Question:

I am a 20-yr old college junior, and I am trying to get a clearer idea of the likelihood of my having BPD before I actually go to a therapist about it (I've seen two therapists in the past year but have a very very hard time trusting them for very long and opening up to them at all). Don't worry, I will be going to a therapist soon, two of my friends are forcing me.

I do have more than 5 of the 9 symptoms, and most have been pretty constant for nearly a year now. There are a couple that I'm not entirely sure of, and so am asking you. As far as the idolization/devaluation pattern in relationships goes, rather than doing that I tend to idolize the other person no matter what he does, and I'm the one that I devalue even if it's his fault. Or, if I can't blame myself, I find a third party to blame for it. In one case, I blamed my ex's new girlfriend for a lot of things that weren't her fault at all, for months and months, and finally became so violently angry with her that I could not let myself be in the same room as her for fear I would physically strike out at her without meaning to. But it's never the extreme switching of my view of the person I'm in the relationship with - they are always perfect no matter what. Could this still be BPD? The relationships certainly are "intense and unstable".

Just so you know, the other symptoms I have include extreme fear of abandonment (although I find myself unable to take any action on it, but the fear and the rage when I feel abandoned are horrible), a very unstable sense of self, chronic emptiness, impulsivity (although only in one area - I'm bulimic), the inappropriate and intense anger I described before, and a couple of severe dissociate episodes (one half of my brain was convinced I was literally invisible and the other half was telling that half it was insane). Especially those last two items have really scared me, and although I'd rather there were nothing wrong with me it'd be kind of nice to know there was a cause for them. Oh, and I am not nor have ever been suicidal or mutilated myself at all, although during the dissociate things I unintentionally dug my fingernails into my arm.

So, does this sound like it could be BPD even though the relationships don't fit the exact "average bpd" description?

A. What you described, to me for diagnostic purposes, would not fit the criteria for alternating extremes of devaluation and overvaluation. Your story is very, very consistent with the BPD. "Average" means nothing. If you have the neurology you need to be treated. Why prolong needless suffering?

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