BPD and PTSD

[BiancaRose]

I've heard that symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder often share a lot of characteristics with borderline personality disorder. Can anybody here shed light on the differences between these two disorders? Specifically, I'm curious about whether there's any way I can tell whether my mother is truly afflicted with BPD or if it would be more accurate to say she has PTSD.

(A bit of background: my mother has alluded to a history of abuse in her childhood. Since her father was a Polish soldier and prisoner of war in WWII, it would be reasonable to suspect that his behaviour was influenced by PTSD. I know prolonged abuse, emotional or physical, can also cause PTSD and suspect that this may be a factor in my mom's case. That would make me the third generation of our family to be traumatized. War is hell.)

[daughterdearest]

I think my own mother has PTSD from her past abuse combined with the BPD. I don't know for certain, but I imagine that the main difference between them would be that people with BPD don't just traumatized by their own experiences, but they very significantly also act out against those close to them, get angry inappropriately, etc.

[Satori]

I read an article or two describing PTSD as a "psychiatric injury". It's like the emotional equivalent of having a bad fall and having to recover from the broken bones and bruises. Someone who has this injury needs time and tenderness to recuperate, just like someone trying to recover from a physical injury. If you are stuck in the situation in which you were injured, that would be something like having to walk and carry on as normal on a bad sprain -- you won't get better as quickly, may keep on re-injuring, and may end up with a worse injury that will require more drastic measures to heal from.

BPD, on the other hand, doesn't get better just from removing the person from the situation and giving him time and normal loving care to heal. We don't know exactly what causes the illness, but I think it's safe to say that this would be sort of the mental/emotional equivalent of having a birth defect that can be at least partially corrected with surgery. Or in some cases not, in which case the person has to learn alternative coping skills. Perhaps think of someone with PTSD as having a broken leg and someone with BPD as having been born with a malformed leg.

Or maybe, since there often seem to be environmental factors involved, it would be better to say that someone with BPD is more like a person with a severe allergy ... .  

Of course, I'm just figuring it out myself.

[BiancaRose]

Awesome, thanks. That's actually extremely helpful. I'll have to give it some more thought to figure out exactly where Mommie Dearest stands, but at least I can clarify what sets the two apart.

[Gerda]

My understanding of it was that PTSD can lead to BPD, that BPD might be the result of untreated PTSD. Also I think the kind of PTSD you get from childhood abuse is different than what soldiers get, since the trauma of the soldiers happens when they're already adults and have their personalities formed.

But maybe a psychologist would know better than me.

My mom was also abused as a child and got no treatment for it. She's been diagnosed with PTSD already, a diagnosis she's embraced and milks for sympathy. Basically, I think her BPD is a dysfunctional way for her to cope with her childhood abuse. Maybe if she had a proper intervention early in her life, she either wouldn't have BPD now or have a much milder case, but now that she's in her 60's and has been acting this way her whole life, it's probably too late. By now she doesn't know any other way to be.

The way I see it, in a nutshell, is that PTSD can lead to BPD, but it doesn't always. Whether a traumatized person develops BPD probably depends on a combination of whether the traumatized person gets treatment, when in the person's life the trauma occured, and whether the person might already be genetically predisposed to BPD.

Then again, I'm assuming that all people with BPD have had some kind of trauma. That might not be the case. We've had this nature vs. nurture debate before, and I admit that I just plain don't like the idea that some people are just born with BPD and that's that and they'll have it even if they had a perfect childhood. I think the environment you grow up in probably has a lot to do with how your personality forms.

[truly amazed]

Hi,

Its an interesting one for a professional this question. After a traumatic event many suffer PTSD. Strangely enough after my relationship with my ex BPD partner and many on these boards they suffer PTSD as a result of the treatment that happens.

With BPD as I understand it having read a fair bit and been to see a shrink many times to help me over it, one with 30 years in the field, his description is the person with BPD suffers some event usually in childhood which leaves them this way. it can be loss of a parent, or abuse by an adult and a long list of other things. The event with your mother that led to her BPD may be PTSD of the war and it is very possible I suspect this event that could have changed her.

Development is halted in terms of dealing with many issues and the way a two year old deals with things is close to how many suffering BPD deal with issues thru their lives. Conscience and empathy are quite often not there, they simply do not know how to relate to others feelings. Getting what they want again stopped at a childhood level. Certainly as adults in higher functioning BPD people they know they should apologize for something they have done but rarely ever do, and if they do its more out of knowing they are expected to than their conscience.

With a two year old if you put them in a room for 30 mins when they are naughty they go I hate you I hate you and when they come back out they go I love you I love you. In many ways the 2 year old believes this but only for a short time. BPD people often are the very same and flit between loving and hating you. At times you become an object to be discarded when used up. With a normal 2 year old they learn why they have been put in the room ... .  grow and mature and whilst they may not be happy being punished at say age 5 they do understand the reasons why and they do not stay in the I hate you mode, I love you mode.

Just my take on things and not an expert.

good luck 

[Satori]

In response to Gerda: Assuming the BPD is usually caused by the person's childhood, then you could look at it as the psychological equivalent to walking around on a bad sprain without taking care of it. It gets worse and results in a much more serious injury -- PTSD becoming BPD. I don't know if this is really what happens. I've known a fair few people with BPD and most of them came from families in which there was some sort of abuse or neglect, or at least a big trauma like the death of a parent when the child was still young. However, I'm pretty sure my mother has it and I have no idea what in her childhood would have caused it. Or, rather, I have an idea, but it isn't terribly satisfying. She seems to have been given a good childhood by good parents and her siblings' memory of things is much more idyllic than hers. I just don't know.

Part of the problem with figuring out the genesis of the disease is that people with BPD are not exactly reliable. Obviously, they see abuse where there is none, and that could apply to their memories of their childhoods. On the other hand, abusive parents probably don't usually see themselves as abusive, so if you were to ask the parents of people with BPD about their parenting, how likely is it that they are going to admit to mistreating their children? The ones who are willing to look at their own behavior and see where they may be to blame are probably much more likely to have been normal, loving parents than those who insist they were good.

Growing up in wartime, now, that's traumatic enough to mess anyone up, though.

[BiancaRose]

Part of the problem with figuring out the genesis of the disease is that people with BPD are not exactly reliable. Obviously, they see abuse where there is none, and that could apply to their memories of their childhoods. On the other hand, abusive parents probably don't usually see themselves as abusive, so if you were to ask the parents of people with BPD about their parenting, how likely is it that they are going to admit to mistreating their children? The ones who are willing to look at their own behavior and see where they may be to blame are probably much more likely to have been normal, loving parents than those who insist they were good.

Agreed, absolutely. I've been trying to piece together the story based on my own observations and experiences, filtering my mother's reporting through that with the knowledge that it may well be self-serving or exaggerated. But I do see parallels in the relationship between me/Mommie and Mommie/her mother, which leads me to suspect that she was abused in many of the same ways she abuses me. Which makes sense, in its way - you learn to parent from your own parents, generally speaking, and she parented me the way she was parented.

Interestingly, my mother doesn't exactly claim to have been abused as a child. She acknowledges some issues with the way her family treated her, but mostly they're around her being less important than her sister, very seldom actually invoking the possibility of child abuse. She's willing to claim that I'm abusive of her, but not her parents. I suspect she still sees them as the powerful, terrifying figures she remembers from her youth, not safe to accuse, whereas I'm an easier target because she still thinks I'm this little eight-year-old nothing. (I'm thirty.)

Does that make sense?

[Satori]

Yes.

But her parents might also just have her brainwashed. I thought my mother was perfect for years -- I'm 40 and just figuring out how horrible and insidious her abuse was and what a terrible example of a wife and mother.

[tiredmommy2]

I've heard that symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder often share a lot of characteristics with borderline personality disorder. Can anybody here shed light on the differences between these two disorders? Specifically, I'm curious about whether there's any way I can tell whether my mother is truly afflicted with BPD or if it would be more accurate to say she has PTSD.

It's actually possible for her to have both - that's pretty common. 

Are you just curious, or would you deal with her in a different way if she had PTSD instead of BPD?

Interestingly, my mother doesn't exactly claim to have been abused as a child. She acknowledges some issues with the way her family treated her, but mostly they're around her being less important than her sister, very seldom actually invoking the possibility of child abuse.

Same here.  PDmother claims that she was neglected here and there, not abused, and actually spoiled... .  I can believe that - she continues to act like a spoiled toddler even though she's in her 60s!

But her parents might also just have her brainwashed. I thought my mother was perfect for years -- I'm 40 and just figuring out how horrible and insidious her abuse was and what a terrible example of a wife and mother.

Point taken. I also didn't realize the extent of my abuse until I was over 30 years old.

[BiancaRose]

Are you just curious, or would you deal with her in a different way if she had PTSD instead of BPD?

Mostly just curious, really. I'm trying to sort it all out in my own head, and also trying to figure out how close I am to becoming like her. I've had PTSD symptoms in the past, particularly around specific incidents of abuse that were especially scary for me. So trying to figure out how PTSD and BPD intersect is relevant to my own outcomes as well as whatever is up with my mom.