Hello complex PTSD / BPD

[Numbless]

Hey all, been suffering with anxiety and depression since i was 18, now 35 and have been to lots of counselling on meds, but nothing really seems to work.  today i had an appointment with my doctor and he actually said perhaps we’ve missed the underlying cause, and raised the possibility of it all stemming from complex PTSD or Boardline Personality Disorder. Does anyone have any insight on these disorders? I will be seeing counsellor who specialises in it but not for another 3/4 weeks. Thanks 

[tyme]

Hey @Numbless ,

I'm hearing you loud and clear through your post. I can relate to both the CPTSD and BPD. I have been diagnosed with both.

Let's just say life was very tumultuous and chaotic. I felt like an emotional child trapped in an adult's body. I felt I was expected to 'feel' and act like a mature adult, yet in reality I was so emotionally dysregulated.  

I found I either loved or hated people. I wasn't able to set boundaries for myself to ensure relationships were sustainable. And yes, my 'issues' started when I was 17/18 years old and I wasn't really 'ready' for therapy until my early 30s. 

I ended up being accepted for mentalisation based therapy and continued this for just over 1.5 years.

Psychotherapy made a huge difference. I am in a much better place now - actually, I couldn't be better. 

BPD is very treatable. I feel I have learnt a lot from the journey. I wouldn't change this for anything.

Do you have any particular questions about BPD or PTSD?

[puzzlingdino]

Hi @Numbless, 

Welcome to the forums!

SANE has some information on BPD & CPTSD which you may find useful. There's different tabs on each of the below links:

https://www.sane.org/information-and-resources/facts-and-guides/borderline-personality-disorder

https://www.sane.org/information-and-resources/facts-and-guides/complex-post-traumatic-stress-disord...

I also have lived experience of BPD, so let me know if you have any specific questions 🙂 

[ExistentialRose]

Hi @puzzlingdino,

How does the BPD manifest itself for you? What are your symptoms?

I just wanna know that someone else is experiencing the same things I'm experiencing. 

Thanks 

[puzzlingdino]

Hi @ExistentialRose, 

Great question! 

Some of the things that I experienced when my BPD was at its worst were: 

- Becoming distressed very easily, and feeling that I had no control over this 

- Intense unhealthy attachments to people 

- Strong feelings of anger, jealousy, shame, and frustration 

- Difficulty trusting that people cared about me even when they showed me that they did 

- Big/quick shifts in the way I would feel about people, things, etc. 

- Negatively interpreting neutral (or even positive) words and actions from others 

- Feeling helpless, low, and unfulfilled 

- Often feeling invalidated, unheard, or misunderstood, which caused a lot of distress

Keep in mind, though, that BPD can present differently in different people. You might have heard this fact before, but seeing as there are 9 diagnostic criteria for BPD and an individual needs to meet at least 5 of these to be diagnosed, this means there are 256 different combinations of diagnostic criteria that someone with BPD could have. And that’s not to mention the different ways in which each of these symptoms can show up. Even if there’s something you experience that I haven’t listed, it doesn’t mean you’re alone in that experience 🙂 

[ExistentialRose]

thanks for that @puzzlingdino.

 Do you think you could tell me a little more about the 4th item on the list? how do you know that people don't have ulterior motives when they're "showing you that they care"? Is the perception that they don't care ever right?

[puzzlingdino]

Hi @ExistentialRose, 

I suppose there is a couple of different aspects to how that symptom manifested for me. 

Mainly, it would come up with someone that I had a particularly intense attachment to. They would make clear statements that showed that they genuinely cared about me, and I was definitely able to believe these at the time, however by the next day or by the time we’d had another interaction (which was usually within a couple of days), I couldn’t be secure in believing that they still cared about me, as I thought they might have changed their mind since then. So basically my belief of being cared about by them could only last if I was constantly being reassured of it, and if I wasn’t, I would frequently interpret what they did in between these reassurances as ‘proof’ that they actually no longer cared about me. 

In the case of pretty much everyone else that I interacted with semi-regularly, it was similar to what you’ve mentioned, in that I just assumed they were indifferent most of the time. Even when they were doing things because they cared about me, I couldn’t trust that that was the reason, as that felt like too much of an assumption to make. I’d convince myself that the more likely reason they were doing it was because they felt like they ‘had to’.

In some cases though, I would assume there was actually a negative ulterior motive behind others’ ‘caring’ actions. Like if someone complimented me, I’d think it was to make fun of me. There were even cases where I’d (incorrectly) feel like people didn’t care about me enough, but once they did show me a lot of attention, I was certain that there was no way they actually cared about me that much, and that they must be deliberately showing an excessive amount of ‘care’ to prove how ridiculous it was for me to think that what they were doing previously wasn’t enough.  

I don’t know if it’s possible to ever be 100% certain that someone is doing something because they genuinely care about you, however since that period of my life where I most strongly experienced the things above, I think I’ve been able to ‘recover’ enough that I can trust when it’s the most likely reason, and that if it turns out that it isn’t then I am capable of coping with that. Though I get that that might not be super helpful/reassuring if you’re at a point where you feel that you’re not able to do that. Another thing I found beneficial was to reframe it to think that if someone close to me is putting effort into showing that they care, I would be doing them a disservice and it would be unfair to them if I were to assume they were lying or didn’t mean it.

Hopefully that's helpful, and feel free to reach out if you have any other questions 🙂  

[Just]

I have CPTSD, @Numbless @tyme 

[tyme]

Me too @Just . And BPD. 

It's taken a lot of work to accept what has happened so that I can 'get on' with life. I recognise it hasn't been easy, and there are times when I experience flashbacks, but that's okay. I'm in a much better place than I was in the past.

What are some things you do to help you manage? Do you find PTSD affects your daily functioning - or not really?

[Just]

My daily life has changed. I don't speak if I can write it. I don't go out. This sounds all very extreme. But not to me. I'm safer at home and I know it. I'm older so don't really need to go anywhere. When I was younger I didn't tap into my past, no much anyway little bit here and there then push it back down. So went about everything as "normally as what everyone else looked! like they were doing." But something started bubbling up more strongly and it wasn't going  away, so had to let some of it out. Sometimes I wished I could have just pushed it down again. Ignored it. But over time it wanted out! I m a strong believer in stuff happens when you know you can deal best with it. Not saying that's for everyone but it feels like that in my circumstances. I had raised my children and had sometimes to deal with me.