Is she giving an opinion or a diagnoses?
Did she do any testing or just go from her experience with you?
Does she have a PhD? How many years experience?
I would also be curious what she hopes to improve/change in you by sharing her "diagnosis".
She gave a "strong" opinion. It was not a diagnosis but she made it clear that she is 100% convinced, and based on my past sessions, my personal history shared, and the session with my wife.
I am not sure how many years experience but she has a PhD. I think she wanted to make it clear what she thought I was dealing with and what kind of therapy I needed going forward. I think it was her way of ending the sessions, as she confirmed she does not specialize in this and I would need to see someone who does and she doesn't think she can do much more to help me at this time.
But the truth is the more I read and look back:
- I get severe mood and emotion shifts lasting minutes or hours
- I get upset, offended, insulted very easily
- I have a history of suicide attempts and self harm
- I have a history of substance abuse
- I have severe self worth / confidence / identity issues
- I constantly feel unhappy, empty and unfulfilled
- I have had a history of unstable relationships
- I can either be extremely distant or codependant
- Loss of recollection, memory etc
- I have a childhood history of physical and psychological abuse
I dont think I can really disagree with her but I would like to find someone who does specialise in this area and get a proper diagnosis and treatment / therapy plan.
What you should try to untangle is, what is you, and what is the relationship. What parts of your anxiety and PTSD are tied to you being triggered by the behaviors in the relationship, and what are externalities due to your own issues. You may well have BPD traits now in this moment... .Why? Because BPD traits are the normal human results of sustained high stress and anxiety.
Why do you two still have a draw to each other? Because you have years and years of shared experience, in any relationship there's an element of enmeshment, but more so in a relationship with someone with BPD... .also, in some way shape of form your different personalities compliment each other, she has something you need, you have something she needs.
unfortunately the long running therapy over the years all has childhood and adolescence as the underlying cause of the anxiety disorder. Fear of abandonment, rejection of relationship or the self, and loss or constant changing futures all trigger me. So the relationship triggers memories or learned response, or reiterate some "truth" I have beleived about myself from over the years. I still have a very fractured relationship with my family and they are a very close knit "circle" (its not a constant drama, type family, more judgemental and gossipy). So I think part of my needs for codependecy are part of fulling a hole I never got being part (or apart) from my own family.
