Can one ever be considered cured of BPD?

[Banned]

Or does the diagnosis stay for life even in the absence of all symptoms and behavioral traits?

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Bipolar Disorder?

Borderline Personality Disorder?

 

[Banned]

Borderline.

 

[AmZ]

Feels like it's never going to go away. Feels like I'm going to continue having a lifetime of a roller-coaster ride.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

A "personality disorder" as the name implies is a part of the individual's personality so it's not clear what "cured" would mean. One can certainly learn to manage the symptoms, and to change the way one reacts emotionally and behaviorally, but it is probably true that at least some aspects of the disorder, some remnants, will remain.

That of course does NOT mean that there is no hope or that there is no point in treatment for personality disorders.

 

[Daniel E.]

Similarly:

Most of the research suggests that the intensity of these feelings and experiences "mellow" with age. Patients in their 30s and 40s report a decrease in the intensity and frequency of these feelings. We are uncertain why this is but it is likely a combination of maturity, biological changes due to growing older, improved coping skills, and enhanced life experiences.

Is this something I can somehow work through? Yes, in fact, working with a trained therapist who is knowledgeable and skilled in the field of bpd, abandonment fears, and relationship issues may be the best thing to do while you work on developing a relationship with your friend. Your therapy should center on how to identify and manage these feelings as they arise so that you can maintain and improve your relationship.

Borderline Personality Disorder and Relationships

 

[Banned]

Thank you for the helpful information. I ask because this was my primary diagnosis a couple years ago but I've since been told I no longer meet the diagnostic criteria. I had also read conflicting info as to whether someone can be "cured" of it but what you've written makes perfect sense.

 

[Banned]

Feels like it's never going to go away. Feels like I'm going to continue having a lifetime of a roller-coaster ride.

AmZ I am ten years older than you but for many years I was in a very similar state as you, although I'd never been hospitalized. I did, however, manage to drive away everyone who tried to help me. Something that is blindingly obvious now but at the time I wondered what "their" problem was.

Point is, it took me to about the age of 36 to get everything under control, get my meds figured out and get me fully compliant with them, And realize that I was choosing to live "as" a borderline, rather than living as a healthy human being with previous borderline traits. And I looked for the magic moments you are in religion, others, etc to make me get well. It was once I let go of all that and found out who I really was, and was brutally honest with myself about my motives, resistance, and general hatred of everyone, that I could finally sit down and see the mess before me and start working through it. Once I made that decision, things changed relatively fast and I knew I was on the right path.

I had to make some hard changes in my life to live authentically. I gave up a business that while I was successful at, I truly hated doing. I literally walked away from it last fall. I emailed our corporate office and said that as of September 30 it was theirs.

I was brutally honest with my psychiatrist in how my meds were working and as a result we didn't need to change them, we just needed to increase the dosage. I created a support group of people who, while they didn't know my diagnosis and the hell I was living in daily, they were people I could call on when I felt things were rough and I needed extra support. When I was still self-injuring I chose a couple close people I could trust and tell if it happened. One was my sociology professor at School, another a close friend.

I didn't make every change at once because that would be a recipe for disaster. I worked on one thing and when I felt ok about it (not stellar, just ok) then I built on it by working on another skill. I did things that were hard because they'd been recommended by therapists I trusted and while I didn't so much use the skills when I was in therapy, it was all I had when I left therapy. I didn't think I needed them while I was in therapy because my magical, psychic therapist who knew all my thoughts and problems would fix everything for me and I just had to show up. Not. It was kind of like building a jigsaw puzzle and sometimes I'd put something in place thinking it was the right thing and it wasn't so I'd have to make a change. I didn't see that change as a failure and reason to self-injure but rather as an option I tried but thought I could do better.

Its late at night and my favorite time of day to write so I'll stop just in case I bored you after the first paragraph. One of the things on my to-do list is to write the story of my journey and recovery and future plans for growth because I'm not done reaching my potential. It won't be a best-seller you'll find at Chapters but it will be something that I hope can provide hope to people still fighting from the trenches. People like yourself.

 

[rdw]

My diagnosis is not BPD but the work is the same - one step at a time, hard, hard work and making the changes in my life to help me. You are so right - no magic, just honest work to find out who one really is and to know that a person's happiness lies within oneself through authentic living. Yup just hard work but so worth it. Thank you for your post as it was a great reminder to me on a day when I was struggling. You never know whose life you will touch.