quote:

To have any serious mental illness and be denied medication for years, to be treated as if I was highly manipulative, attention seeking; to have my distress ignored whenever I reached out; to NOT be offered the support I desperately needed - was so wrong. Regardless of the diagnoses

quote:

And I'm a bit worried people still think I have a problem with people who happen to have been told they have BPD that is absolutely NOT the case. I think if anyone on here had been treated (or not as it turned out) like I had been, then no matter what 'label' they had been given at the time that directly lead to the mistreatment and neglect, would also do everything in their power and ability to run from that label for fear the same trauma associated with it will happen again

Eliza
I think you have made it clear, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you were traumatized by the label of BDP and that it led to you not be treated for CPTSD. And I also believe you when you say you do not have a problem with people who have the diagonoses. OK? Got it.

But can you please look at this from the other side. If you point to something and start screaming "that's horrible, get it away from me, don't come near me, it's traumatizing" people can feel judged and dismissed and stigmatized.

An example to convey my point. I know you have mentioned using a mobile response team. If I was posting and saying that I called a crisis line once and they sent a mobile response team and I was horrified because that was such an overreaction, I obviously was not bad enough to need a mobile response team, they misunderstood how bad I was and I could NOT believe that I was treated as someone who would need a mobile response team and how traumatizing it was. So that every time you posted about a mobile response team, I would respond and say "I'm not judging you for calling one but I had such a horrible time and I hated being treated like someone so bad a to need a mobile response team." would your reaction be "gosh, AG had a bad experience" or would you feel like "hey what's your problem with people who call mobile response teams? You must be judging me since you see it as such a terrible thing as to need a mobile response team."

The point I am trying to make is that even though it is not your intention, the way you talk about BPD does convey a sense of how horrible you feel it would be to actually have it, and its hard for people who are diagnosed with it, to hear that without feeling judged.

So no one wants to deny your experience or the pain that ensued, just that you would temper how you describe it.

Yellowbug,
I'm so glad you returned to the discussion. Hearing about your experience was very interesting and supported something I have long believed: diagnoses are for insurance companies. And the DSM is an evolving standard that adds and removes diagnoses with each addition. Changing the name or deciding something is not longer a diagnoses affects not one whit the behavior or suffering of a client. Our behavior and beliefs must be brought into consciousness in order to change how we behave and relieve our suffering. It's why I tend more to a "development gone awry" model of psychological problems versus a medical model of pathology that needs to be cured.

I also want to acknowledge that psychology is a fairly new field and the knowledge and treatments have improved dramatically over the last 30 years. Let's hope that continues.

I am very glad that you have found therapy so helpful and have seen such a difference in your life. That has also been my experience and it can feel like something close to a miracle.

AG