Am I the one with BPD?

[Rockylove]

OK... .  so I was checking out some other websites this morning and I came across Tami Green's Borderline Personality Support~~Recovery Is Possible sit.  She made a checklist (Borderline Personality Test) Which frankly scared the crap out of me!  Too many things on the list were things I'd felt/done at one time or another!  Makes me question my own mental health and sanity!  Here's the list:

    Does criticism from other people, even in small measure, make you feel horrible inside?

    While being successful in your work life, do you feel as though a happy, successful relationship has been the one thing that's alluded you?

    Would you say your emotional life has been characterized by anguish?

    Have you found it hard to have close friends for very long?

    Do you feel like you have less friends than those around you?

    Do you tend to, at first, over idealize people and later often feel let down by them?

    Have you ever been accused of behaving in ways that are all or nothing with nothing in between?

    Have you taken on the values, habits and preferences of people, institutions, religions or philosophies, only to regret this decision later?

    Have you experienced intense episodes of sadness, irritability, and anxiety or panic attacks?

    Have you often felt raw? exhausted? in despair?

    Do you have trouble sleeping?

    Have you experienced chronic feelings of emptiness? Have you experienced a physical manifestation of this in your stomach or chest?

    Do you have trouble being alone?

    Have you experienced intense relationships?

    Do you feel like other people's emotional needs are too great?

    Have you felt depleted from giving it your all to relationships?

    Have you felt like since you've given it all to relationships and they haven't worked, that your only choice for sanity and balance is to not be in a relationship?

    Do you often feel lonely even when you are in a relationship?

    Do you consciously or unconsciously fear being abandoned?

    Do you seem to require more time with your partner than those you observe around you?

    Does your partner accuse you of having a double standard about the relationship?

    Have you said you feel "unsafe" in your relationship?

    Do you feel like your partner isn't telling you everything?

    Have you ever experienced an overpowering feeling that your partner was keeping things from you? Has your partner expressed feeling falsely accused of doing or saying things?

    Do social engagements and vacations often end up in turmoil?

    Do you feel a strong need for control?

    Are you often afraid that the world is going to cave in on you... .  that your life is going to collapse if you aren't in control of everything?

    Have you demonstrated outbursts in your most intimate relationships that seemed very appropriate at the time but you regretted later?

    Have you suffered from intense bouts of anger that last for hours, maybe even a few days?

    Are your expressions of anger sometimes followed by shame and guilt?

    Do you ever feel shameful?

    After a relationship has ended, have you felt like you're experiencing Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome?

    Do you feel like any contact with that person causes you too much stress?

    Have you ever cut someone off and refused to speak to them?

    Have you continued to refuse contact no matter how hard they try to reach you?

    Do you use alcohol or drugs to soothe your emotional pain?

    Do you have, or has anyone suggested you have, an eating disorder?

    Have you been known to spend too much, eat too much, be sexually promiscuous, or drive too fast?

    Have others commented or complained you work too much?

    Has anyone ever accused you of being paranoid?

    Have you ever cut yourself?

    Have you ever experienced so much emotional pain that you felt like you wanted to die?

    Have you ever attempted suicide?

There are several things that I can cross off the list (not having friends, cutting, suicide, drugs, eating disorder, over spending etc.) but how many people can honestly say that they haven't experienced these things?  If I get angry and lose my temper I DO feel badly about it afterward.  Is that normal or not?  I can say that over half of these questions can be answered with YES if I think about it.  I was devastated when my 2nd marriage ended and I spent 3 solid days staring into space thinking that death would be less painful that what I was dealing with. 

" After a relationship has ended, have you felt like you're experiencing Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome?

    Do you feel like any contact with that person causes you too much stress?

    Have you ever cut someone off and refused to speak to them?

    Have you continued to refuse contact no matter how hard they try to reach you?"  YES, YES, YES!  My 2nd husband was an alcoholic who made my life hell.  I stopped all contact and moved out of the state for the sake of my sanity. 

Can anyone shed light on this?  Is there any validity to what she's saying or is it just another quack with a website?

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[DyingLove]

Anyone can swing a hammer... .  but it's how you use it.  I think we all share most of those "symptoms" but the degree to which it is an issue makes or breaks the case.

Drop a small rock on your foot... .  drop a concrete block on your foot. They both hurt (to different degrees), and the one that constitutes an emergency is clearly obvious.  Now if I'm wrong... .  Oh crap... .  then I'm BPD too! But seriously, you are probably looking in the magnifying glass at yourself very closely now due to surrounding circumstances.   Oh by the way... .  my bus just pulled up and I'm being handed a magnifying glass and mirror today ALREADY!  You are not alone!

[Rockylove]

Thank you both!  I truly AM looking at myself through a magnifying glass right now.  I have had to be more aware (mindful) of my words, actions, thoughts, feelings, and expression of all of the above.  Not to say that I was a thoughtless person before, but I've had to focus my attention on what I've been doing that provoke my SO.  I've found myself in deep reflection, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

I know my role as the good co-dependent had been cultivated and fed through years of unhealthy and self defeating messages.  After my mother died, something clicked for me and I realized that I no longer had the desire to be who she wanted me to be and I allowed the person I was to emerge.  Don't get me wrong, I loved my mother... .  she just wasn't of the mindset of allowing personal growth.  I just have to keep reminding myself who I am and let the person I was rest peacefully... .  I wasn't all that bad then, just misguided   

[Tigerabbit]

I completely relate. I feel like I have many of the qualifiers for BPD, only I don't display inappropriate anger, at least not usually. I do feel intense anger or frustrations at times, but for the most part I keep a handle on it. For example, when I think of something mean to say in response to being verbally assaulted, I never do because I KNOW how that feels and do not want to make anyone else feel that way, even if they are doing so to me. That's not to say that I'm a perfect angel, but I do a pretty darn good job at keeping myself in check in that arena. I do however still feel that I act less appropriately than I could, and even feel at times that I'm about to boil over. Just today, my mom came to talk to me about a stressful matter after I came home from school. I'm currently very stressed about a plethora of things, which my mom knows about for the most part, and I told her with some frustration in my voice that I didn't want to talk about it right now and that we could talk about it later. She kept pressing and pressing and I got a little more insistent and attitudal each time. I felt like I was about to boil over and scream, and often when this kind of thing happens I mutter things like "just leave me the $%@ alone" to myself (pardon my implied profanity) once she's gone away. One time, loong ago in my late teens, maybe twenty years old or so, I punched my door and cracked it. I have thrown other small things in my room as well, but every time I've done that I've made sure I pick something that isn't going to break (or that I don't care if it breaks), and I've never intentionally abused someone else's property. In recent times I have completely resisted the urge to throw things, so I feel that that phase is mostly over (I hope). There have been a couple times (though also not something I've done in ages) where I inappropriately raged at complete strangers. There have been times when I've been in such a deep despair that I've sat on my bathroom floor and yelled as loud as I possibly could until I was nearly blue in the face (I imagine it sounded like the noise a mother might make when she found out her child had been killed or something. It was very intense.) So... .  I feel like I'm treading a thin line there, and while I've been under immense amounts of pressure my entire life, I can't help but wonder what my limits are and how/if I will crack when they are surpassed. I am in tune with a rage within me that I have compartmentalized and usually don't feel, but it's very faintly smoldering in there somewhere and it scares me. So again, I completely relate with having doubts about your own mental health.

When I first went to my new therapist, I was practically asking her to diagnose me with something, simply so I could understand "what was wrong with me" and start to fix it. She made me realize that being diagnosed with a disorder is not entirely necessary in order to figure out the things you want and need to change about yourself and how you deal with the world! So while I still admit there is part of me that is curious, it isn't so important to me now as it was then. The real key for me, which is a relatively recent development, was to stop being so defensive and start being REALLY honest with myself about my shortcomings and the fact that it is within my power to improve. I needed to learn to stop judging my worth as a human being and punishing myself for my mistakes and faults (that is a work in progress, of course), because that only made me lie to myself because I couldn't face the truth, and therefore couldn't grow! So, while diagnoses can be a helpful tool, I don't think they are always necessary. I'm not an expert by any means, and of course I may be completely wrong, but I hope this helps even a little bit. 

[elemental]

I don't think you have BPD or whatever. What I think is looking inside us for the "problem" is an attempt to feel like we can control the bad things happening. Then we can fix them.

What I understand is that if I act a certain way with my BPD, things get loads better. He still does some of the same old crap and won't stop and as a result, I am fading on him... .  

But I really think so many of us are so co dependent we naturally feel we are the ones with the problem.

Rocky, you aren't. You can't control his problem by taking the blame and making your self the problem. All of you can do is control you and let him control him and if he flies apart, it's just the way it is.

sucks.