Could i have borderline personality disorder? - Bipolar Disorder Message Board

fallen_angel · 11-12-2006, 02:26 AM

Hi
As many of you on here know, i was diagnosed bipolar II in may this year and am fairly confident that the diagnosis is correct, as i suffer severe mood swings between hypomanic and depressive with all the classic symptoms of both. However, i am wondering if i could also have borderline personalty disorder.
Im not 100% sure of all the symptoms, but one thing i can say is i have severe problems involving become attached to people, particularly men. I am terrified of them walking away from me and feeling abandoned. However, i think a lot of this could go back to my childhood, my dad walked out when i was 7 and one of my earliest memories is him stepping over me on the floor with me hanging onto his leg and begging him to stay. He came back and left again several times right up until i was 16, so ive never have any stability from anyone male and i guess if your dad can do that to you, you feel that anyone can. I also lost my grandad who i was very close to at a young age, and every relationship ive had has gone horribly wrong. Ive been dumped more times than i can remember, and every time, it has took me a ridiculous amount of time to get over the guy, even if we werent serious. Ive been so devastated and not been able to function for sometimes as long as months afterwards. Ive felt really obsessed with them and tried to convince myself i can get them back, although i must add i have never called them, or stalked them in anyway. I just couldnt stop thinking about them and how depressed i felt. This has happened again to me recently, i hardly knew this person but they have cut me off with no explanation, and ive felt terrible for the past few days. Its sent me into a depressive episode and i feel quite desperate. I just cant get this person out of my head, surely this cant be normal? i realise this is probably about me and not about any of these men, but the thing is, i feel id be ok if they dumped me but agreed to stay in touch as friends, but its being cut dead with no future contact that i cant cope with. i feel if i had contact just one more time everything would be ok.
i also worry excessively about upsetting and losing friends, but the problem is more with men.
does it sound like i could have BPD?

LAP18 · 11-12-2006, 02:56 AM

wow, you and I were just writing about the same thing at the same time. I wrote the post about borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder (it is just above your post). I am reading a book called "the Bipolar Child", becuase my 17 year old is bipolar. One page clearly describes her, It is the page on borderline personality disorder. (page 45)

Like the book describes, my daughetr used to cut herslf, (I don't hink she does anymore), she is irritable has a history of unstable relationships, is impulsive, oppositional, defiant, feels empty and the worse thing is she is obsssesive about men. I looked at her cellphone usage, and in a matter of 8 days she called this young man 100 times! One of those days, she called him obsssively 60 times! She called and called becuase she couldn't stand the fact that she didn't know where he was.

She has ttempted suicide 3 times, becuse three diffent guys broke up with her. All of her ex boyfrineds think she is incredibly needy. And that, she is.

Her dad also left her when she was 7 years old and she hates him for it.

She claims to have been raped over and over again by differnt men, some she knows but won't tell me, other's jumped out of bushes. She is extremely "Hypersexual". Very promiscious and would go to the end of the world to keep a romantic realtionship. She smothers them. She likes for them to feel sorry for her. she lies and makes her life seem pittiful. She tells them she suspects she is pregant. The realtionships never work.

The book says that people with BPD "make frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment".

I hope this helps. I am going to buy more books on BPD than BIPOLAR disorder. I think this is really the root of her unhappiness and it triggers her bipolar.
Good luck. I hope you are well.
Laura

fallen_angel · 11-12-2006, 08:34 AM

Thank you for responding, i was actually crying reading your post because a lot of what you described with your daughter sounds like me, i am emotionally needy and terrified of being left, and have tried to make people feel sorry for me.
i might mention all this to my pdoc, thank you for sharing with me and i wish you and your daughter all the best

LAP18 · 11-12-2006, 11:34 AM

Good luck fallen angel. I will be thinking of you. I wish my daughter was ready as you are, to face this beast.
Laura

gav_73 · 11-12-2006, 09:39 PM

Hey guys,

I am interested in what you are talking about here and would like to know more. I exhibited these same types of behaviors (minus the lying about being pregnant or about anything like that); but I have exhibited real desperation and obsessiveness about boyfriends in the past and would imagine the worst feelings and fears of abandonment, real or not. Like you two, my father abandoned me when I was 11, and I am still not over it. Does this mean BPD, or does it mean that we were emotionally abused and have carried those devastating feelings into adulthood concerning men, like it's our fathers leaving us all over again. Just projecting those fears and our pain onto any man who would listen (or not)?

Since I do not know anything about BPD, I was wondering how it is treated? I can't imagine there would be medications for a personality disorder, is there? I guess it would be therapy or something. Any clues? I may bring this up to my pdoc, too.