Stop Walking on Eggshells

I would describe Bipolar's as ''enthusiastically Depressed''.

I would also add-'' if even psychotics can smile then smiles should be interpreted''.

Original thoughts by: David Petropoulos

Growing up i always thought that my mom was this angry and selfish person. Her love for us has always been conditional, only when we met her needs did i feel like she loved us. I always lived trying to meet up to her expectations but they were never attainable. My siblings and have this fake relationship with her because we are always afraid of her angry outbursts. I guess its just easier, but im realizing now that by keeping secrets i am only contributing.I am so glad relieved to find out that my mom has this disorder because it allows me to be more compassionate and patient.

Randi!

LOVE the distinctions made in this article. It helps me to make more sense of the BP I have recently ended a relationship with. She was an "invisible" BP. Highly functioning...

Thanks for all you do.

Randi, I want to thank you for your wonderful insights and the distinctions you make between higher functioning and lower functioning people with BPD. As the mother of a high functioning daughter who has BPD, I have been the target of her splitting for 2 years and have questioned my own sanity in all of this. She appears so in control and successful in her life from the outside and yet her difficult relationships and inability to have empathy or reason fractionalize her life on so many levels. So much of what I read seems to describe the lower functioning BP it is refreshing to be able to distinguish between the 2. I feel like I have been screaming underwater for so many years trying to get someone to understand that this is not just a teenager going through a "phase", but a child screaming for help. I believe that the lack of concern by family members and some professionals has much to do with how high functioning and academically successful she is. Thanks again for your wonderful work

I loved the distinctions made in this article too – it's a keeper!

When you have a high functioning adult sibling with this disorder - and relatives claim she's always such a nice person (to them of course)...and if she had a "problem" she wouldn't be able to hold a job... well, I can now give them the link to this article.

For me the article is a sanity saver – thanks for clarifying the range and different expressions of bpd.

This blog post is wonderful! I have read just about everything out there on BPD and this is the best I have seen yet. Keep up the good work!!

As both the daughter of a fairly high functioning BP mother and not so high functioning BP son this information really took my breath away. My siblings and I have known for years the situation with my mother but it has just been more recent that I have made the connection with my 25 y/o son. I had thought for years that he was just depressed, anxious, overly sensitive, impulsive, selfish, histrionic etc... but as a mother it is just so hard to see the whole picture. I had realized about a year ago that my son's behavior makes me feel exactly the way my mother's behavior always has. (trapped, sad, angry, scared, anxious). I now know why. As a teen he was seen by therapists and a psychologist who had differing opinions. Everything makes better sense now. I have been in counseling myself and have learned coping stradegies and boundary setting. The sadness is the hardest part.

In a sense your distinctions suggest that the same disorder can can present rather differently in different socio-economic groups. That's a brilliant idea that helps me a lot as a clinician. I wonder how many other diagnostic types would benefit from understanding how socio-economic or cultural factors impact how the disorder looks? Narcissism especially probably merits a fresh look with this idea.

Thanks Randi for your novel thinking in this article.

According to the "symptoms" and behaviors here, this is true. Every teen in modern society has BDP. Or would, if that disorder existed. Which it doesn't.
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Funny how just a few years ago all of these same behaviors were symptoms either of ADD/ADHD (another make believe, money-making scheme) or bipolar disorder. Seems people have become less accepting of these 'major' disorders and less willing to simply medicate themselves into zombies in order to "treat" a little mood shift or some extra energy.
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So we go and make up something else. Something a little less dramatic. Something no one has heard of. And we give these people a label and call it a disorder. So now we can medicate this less intensive disorder without the stigma of the others. Still keeps the money pouring in, just without the bias attached to "major" disorders such as ADD.
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The trouble with these things is highlighted in the second post here. 'Anonymous' speaks of a mother who did not seem to love children, who exploded in angry outbursts. They struggled to deal with this.
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But now...oh now she has this conveniently discovered disorder and these things are suddenly alright? Now we accept her moody behavior, her instability and her poor relationships with her children? Because she has a label?
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Wake up America. The modern psychologist does not care about you; they do not care about the genuine roots of your problems, the causes of your issues. They care about the labels they can make you wear and the cost of the corresponding medications associated with eliminating the feelings related to those labels.
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You are not a patient. You are a disorder. Disorders can be categorized and medicated and can make doctors large sums of money. People cannot do this. People need hours per week of attention, concern, conversation and exploration to fix the root causes of problems.
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Disorders just need a pill.

I was diagnosed with BPD when I was eighteen. I don't feel that I have it anymore or maybe I have just become very good at controlling my emotion's and behaviors.
I went through a really bad stage in my life around that age. I didn't care what other's thought of me or even acknowledged they cared at all. I couldn't "organize" my thought's which is something I still struggle with. I would sometime's feel like everyone hated me or was mad at me, even people I didn't know. Whenever I would get mad I felt as though there was a fuse inside that would just blow and I would have black out's of rage but could still remember most of my tantrum. Also, I would take action's that I knew would have bad consequence's but I just didn't care.
It was extremely difficult for me. I also suffered from extreme anxiety and manic depression, both I still struggle with. I asume anxiety will be a lifelong problem for me, but my depression is not as much of a problem as it used to be.
I feel bad for my parent's the most because they really had to deal with my behavoir on a daily basis. Luckily I have mentally helped myself by analyzing my thought's, behavoir, and consequence's and I feel I have recovered.

I just ended a relationship with a bpd..after readng this article though(along with many others on bpd) i cnt help but feel bad. Like maybe i should help? oris that the bpd charm? I fal under npd and have many similarities with bpd so i can empathize with some of tose emotions and they are extremely painful and i wish someone was there for me as i was growing up. That being said i am concidering reaching out to my ex...not necessarily pursue a sexual relationship but maybe hep in some way? Or sould i just be glad i got away and pursue som healthy rlationships? I guess i am so conflicted w/this decision because like i said i do struggle from npd and i wouldntwant someone to just leave me....... anyone can advise??

My wife was diagnosed with BPD after carrying around childhood traumas and molestation by her brother, and carrying them around for decades. They always ate away at her somewhere under the surface, and the first time I saw her being wheeled out of our house on a gurney after attempting suicide, my first reaction was akin to "it's about damned time". She was going to have to finally confront her demons.
She was actually diagnosed after several attempts and several hospitalizations. She had been seeing a psychiatrist through Kaiser Permanente who looked no farther than a diagnosis of depression. Her therapist was too inexperienced to see anything other than what the psychiatrist told her to see.
Over the years I have seen significant improvement in her thought patterns, her emotions and her behaviors, but it was only after she was accurately diagnosed.
The "pornography" analogy is perfect. I have heard that the DSM-V is actually going to rename the illness which will lift quite a load from the shoulders of those already carrying the illness. The term "borderline" has too frightening a connotation to it, and I believe it miight scare as many therapists as it does the lay population.
Even while her suffering was peaking, my wife was still an active, compassionate, dedicated teacher who was able to put her children's needs in front of her own, whose classroom was full of love and acceptance and nurturing.
The pain she inflicted was upon herself, ultimately, but I did spend years feeling the backlash and fallout.
Thanks in great part to Randi for helping me understand and fight with my wife instead of against her.

I've only just learned of this a week ago and it's already radically changed the way I see my world. My mother is an overwhelming match for almost everything I read on this topic. I'm in the process of gathering info and making sense of what to do next. The relief of giving my torture a name and validating what I always suspected was immeasurable. My thanks to anyone who spreads awareness of this as I think it may be the most valuable knowledge I've ever gained. It took me 30+ years to figure this out, but I now have real hope for the next 30. Thanks.