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I think I may be Borderline Personality Disorder & not Bipolar

2K views 9 replies 10 participants last post by  Gracie97 
#1 ·
I'm so confused. I have anxiety, no doubt about that. But I'm wondering if I have Borderline Personality Disorder. I've been reading about it & it seems to me I fit more of the critera for it than I do bipolar. I was diagnosed bipolar last year. Granted, I have symptoms of bipolar mainly mania, periods of hypersexuality, hyperactivity, little sleep. I never had major depression, although I've had major down periods but they tend to be very sporadic & can change rapidly depending on my surroundings at any given time.

Basically it seems to me that I fit Borderline Personality more than Bipolar, I've had instances of cutting, self harm & I am always very very emotionally unstable & fragile. Like I can be in a great mood & if someone says something I interpret as insulting I immediately fly into a rage. It seems my emotions are all or nothing.

The main thing I think why I may have Borderline Personality Disorder is that mostly my mood swings tend to be extremely volatile & rapidly shifting, sometimes many times during a day. Like I will go from extreme self hatred & sadness but if someone says something nice to me to make me feel better I feel instantly elated. This can happen several times over one day at times.

Granted I still have periods of 1-2 weeks of what I guess is mania, sleeping around, putting myself in risky situations.

I've been taking anti psychotics & anti-anxiety meds, but I really wonder if these rapid changes in mood might have be misdiagnosed as bipolar when I'm actuallt borderline.

What should I do? Ask my psychiatrist about this? I've never mentioned borderline to him but I will bring it up. I know one can have bipolar & borderline together, but I wonder if I may not be bipolar at all because it's clear to me that after keeping track of my moods they shift rapidly over minutes, seconds, hours, much more so than weeks or months.

I never had childhood trauma that I know Borderline people can have, although I was horribly teased & picked on in school which still leaves me with self image issues. Can anyone here relate to this?

What if I really am borderline & not bipolar? Will they stop the anti psychotic drugs? I just have this strong sense that I have this condition after careful logging of my moods and emotions.
 
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#2 ·
I am currently being treated for borderline personality disorder. I've never been diagnosed as bipolar, but I feel that I have had hypomanic episodes for what it's worth. So I can definitely relate to some of the things you've described- self-harm, all or nothing thinking, emotional instability- as well as longer periods of feeling awesome, inspired, and productive. Though in my case they alternate with much longer periods of depression.

I would say talking to your psychiatrist would be a good idea. The only warning I'd give you is that some professionals, fortunately none I've met, still see borderlines as "difficult" patients. But if he/she seems to be someone who wouldn't have that kind of a reaction, I think that seeing what they think would be ideal.

As for medications, I'm not sure what could happen. BPD isn't usually treated primarily with medication, but co-occurring conditions (like depression and OCD in my case) are. So maybe your psychiatrist will change your meds, maybe not?

Now, I have witnessed traumatic experiences that led to me now having PTSD, but looking back I can identify borderline thoughts and behaviors before these events. Which isn't to say that other things I'd gone through by that time, like the progression of my father's cancer, weren't troubling. And there is a genetic aspect to BPD too, and I can think of family members who seem borderline to me.

So yea... I'd say talk to your psychiatrist. And even if they don't agree that you have BPD, you can always use resources for BPD treatment like books and so on if you find them helpful.
 
#3 ·
Just my two cents here: I understand your thoughts on this but based on my knowledge (and bear in mind I am not a medical professional and am not offering medical advice but rather my opinion) if you were in fact Bipolar, it is unlikely you would even be posting here in the first place. That's not to say there are not any self-aware individuals who are Bipolar, but they tend to be very few and far between with regard to seeking any form of help.

That said, it is possible based on your words that you could at the very least have Borderline tendencies. I advise you to confirm this with a licensed psychiatrist if you think it could be true. Treatment for Borderline tends to be more cognitive-behavioral, so you would definitely want a good therapist (preferably one with Borderline experience) to help you work through these behaviors that concern you. I know it would seem a million times easier if you could just take a pill and poof! Borderline is fixed, but it is unfortunately not that easy.

You seem to have a great deal of self-awareness, which (unless perhaps you are Narcissistic) will only serve to help you in this quest. One thing to be aware of though (I've seen it so many times) is personal overanalysis -- basically getting to a point where you may feel constantly compelled to keep reading and researching to figure out what is "wrong" with you. I speak from personal experience in this as I am absolutely one who uses the defense mechanism of "Intellectualization." This is something I'm working on, but don't know that I will ever conquer, so I use my studies and knowledge to at least attempt to help others. Again, I am NOT a licensed medical professional and these are my own opinions and are not medical advice in any way, shape, or form.

I wish you the best and keep us updated. I do have a decent amount of self-taught and college-taught insight on Borderline, but again I am not a doctor and you should absolutely consult with a licensed medical professional.
 
#9 ·
Just my two cents here: I understand your thoughts on this but based on my knowledge (and bear in mind I am not a medical professional and am not offering medical advice but rather my opinion) if you were in fact Bipolar, it is unlikely you would even be posting here in the first place. That's not to say there are not any self-aware individuals who are Bipolar, but they tend to be very few and far between with regard to seeking any form of help.
Err, what? That's not at all true..
 
#4 ·
maybe you have both its common for borderline to be comorbid with bipolar.im a borderline and have almost every symptom my therapist said I don't have major depression because im normal when im getting atteion from people,but I have been suicidal and had mood swings since I was about 12 till now all day everyday,i have threatedn sucide gone into rages where I scream all sorts of profanity and have dissociation and identity confusion.i had severe psychological abuse and trauma all my life though,you said you didn't so I woud think that would be bipolar,i can go through muiltple moods in minutes I can be in the pits of the deepest depression then someone I like will talk to me and my mood goes back up,or I could be happy then one comment or though can create a cascade of negative thought pattersn that cause me to be suicidal and hopeless this has happened all day every day for years,i,ve been better since my last therpy seesion where my therapist saw one of my mood swings during the seesion and we were studying it and analyzing it and she gave me advice.
 
#5 ·
Definitely bring it up with your psychiatrist. BPD is difficult to diagnose unless the doctor would be observing you in your every day life. A doctor obviously can't do that, but you have, so talk about those observations with him/her.

It's also a possibility that if you read up on BPD or any disorder, you might end up looking and misunderstanding some things in your behaviour as symptoms of that even if they really wouldn't be. Though it's never easy to keep an objective mind when it comes to subjective issues.
 
#7 ·
It's probably bipolar disorder tricking you into thinking it's not it. You can have very rapid "mood swings" with bipolar, I have major depression for half the day sometimes and then it will randomly come and go. Mood swings shifting by the minutes is not borderline personality, that's a joke to people who actually suffer from the illness. That can be caused by anxiety, which we have a lot of. You know what's ****ing you up ? It's not being stable yet. Okay, talk to your psychiatrist about it, but the option is some kind of therapy like schema therapy or DBT. Both of which you can start to look into today. I have done schema therapy and DBT and I can tell you that it's useful, but I hardly use plenty of the (DBT) skills. Do you tend to have a lot of crises or severe panic attacks? It could be useful for that. It did not help with the bipolar mood problems, definitely not psychosis or mania. Schema therapy is very interesting and helps you understand where you're coming from.

Nothing that you mentioned is not part of having bipolar. Yes, I can definitely relate to having issues after being teased/bullied, but is it really self-image issues? Bring that up to a therapist, but it might not be a self-image issue but rather an anxiety issue that making you believe it's as severe as you paint it.
 
#8 ·
I'm basically in the same position, if it's any consolation. I've never been diagnosed with anything besides "anxiety", "depression", and "maybe bipolar" because i've always stopped treatments way too early i guess. However, i assumed for years i was bipolar because they do share many symptoms. I've had periods of mania and depression, but when i think about it, they coincided with huge positive and negative life changes that would have a major effect on anyone. But "unstable and fragile" and "all or nothing" sums me up perfectly, and i think that versus cycles and patterns of changes may be one of the things separating the two. Also, i read somewhere that the changes are more often between anger/anxiety and depression, rather than depression and mania.

Regardless how good or bad i felt, i always rapidly and unpredictably shifted from one to the other in extreme ways, sometimes many times a day. And while a lot of the symptoms of bipolar fit me, there always seemed to be something off about them, whereas borderline basically summed up my entire worldview the first time i really looked into it.

One therapist even suggested that i confused "mania" with "happiness", because i underestimated how massively depressed i'd been most of my life. I also didn't really want to consider BPD because it has a bad stigma of being a "overly dramatic girl" disorder. Though i think now it's been found to occur pretty evenly between the sexes.

Either way, it took me dating a girl with textbook BPD and realizing how exactly like her i was (surprise - didn't end well) to accept that it was a lot more likely. Also my mom was a perfect case of it, and emotional abuse from her definitely gave me a lot of my problems. I was also bullied in school, and depending on the severity, i would classify that as "childhood trauma".

BPD doesn't fit me perfectly, but i don't any disorder really fits anyone perfectly as they aren't really concrete things, so there is definitely a tendency to over-analyze things and feel frustrated at overlapping symptoms.

I would definitely mention it to whoever, but in my case my psychiatrist hasn't really bothered to get to the bottom of it and just treats me based on symptoms (maybe a bad thing). Seems more like something to mention to a psychologist, or just use in trying to understand and better yourself on your own terms.
 
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