Ever heard of the "Quiet Borderline"?

Started by Bimsy, January 15, 2016, 07:50:27 AM

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Bimsy

**POSSIBLE TRIGGER WARNING**


I visited a psychologist recently, he suggested that I might be evaluated to see if I've got Borderline.

I don't know what to do with myself now, got really, really dark thoughts and have isolated myself.
Can't really talk with friends about this as I often distance myself from people in a lack of trust sometimes when things get dark and I can't even express this with myself clearly.
I got my pokerface on but my chest hurts like I've been hit with an arrow.

According to the internet BPD, PTSD, ADHD and BPD is pretty similar and I've suspected that I've had these diagnoses.
Not at the same time of course but I've been wondering if one of these diagnoses could explain why I keep repeating the same patterns.

I don't recognize myself as a person who would lash out at people but there is something called "The quiet" borderline which I can relate to, it means that the bad emotions are turned inward instead of outwards.
And I have also read that people with Borderline often have an underlying PTSD or ADHD.

Things I've read about the diagnosis does match up with things that often troubled me in relationships in my childhood, like being "over sensitive" to criticism and flying into fits of rage.
I've learned to suppress this over time though so that I could make friends and fit in as I felt very lonely and hated myself for being a bad person.
Rage is a very triggering feeling, I simply HAVE to be in control and rage is the opposite of being in control.

I don't self mutilate, if I would try cutting I would still feel bad AND be in physical pain as well so I have a hard time understanding how others can move their pain from their psyche to their body instead.
Though I've been reckless sometimes, like I want to get drunk and don't care where I wake up.
I guess one could call it a sort of self mutilation of the emotions instead of the body.
(I'll put up a trigger warning because I mentioned this).

I've read that there are a few criteria you have to "live up to" in order to be Borderline but you don't have to check all of them which means that there are about 275 or so variations in symptoms of BPD.

I feel like I'm drowning here, there's a lot of triggering stuff for me connected to the things mentioned in the description of Quiet BPD and yet there is very little info on Quiet BPD other than the typical acting-out kind of BPD.
Does anyone else recognize something like what I am describing?

Here is a short video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CoASG8VseQ

It is so hard for me to trust that this can be helped, I don't trust the psychiatric establishment here in Sweden as they are still living in the middle ages in some aspects.
To mention one thing: "The Swedish belt" is named after Sweden since many people (usually young women) have been abused with this kind of treatment.
And I've heard that not many people take BPD very seriously since BPD's can be very tricky and demand a lot of attention.

Yet I feel like it's "do or die" for me, I live on hope that things might change one day if I get help but now I am terrified of what might come.
Bleh! This is the worst thing ever! :stars:




I like vanilla

I am no mental health care person and have no formal training on the topic (so add several grains of salt to the ideas here) but it is possible that you are CPTSD but not Borderline. The Spartan Life Coach (found on Youtube) recently spoke about how mental health care professionals often mistake CPTSD for Borderline Personality disorder.

These support people are usually competent and well meaning but often 'Borderline' exists in their 'toolkit' of evaluative conclusions when 'CPTSD' often does not (it is still not a separate diagnosis in the DSM and PSTD itself only got in relatively recently). Because some of the symptoms (e.g. difficulty regulating emotions) overlap, the mental health professional concludes 'Borderline' as the 'closest match' when the actual issue might 'just' be CPTSD because often that is the only information that the professional has to go by.

If you only have a hammer then every problem looks like a nail...

Bimsy

Thanks for your answer!
What would you say is the main difference in BPD and CPTSD then?

My psychologist suggested DBT treatment and mentalization but I kind of feel like I usually am pretty in tuned with what people feel though I do not always act on what they feel since I've got my own emotions and reactions.
Depends on the situation.

tired

Interesting

My first reaction is that quiet borderline behavior is my way of coping with c-PTSD. I do it the quiet way because it's easier to sustain. If I were loud I would be locked up or somehow treated/stopped. I don't cut because it's visible so I overeat. But then I don't eat for days so everyone thinks I'm healthy. 

Borderline seems like a symptom of the underlying problem.  I also have add and get depressed and those to me are also symptoms.

tesscaline

I've never heard of "Quiet Borderline".  But I'll echo what I Like Vanilla pointed out.  Many with CPTSD are misdiagnosed as having BPD, so be wary of that.

http://outofthefog.website/personality-disorders-1/2015/12/6/borderline-personality-disorder-bpd gives a pretty decent run down on what BPD is. 

If you're concerned about the BPD diagnosis, I would ask your psychiatrist why they think you have BPD, rather than something else such as CPTSD. 

tired

I think the problem I have with the diagnosis, now that I think of it, is that a personality disorder is usually considered (my impression anyway) very difficult to treat. It's so ingrained that it's part of your personality as it developed and thus you don't necessarily see it as a problem to fix.  But if you have symptoms that look like bpd and have a history of abuse, then it's likely that you will seek help and recover eventually as you work through it.

But then again, wouldn't anyone with bpd have a history of abuse and be miserable enough to seek help if they are given a glimmer of hope?  The diagnosis confuses me, as far as labels go.

I have this view that someone with a personality disorder is an unpleasant person.  A lot of us on this site have suffered in the hands of people with personality disorders, so it feels like an insult to have that diagnosis myself. fifteen years ago i bought a textbook and workbook for borderline personality disorder and it fit to an extent; i did some of the exercises and i understood the gist of it. On out of the fog when people comment on the bpd in their life, I usually comment that I used to be like that and give an opinion from that angle.  I have never received a comment on my comment, so i don't know how that goes over.

The way I like to look at it is this-these are all just words.  None of these things are something you "have".  You "have" arms and legs. You might "have" a tumor in your body.  But things that go on in our minds are just things we are currently struggling with.  So I don't like labels in general, on philosophical grounds.  Of course the c-ptsd label was a way of leading me to other people who describe the same set of things and that comforts me. It makes me feel better to have "me" described back to me, like a mirror, especially because my sense of self and my life story seemed so disjointed and now it makes sense. But if I'm called a label that sounds negative like a PD, even if the basic description is accurate, it doesn't feel good.  It's a way of saying, you have traits that hurt others around you.  Even if someone who has borderline pd says it to me, it doesn't give me a sense of ok, we both have this, we can heal together. By definition it seems like we just wouldn't do well together.

That was rambly because I just thought of it.  a knee jerk reaction for what it's worth.   

i just thought of this too--bpd sounds like a description of what the person is doing and how they feel in the moment whereas c-ptsd gives a sense of the background and how they got here and why.  it also gives a sense of how to fix it because there's a logic to trauma recovery. bpd just sounds like "you have a problem and it sucks".  who wants to hear that.

Dutch Uncle

I've had a SCID-II test done to see if I had a PD. I have not. Best thing any therapist/psychologist has ever done for me.
The result may come out 'negative' for you too.

Then I know nothing of the "Swedish system", your worries about being misdiagnosed might well be justified. And a difference may also be that I was the one who thought I might have a PD, it was not the therapist who suggested I might have one.

Bimsy


You bring up some very valid points, Tired!
I too have felt like I don't want to be lumped up together with people who have PD's though I realize that they struggle a lot as well.

To me, the BPD symptoms relate to many of the bad things I've done in my life that I don't like to think is a part of who I am.
Yet I am self concious enough to know that I have problems, I am not in denial though I was before as a kid when I was living with abuse.
I think that people told me so many times about how I acted wrong that there was no doubt that there was something wrong with me, the hard part has been finding something good in me and to focus on those parts.
In some way I am hoping that this awareness is something that argues against the notion that I would suffer from a PD, I hate to think that I would still be as bad as my mother who never would admit that she had done anything wrong.

In a way I hate labels too, my mother have tried to label me all my life so that she didn't have to take responsibility for my suffering since it was all because of my "ADHD" or "lack of empathy" that probably was something that I "inherited biologically from my dead father".
Though at the same time labels is pretty strong in that sense that one seems to need a label to get access to real help.
All I've ever been offered is CBT or the usual psychodynamic talk therapy though I've been interested in trying alternative methods that usually work for people with PTSD.
But it's like you need the key diagnosis to get this special treatment because if you've got a diagnosis then even "sane", well educated and trusted people recognize your problems as valid.
And I long for my problems to be recognized so that people might take me seriously for once, though at the same time I suspect that people with any PD aren't taken seriously in any other case other than that they have valid issues.

Bearing this in mind makes it hard to think that it is just words and that it might or might not fit my description, even to myself.
I feel like the way other people see me can drastically impact how I am being treated and I would hate it if I have to feel like a mentally disturbed outsider again.
I've already felt that way before when I worked for a company that only hire people with handicaps (I got hired because of my depression), people would usually relate to all of the employees as mentally challenged even though some might just suffer from physical injuries.
It was difficult to accept that I too became a social paria as soon as I officially associated with them, "normal" people can be extremely rude and condescending! :(
Though of course I wouldn't wear any diagnosis like a badge I still have to admit to the people working within health care that I am somewhat "disturbed".

Having written all this I now understand more clearly why I was so upset with my psychologist's suggestion that I might be evaluated since I was showing signs of BPD.
But If I would narrow it down to what I personally think of a diagnosis I only feel that it can be useful in understanding my problems and dealing with them, other than that I would hate to think that BPD would be part of my self image since it would mostly make me feel like a sick victim and that's just wrong.
 

BTW, I now remember that my psychologist actually didn't say the word "borderline", he said: "Emotional instability" and I said: "Like in emotional unstable PD"? and he said "Yes".
And I actually did tell him about my thoughts on CPTSD but talked more about my own behaviour rather than things I've gone through.

Indigochild

Hey Bimsy,

Trigger warning...

Im so sorry for your worry.
Im not tyting to change your feelings by the way, writing what I'm going to write.

I dont know what the difference is between Cptsd or *how* something becomes a *personality*disorder, but i know that Cptsd and Borderline can look similar, and that a person with borderline has it because of their upbringing. Because of neglect and abuse, and they also have Cptsd.
Borderline is a way of relating to others, the only way a person with BPD has been taught, it stems from abandonment in childhood, usually people with it dont know how to self soothe, experience flashbacks which they call *intense emotions*, they say that people with Bpd are very sensitive-
i believe that their upbringing makes them this sensitive- and that they are having flashbacks, so sure, the pain would be very strong- as thats the nature of flashbacks.
Self harm is a way to regulate emotions, weather through drinking, smoking, drugs, bodily injury, eating disorders...whatever it may be.
Then there is dissociation and numbness, emptiness...
I could go on.
What I'm trying to say is that it is all a result of cptsd, trauma. They go hand in hand sometimes.

I wish you good luck and hope that your test goes ok. Im wondering , how can they really test for this stuff, with out seeing a therapist?

Anyway, yes, hope it goes well.

Dutch Uncle

#9
I don't want to threadjack, but I think this is an important question:
Quote from: Indigo on January 16, 2016, 05:58:32 PM
Im wondering , how can they really test for this stuff, with out seeing a therapist?
My experience has been, and I think this is pretty much standard for DSM-based diagnosis:
You get tested by a trained psychologist, a so-called psychodiagnostician.
The test is based on self-reporting through a pre-set list of questions. From the answers you give yourself (this was 'homework' for me) there will be an interview (2 hours IIRC, with a small break halfway) and a result drawn (can take week or two, depending on work-load I guess).
Which, in my case, was then 'reviewed' by (a team of) psycho-therapists/psychologists/psychiatrists before the result was presented to and discussed with me by my 'personal' psychologist.
Between taking the test and getting the result three or four weeks had passed.

Somewhat related, I assume, in criminal cases, when the suspect is not cooperating in a psychological assessment, psychologists often 'refuse' to diagnose said suspect for the very reason you remarked: "how can they really test for this stuff, without seeing the suspect cooperating with a therapist?"

I don't know if Sweden uses the DSM or a different 'diagnostic manual'/method.

woodsgnome

#10
Yes, I too feel the 'silent BPD' pattern fits my steady 'inner burn', and my tendency to absorb triggers inward and then find myself unable or unwilling to release the tension. So it sits inside, silently burning.

Something that confuses and bothers me somewhat, though, are all these descriptions/prescriptions and that this or that condition is conclusive--do this, that, the other, and all will be fixed. So I'm always a tad cautious when the labels go on as conclusive, and not as pointers to recovery. Because each recovery, I'm discovering, is one's own, and can't be forced via a cookie-cutter one-definition-fits-all approach.

I've been with some t's where that seemed the case--they had me pegged into a certain box or, in one case, tried defining me per their doctoral dissertation's thesis. "I" was sort of a statistic, not a person, a category that just needed placement; and I wasn't confident whether the placement was for her purposes, mine, or (preferably) ours. This last is critical—it's not just 1-way from the therapist; maybe at first, but then the work should be more mutual...just my take, though.

I will be seeing a new t next week, so I'm getting a bit anxious myself or maybe it's just, as Alan Watts once called it, the "wisdom of insecurity".

tired

It's better to be descriptive and say original instability than state a diagnosis. The diagnosis is based on having a certain number of symptoms out of a list, and having them for a minimum of x amount of time or whatever. It's a shorthand for something complex and is only useful (I think...) if let's say you switched therapists and he wanted to give a quick description of you. Or if he has to put something down for insurance. 

It always amazes me that I'm treated like I am more mentally ill because I have a diagnosis, which really only means that I sought treatment. The rest of the family and my ex feel like because they don't have that label they are somehow less mentally ill. And on top of that, they think that makes them better. Annoys me.

Kizzie

#12
FYI, there's a long thread about the  BPD and CPTSD here-  http://outofthefog.net/C-PTSD/forum/index.php?topic=596.0.

FWIW, I no longer think of myself as being mentally ill (as I do think is the case when you have a PD), but as having a psychological stress injury. I love this line from a man in a video Dutch posted in the advocacy or resources section I forget which: "I am not mentally ill, I am normal for what I went through."  Makes a lot of sense to me nowadays, whereas for decades I thought I was crazy and broken. I do not believe that any more.


Bimsy

Yeah I know about the other Borderline thread but I wanted to specify on "Quiet BPD".

Now I don't remember if It's the DSM but my psychologist talked about "Emotional instability" and I don't remember what that term came from.. I'll have to look it up after I get some sleep.

Fun fact: I once got a paper with a few questions that I got to fill in, all by myself, and after that I was declared Bipolar :)
I don't trust that diagnosis anymore, I thought I was bipolar at the time and it effected how I answered the questions.

I feel OK now, I got through it the usual way.. reading abuse stories and feeling the pain of someone else so that it doesn't have to be about me.
I feel pretty stable right now but far from great, there is some darkness under the surface that not even I can see, I just feel that it's there somewhere.
Right now I don't care about labels but I care about how I might get treated because of them, so I'll discuss this carefully with my psychologist when he calls me today.
I'll talk about what he wrote in my medical journal and how I don't agree with some of the words he used, there are some aspects that are invalidating and very black and white.