Lived Experience Forum

[anthariamac]

So ever since I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder mid way through last year, in hospital, after a huge life crisis, I've been hearing all about this supposed stigma. The information I received indicated that while I should tell those close to me if I wished, I should keep it under wraps from my employers.

Just saw another article hitting the Australian news about how far behind we are, as usual, with treatment:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-01/australia-behind-in-treating-bpd-researcher-says/6438914

I thought when I heard about the stigma that it was something pretty old, that I wasn't going to have to deal with more than the regular mental illness stigma. Because hey, it's treatable now. It's been treatable for a while. And honestly I'm a pretty good patient, so why should I come up against brick walls?

I realised something - the stigma was coming from inside the psychiatric services. In hospital, I had to be admitted a second time and have a family take the psychiatrists to task before they told me what was happening (they'd known for weeks). When I was being told, it was gently, avoiding a direct diagnosis - "Your personality aligns with one we call borderline ... ". Was Dialectical Behavioural Therapy even mentioned to me? No! When I was set up with my hospital-organised community psychologist, she treated me for weeks before telling me she refused to use labels and was treating "anxiety" instead of BPD. I moved on to someone far more helpful. Wow guys. Just wow.

Has anyone else come up against this level of frustration within the psychiatric world itself? I mean, with all this effort to fight stigma, how is this still happening?

[kristin]

Hey there @anthariamac

A warm welcome to the forum!

Sorry to hear about this. You are not the first by any means to mention this here on the forum (and a friend of mine was diagnosed with BPD years ago - now correctly diagnosed as having DID). That might be bad or good news - I don't know. Just letting you know you're not alone. Yes there's BPD stigma within the MH profession - if anything worse than outside. To a lay person one MI is much like another generally speaking. 

You may be interested to read posts from @Ellie , @peace , @BPDBunny , @chemonro , @Crazy_Bug_Lady. Let me know (using the @symbol before my name) if you have trouble finding them and I'll post you a few links. I'm sure some of them will make you welcome soon.

Take care of you.

Hoppe for understanding instead of stigma endures...

Kindest regards, 

Kristin

[Ellie]

Hi Anthariamac and welcome to the forum.

I'm not surprised by what you're saying. When I went to my first psychologist (as recommended by my GP) he refused to tell me what he was treating me for, even though I soon realised he was going over all the criteria for BPD. I was already pretty sure that's what had been plaguing me much of my life. I was soon diagnosed by two separate psychiatrists after many misdiagnosis in the past.

As many others know on here, I'm a mental health nurse and I've done a bit of "nosing about" since my diagnosis to see how other MH nurses react to someone with BPD. As soon as you mention it, the shutters fall behind their eyes and some of them get quite defensive. Of don't worry. Discrimination is alive and well within the service alright!

This still continues to frustrate me and had led to acts of self harm because of that frustration. I'm actually feeling very low at present because my mental health "team" are soon going to dump me and leave me to cope as best I can. It's causing me major abandonment issues that I just can't seem to get over. I usually bounce back from depressive episodes quite quickly, but now can't even find a reason to get out of bed.

Anyway, stay strong and search out someone who can help you. They might be few and far between, but they are out there. All the very best.

Ellie.

[anthariamac]

He refused to tell you? That's pretty shocking. That almost seems like there should be some kind of legality issue there, though I have no idea what it would be - to say no, you're not allowed to know, to a patient.

I hope that you've been alright since you posted this. I know the feeling of being "released" by your doctors can be so difficult, although for me the build up is worse than the "break" I suppose. If it's happened yet.

It's really interesting to hear about this from the perspective of someone on the inside of the health profession.

[Ellie]

Yeah. I'm over him now. That was last year. Mind you, I do think his technique for healing was alright, but too late now. I've moved on.

I've been a bit brighter the last couple of days. I went to work Sunday and had a talk with my shift manager. I told him I just can't give the job my full 100% any more and he had a talk to my unit manager. I rang her yesterday and told her that I feel I've come to the end of my nursing career. I know she'll be only too pleased to get the "loose cannon" off the deck, so she's going to talk to human resources and see if they'll let me go with only three weeks notice. There are personal reasons for that and involving my health care card. What's lifted my spirits somewhat is that I have my sights set on returning to Uni next year to learn a couple of courses and doing a DBT skills teaching course this year. My aim is to teach DBT (Dialectical Behaviour Therapy) skills in the major centre where I currently work as apart from private psychiatrists who are charging a fortune, there's nobody affordable to treat people suffering BPD. It might all prove to be "pie in the sky" but at least I'm focusing on something else apart from my woes. How long it lasts is anyone's guess!