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Borderline personality disorder: a spurious condition?

journals.sagepub.com

11–20 of 99 posts

Re: Borderline personality disorder: a spurious condition?

#11

This is a BS article that's basically a clinician's pet peeves and grievances. I know three close people with a BPD diagnosis. They had both a similar constellation of personality traits and all three were first medicated with antidepressants to no avail (a common trait in BPD is that it is easy to confuse for major depression). They took BPD-specific drugs and after a few trials and errors their quality of life incr…

I've known two women who were diagnosed with BPD that later turned out to be Autism. Their doctors believe BPD traits developed due to the issues their autism had on their socialisation as kids and teens. Getting on Ritalin massively improved their and their families lives.

At least in women I suspect more than a few BDP diagnosis mask autism.

Re: Borderline personality disorder: a spurious condition?

#12
post #10
post #3

My pet theory is that all personality disorders are essentially ingrained responses to conditioning which could adequately be described as CPTSD, roughly categorized into the different types based on the types of trauma complexes experienced and the learned responses to them.

My BPD diagnosis was replaced with a combination of ADHD and CPTSD. You may be on to something.

I know two women who went though this as adults going from a BPD diagnosis to one of autism and the treatment changes massively improved their personal and their families lives.

Re: Borderline personality disorder: a spurious condition?

#13

Married to someone with BPD. I guess one can debate what to call her symptom group - but insinuating her challenges don't exist is beyond absurd. After 25 years I could pretty well climb into her headspace. If I lived there, I don't think I could ever find my way out.

Shitty headline, no one likes being told their lived experience is invalid. However, DSM V does away with the BPD diagnosis for reasons that make sense to me which is what this is about.

Re: Borderline personality disorder: a spurious condition?

#14
post #5

Married to someone with BPD. I guess one can debate what to call her symptom group - but insinuating her challenges don't exist is beyond absurd. After 25 years I could pretty well climb into her headspace. If I lived there, I don't think I could ever find my way out.

Say a bit more about the headspace

I have a close friend whose daughter has it. From what I understand she can’t weigh consequences out beyond about 2 minutes. Current emotional discomfort (like being slightly bored) is over the top painful. She can’t deal with “no” sometimes, like she goes so crazy the police have to be called sometimes. I read that it’s kind of like if you had no skin and thus all your nerve endings were exposed. Sitting would hurt, a breeze would hurt, sunlight and rain would hurt. But she can go from screaming and throwing punches at her parents to being their darling little daughter five minutes later as though nothing had happened. I suspect she can’t relate at all to others’ experiences - it’s just her. She seemed like a totally normal kid until puberty hit.

Re: Borderline personality disorder: a spurious condition?

#15

This is a BS article that's basically a clinician's pet peeves and grievances. I know three close people with a BPD diagnosis. They had both a similar constellation of personality traits and all three were first medicated with antidepressants to no avail (a common trait in BPD is that it is easy to confuse for major depression). They took BPD-specific drugs and after a few trials and errors their quality of life incr…

The only thing that worked for my BPD as a man was DHT (testosterone) cream, unfortunately it became scheduled (illegal) in the US.

Re: Borderline personality disorder: a spurious condition?

#16

This is a BS article that's basically a clinician's pet peeves and grievances. I know three close people with a BPD diagnosis. They had both a similar constellation of personality traits and all three were first medicated with antidepressants to no avail (a common trait in BPD is that it is easy to confuse for major depression). They took BPD-specific drugs and after a few trials and errors their quality of life incr…

As the article points out, the diagnostic features of BPD are common to a bunch of different conditions. There have been decades of research trying to establish a reliable "borderline" factor that would set the condition outside existing categories of disorder; they've all failed. What makes that especially pernicious is that, tracing all the way back to the era of Freud, BPD has been viewed as essentially untreatable --- but many of the combinations of disorders that can produce the triad of attributes used to diagnose BPD are highly treatable.

The fact that you've known people whose lives were changed by medication would tend to strengthen the authors point, right?

We're all cognitively adept at identifying patterns and giving them names, but that doesn't make our intuitions about those patterns science.

Re: Borderline personality disorder: a spurious condition?

#17

This is a BS article that's basically a clinician's pet peeves and grievances. I know three close people with a BPD diagnosis. They had both a similar constellation of personality traits and all three were first medicated with antidepressants to no avail (a common trait in BPD is that it is easy to confuse for major depression). They took BPD-specific drugs and after a few trials and errors their quality of life incr…

I've known two women who were diagnosed with BPD that later turned out to be Autism. Their doctors believe BPD traits developed due to the issues their autism had on their socialisation as kids and teens. Getting on Ritalin massively improved their and their families lives. At least in women I suspect more than a few BDP diagnosis mask autism.

Does Ritalin improve autism? It’s an ADHD drug.

Re: Borderline personality disorder: a spurious condition?

#18
post #14
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say a bit more about the headspace

I have a close friend whose daughter has it. From what I understand she can’t weigh consequences out beyond about 2 minutes. Current emotional discomfort (like being slightly bored) is over the top painful. She can’t deal with “no” sometimes, like she goes so crazy the police have to be called sometimes. I read that it’s kind of like if you had no skin and thus all your nerve endings were exposed. Sitting would hurt,…

[flagged]

Re: Borderline personality disorder: a spurious condition?

#19
post #18
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a close friend whose daughter has it. From what I understand she can’t weigh consequences out beyond about 2 minutes. Current emotional discomfort (like being slightly bored) is over the top painful. She can’t deal with “no” sometimes, like she goes so crazy the police have to be called sometimes. I read that it’s kind of like if you had no skin and thus all your nerve endings were exposed. Sitting would hurt,…

[flagged]

Would "completely illogical" be better?

Re: Borderline personality disorder: a spurious condition?

#20
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is there a single "correct" personality that we should all strive towards? Functional

Defined very narrowly by what "functions" are expected of you. Which is of course conditioned on social expectations vis a vis (subjective) value systems which may or may not align to some notion of "correctness", even in broadly utilitarian terms.

i.e. showing up to work, doing well at school, dressing properly, keeping the correct company, filial piety...
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