Posted by Dinah on January 29, 2007, at 11:45:41
In reply to I have a BPD, posted by Deneb on January 29, 2007, at 11:17:55
Deneb, you're the same person you were yesterday. A diagnosis is just a name that helps clinicians understand how to help you best (ideally).
Talk to your pdoc about treatment, but since you've responded to medications, and since therapy is usually recommended for BPD, I'd imagine she'll tell you a combination is best.
DBT teaches valuable skills, and you might want to look up Marsha Linehan on Amazon or google her.
It's not so bad, Deneb, although there are some negative stigmas in the minds of some clinicians, unfortunately. Don't let that get you down. Just choose clinicians that are more empathetic and better educated. You wouldn't want the clinicians who judge people by a label anyway, would you?
Linehan sees BPD as a cluster of characteristic coping styles that people use to cope with emotional lability and a slow return to baseline (inability to regulate one's emotions). DBT is designed to help with that. I've never been diagnosed with BPD, but I have a fair number of traits. In fact some clinicians would have thrown me in that diagnosis just because I self injure. But emotional lability and slow return to baseline *definitely* describes me. What's helpful for me is a combination of meds and therapy. I wouldn't want to do without either.
Don't think of this as a bad thing, Deneb. Think of it as a way to conceptualize your difficulties and pain, and a starting point to learning to deal with them.
poster:Dinah
thread:727241
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20070122/msgs/727706.html