QUESTION:

Twelve years ago while hospitalized I was diagnosed with #1 Major Depression and #2 Borderline Personality Disorder. I am now almost 30 years old. My question is to do with a relationship aspect. I have experienced severe jealousy in virtually all of my relationships. I have always been extremely distrustful and jealous, always thinking that my partner was cheating on me, or that they were imagining things with other women, even when they weren't. I have always been this way, even while a teenager.

Background: (My parents were both physically and emotionally abusive, with my father absent a lot, and also having cheated on my mother for many, many years.)

I am now married to an *extremely loving, patient, and devoted* husband. But I still feel very distrustful and jealous of him, mostly of the things that I *assume* he is thinking around other attractive females. I then become delusional and dysphoric, and bad things usually follow.

Deep, deep down inside I know these things are not true, but when it happens I just cannot control it. Is this part of my BPD? (especially the jealousy part)?

DR. HELLER'S ANSWER:

Yes, it frequently is. The right medications will make a phenomenal difference in this symptom and many others. I encourage you to get treated - for everything you have. The keys to BPD treatment are treating all the chronic symptoms of every diagnosis, having a formal plan for dysphoria, and retraining the brain.

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