Posted by pegasus on April 23, 2010, at 10:45:22
In reply to Re: caught up over issue of diagnosis » fleeting flutterby, posted by deerock on April 22, 2010, at 20:13:07
Hi deerock,
You said: "i got along with her just fine until i realized she thought i was borderline."
It made me go back and read your original post. I didn't see anything in there that indicated to me that she thinks you are borderline. Maybe you left something out that she said? You reported that she told you she doesn't want to label you, and then she indirectly confirmed that you experience and feel things she has never experienced or felt. With the unstated implication being that the things you are experiencing and she has not are (some of?) the things you mentioned: self destructive behavior, rage, mood swings, impulsivity, splitting.
That seems to me to be a fair distance from her surely thinking that you have BPD. And anyway, there are a lot of therapists these days who think BPD is a pretty bogus (or at least, often improperly used or completely unhelpful) diagnosis. Her statement about not wanting to label you sounds to me as though she may be one of those. Or maybe she doesn't see your particular constellation of experiences as equaling a BPD (or any other particular) diagnosis. Maybe she would agree with the statement from your previous therapist, if she thought of articulating it that way. Seems like a good thing to ask her about.
It sounds like maybe the crux of the problem is that it scares you to think that the self destructive behavior, rage, mood swings, impulsivity, and splitting that you experience may be part of a hard-to-treat, long-term, serious problem. And so perhaps you want a T to tell you (and to believe) that they are not? Because then you can have hope for your future.
Hope should never be overrated, IMHO. Based on what you've said about yourself, regardless of whether you could be diagnosed with BPD (personally, I have no idea), I think there is a lot of hope for you. Plus, I know people who were once diagnosed with BPD, and now are no longer diagnosable with that disorder. So, no matter what your T says or doesn't say, or what you read about BPD, there is certainly hope for your future. I hope you can hold on to that.
Peg
poster:pegasus
thread:944317
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20100405/msgs/944695.html