can knowing about diagnosis make an inteligent hfBPD recover quicker?

[mitochondrium]

Hi all,

I talked to my therapist yesterday and she said that she sometimes had an experience with very inteligent people when they learnt about BPD diagnosis that they studied it profoundly and learned how to calm themselves better and communicate better and be more ''normal'' to the outside world? Does anybody have similar experience?

From what I read before it seemed to be the opposite, but this statement sure made me hopeful.

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members may appear frustrated but they are here for constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[Jabiru]

Hi It depends on the person, I guess. My uBPD wife was first angry with it. She read a lot about the condition and educated herself. Years later, she acknowledges it and (mostly) respects my boundaries when her emotions get unstable. I'd say the biggest thing is to not bring the label up.

[maxsterling]

First of all, "recover" and "normal" are relative terms.  From our perspective, pwBPD will never be "normal" or "recover", but their behavior may become more manageable. 

My W was diagnosed bipolar as a teen, and later (early 20s) diagnosed BPD.  When it comes to the DSM criteria for BPD, she easily checked all the boxes then, and still would easily check them now.  She has gone through intensive DBT therapy both in-patient and out-patient, even by clinicians who developed the DBT technique itself.  She has known about her diagnosis for 25 years.  She is an intelligent person who freely accepted her diagnosis (although she now tells people she has CPSD)

How has she "recovered"?  Well, she was diagnosed after a suicide attempt.  The fact that she is still alive 25 years later could be considered "recovered".   She hasn't abused Heroin in 25 years, so again that could be considered "recovered".  She has found ways to manage her own life, even if it means finding others to help her (such as me), she has at least found her own way.  She hasn't attempted suicide in awhile and doesn't abuse heroin, but she has other maladaptive coping mechanisms she has turned to (she turns to food, spending money, constantly seeking doctors, "medical" marijuana, etc).  Approaching 50, I don't expect her to ever be much more functional than she is now. 

I think the typical outcome for an aware person accepting of a BPD diagnosis would be a course of initial rapid growth followed by stagnation and relapses.  That's been the case for my W, seems to be the case for most of those in 12-step recovery programs, and seems to be the case in most of the stories you read here.  Mostly stopping the worst of the destructive behaviors would be considered a major win, but usually those behaviors only morph into something else that is less harmful.  I have read about exceptions, but these are amongst folks who had mild symptoms to begin with.

[Pook075]

The way to do anything in life is by actually doing it.  There's no substitute.  So if your spouse has BPD and you tell them, a variety of things might happen but the only thing that will help them get better is taking therapy seriously and putting in a ton of work.  What also might happen is your spouse telling you that you're a liar and they never want to talk to you again.  Or maybe they cry and just leave.  Or maybe they project and say it's obvious you actually have BPD. 

The odds are almost zero for them thinking, "Hmm, they're right about this and I need to get in therapy right away to fix myself."

If you want to tell your spouse about BPD, do it through a professional who's actually trained to deal with mental health.  They have credibility on the topic, you don't.

[mitochondrium]

Yeah, miracles rarely happen. I think I have not accepted the diagnosis yet myself. I have to still work  on that. What our T said of course made me hopeful, the reason behind why she said it was that my bf suffered from severe dyslexia and it took him a long time before he was able to read, he barley finishend first few years of primary school. His parents didn't/couldn't/didn't know how to help him much. However he somehow thought himself to read. Later he he made it to the university, he made it through the university. He got into PhD of biochemistry, he finished PhD. This are of course huge accomplishments and T thinks that if he was able to somehow learn himself to do the reading and schooling, he might be able to learn how to control BPD better with known diagnosis because of his determination and ability. This is probably a long shot, I am aware.

But what actually happened before my therapy session was that we got in some argument, we did not agree on some events from the past and how much did we actually fight, he said we barley did and then I was giving examples of what actually happened.  Then he said that I must hate him and that I should break up with him. And so I just said ok, then I do and I stood by it for now. Then my therapy happened and therapist suggested I tell him about diagnosis (his official testing will still take some time etc.). I was surprised, from what I read and as you say now Pook075, I didn't really want to, didn't feel it being my place and was afraid I will only get a tantrum or an accusation back. However when I got home he was saying he will work on his problems, how he does not know what is wrong with him etc. Then I went for it, that it could be BPD, that it could also be stg. else that I am not qualified for a diagnosis, but that there are quiet some characteristics of this disease. Then he asked me what kind of and I told him. Then I suggested he checks for himself. One day later then he looked for himself and he said regarding to a relationship he checks all the boxes except self-harm and suicide. He said he will try his best to get better with therapy and that I should think if I will have him back, that he will really try. And also if I din't take him back that he will still try very hard to get better. Maybe that is almost a miracle. If I now remember how I was doing my research in secrecy the whole summer etc. Other possibility is of course that he really doesn't want for the breakup to be final and he is making a lot of promises. I said I need more time to think. But it is of course tempting for me to give it another try.

[mitochondrium]

yeah, maxsterling, I read a lot on what treated means and came to the same conclusion that you gave me. It is almost a miracle that suicide attempts and heroin abuse go away. And the term recovery is different for a psychiatrist and for a household. Although no suicide attempts and heroin abuse are huge recovery for household too, it doesn't mean this is a relaxed household. Painful thoughts.

[Steppenwolf]

I just recently talked to my hf-uBPDw and I think that she might have BPD. It worked kind of well. Of course, she deflected heavily and was mad at me, because she didn't want to be held responsible for what happened in our relationship etc.

She is absolutely unable to attribute anything to the situation etc. We had a lot of fights because I would try to point out a situation that was bad for our family and she tried to paint me as the guilty one. In her view, there always must be a person that can be turned into the guilty party. So in any argument, if I try to defend myself, she takes it as if I am telling her she is guilty for what happened (most of the time, I am not trying to say this).

So the situation in this case was similar. When I tried to talk with her about this, she took it immediately as if I was saying she was guilty for causing the problems we have in our family. It took a lot of time to get through to her, that this was not in any way what
meant, that I just found some resources that helped me understand the situation etc. It was one of the hardest conversations I ever had.

However, it led to some really important changes. Before, she would frequently have interactions with others, where she over-interpreted the emotional content. As if she cranked any emotional content up to eleven. It often led to her being overly critical of the children, going overboard with consequences, or being much more fearful of situations than necessary. When I tried to talk about this, she would try to convince me that her perceptions were absolutely correct, that I was the one handling the situation too lax etc.

But since I talked to her about the possibility of BPD and that this comes with an over-reactivity to the emotions of others, she has become more careful in these situations, asking me how I perceived them and genuinely listening to my interpretations. We kind of found the agreement, that she likely can pick up on emotions in others which I wouldn't even notice. But on the other hand, I am likely better at interpreting the situation, so we are trying to use that to our advantage. So when it is possible, she lets me handle interactions that might become problematic (e.g. talking to teachers at school about problems with our children).


TLDR: In my case talking to my uBPDw about it was a highly problematic move, that I realized could have backfired really badly if we just had been unlucky. And it didn't really get us anywhere near "recovery", and I don't think that is a goal that is achievable at all. But it added some strategies that we can now use to circumvent potentially problematic situations.