I'd like to know if it is possible to develop Borderline Personality Disorder at age 23, considering an existing vulnerability to some of the symptoms since teenagehood. Thanks!
I'd like to know if it is possible to develop BPD at 23 years of age, considering an already existing vulnerability to some of the symptoms since teenagehood. Thanks!
I'd like to know if the trace of "risky behaviors" found in the DSM-5 model for personality disorders includes self-harming behavior or not, particularly in the context of Borderline Personality Disorder. Thanks!
So, first things first, I'm a 23yo female and someone with many years of experience in the realm of mental health and I have been going to a therapist as well as have booked appointments with a psychiatrit to assess this, but I'd like the opinion of you guys in the meantime. I'm not asking you guys to diagnose me, only to tell me if you think the suspicion makes sense based on your experiences with BPD. One important thing to know is that I am already diagnosed with autism and Bipolar Disorder, so the symptoms I have might be related to these conditions. That being said, I'd like to describe the things that make me think I may have BPD:
-Intense emotions and mood dysregulation, high mood instability especially as of lately;
-Great difficulty with rejection and abandonment;
-Tendency to idealize certain people in my life;
-Really, really intense love/attachment (and intense reactions when this attachment is threatened);
-Extreme polarization between the "expressive self" and "inhibited self" (that being, polarization of identity and capacities);
-Great problems with validation;
-Strong tendency to self-resentment, blaming myself, and feeling fundamentally wrong and bad/evil;
-Frequent self-harming behavior;
-Frequent suicidal ideation and planning;
-Very easily triggered anxiety;
-Dependency on external feedback to feel loved/lovable, esteem, satisfaction, and especially valid and expressed.
I've had instances in which, for example, I reacted very strongly to the possibility of abandonment - there was this one time when I saw that a guy I really really loved more than anything in the world and for whom I'd do anything, even hurt myself for him, was likely in a relationship through a small little happening, and that made me so incredibly and unbearably sad and angry that I took many pills in order to try and fuck myself up, thinking "if I die, then so be it", I then proceeded to confront him about it the next day and I was being really emotional, exploding, and he ended up feeling repulsion towards me because he said "I was obsessed" and told me I needed to stop or else he'd have to leave me. This only worsened everything and I became desperate, and for the next weeks I self-harmed a lot, did the thing of taking tons of pills again and again and again, and absolutely could not stop thinking "what if he abandons me?" repeatedly, and I was planning on killing myself if he did attempt to leave me and was completely prepared to do so. Thankfully, he didn't, so I ended up being fine. But these types of things - idealization and emotional depency on someone, absolute panic and desperation towards the prospect of being abandoned, strong reactions of dysregulation, self-harm, and possible [para]suicide attemps are a pattern in my life.
Another thing is that I'm constantly feeling like and thinking about killing myself, I have friends who say that "suicide is your plan B for literally everything" and they've become used to it by now. I have formed suicide plans and a lot (not all) of them revolve around an attachment being broken (that being, me feeling abandoned in some way, losing someone in my life). I very very nearly had a suicide attempt, and was very nearly hispitalized because of the suicidal ideation and plans, a few days ago, and by yesterday I was already in a hyperactive, agitated, euphoric kind of mood. I have already been institutionalized recently because of suicidal ideation and mood oscillations, too; which came a month after a friend of mine left me, and right after talking about my self-harm with my mother.
I always feel like either I feel everything at least 10 times more than other people do or I am completely inhibited and quite empty and bored - and I really don't deal well with boredom. I'm very sensitive, when I feel an emotion strongly it becomes my mood for the whole day or a few days. I'm especially sensitive to signs that other people are disinterested in me and often stop talking temporarily to friends for a few days because I got too mad or hurt by them, and always over very small stuff.
I also have a very dependent and submissive interpersonal style in general, and there's always at least one "anchor figure" on which I am hugely emotionally dependent and whose separation of would crush every fiber of me. I have strong problems with validation and always need to be actively being validated in order to feel valid. I also have a chronic self-harming problem that is over 10 years old now, and I do it to try and regulate my emotions and to try to feel validated and expressed, because it feels like the only way. I also constantly, everyday, look for external feedback from other people in order to "know what to feel about myself", how to perceive myself, and to try and feel validated.
However, there are also things that I don't fit, for example, normally I am not a very angry person, I am not very impulsive except for manic episodes (although I have had an up in both anger and impulsivity as of the last months, together with a high mood instability) and I don't think I have the devaluation mechanic, only the idealization one. My objectives and tastes have been mostly consistent as well. Identity is a bit more complicated...
So basically, what do you guys think? Do you think it's likely that I have BPD as well, or would these things have more to do with autism and Bipolar? Please, I would love your feedback, this has been bothering me a lot <3