward, but an agency nurse once smiled at me in 1992.’
6. Do not admire or pin any hope to a professional who appears to understand the social context of your distress (this is idealisation, my dear).
7. Do not complain about anything. Ever.
8. Try to avoid working with professionals who look a bit tired. If they eventually go off sick you will inevitably be blamed for this. (Naturally, because you are a difficult patient.)
9. Things you can talk about: how medication is helping you, mood swings (but only extreme ones that last long enough to fit within a diagnosis of bipolar; that’s an okay one as Stephen Fry made it a bit edgy). Do talk about how much the system is helping you, be eternally grateful to every professional you meet, tip your hat slightly to the side and say the words ‘Thanking you kindly for your help, sir/madam’.
10. Things you should not talk about: abuse of any kind, patterns in your relationships because of this abuse, existential dilemmas, perceived flaws in the system or anything to do with individual staff members
Link Removed
