If I have heard this said to myself and others I think I might have heard it said a hundred times. When you tell someone about your BPD and the symptoms of it, some people will say the line “I think I might I have BPD as well!”, to most of us with BPD it makes us feel cheap and practically called a liar or faker. This post come about because today while speaking to a friend (who I was telling about this very website, thus I got onto the symptoms of BPD), said practically the same darn line. He said, “I think in these crazy times we all have many of those symptoms, your site might even be helping me one day so good luck with it!” While it was meant as a compliment obviously, it still enranged me, but when I calmed down I started to realise…he is kind of right!
OK, so before I have a BPD lynch mob after me I feel I had better explain my conclusion. You see, breaking BPD down to many of its individual symptoms, you could see how someone might say the line “I think I might I have BPD as well!”. Taking the first BPD symptom which is “Fear of Abandonment“, then breaking it down to its individual signs like “feeling insecure” or “Staying in relationships no matter how unhealthy it is”, or even “Finding it hard to trust loved ones” you can easily see people might feel as if they have BPD and also suffer from “Fear of Abandonment”.
OK, that was low hanging fruit. What about the BPD symptom of ‘Extreme Emotional Swings‘ surely, that can only be part of our BPD? Well..no. Because anyone might suffer from an extreme low, anyone might suffer from a manic day or two as just about anything can trigger an emotional swing inside of themselves, its really not that hard, if you throw in a bit of bad news about the death of someone, or yet another failed job application.
My point in this post is to try and help those of us with BPD understand how other people might feel when you tell them about your BPD. You can easily see why they might say “I think I might I have BPD as well!” when you stop and think about it, but the difference is those of us with BPD have at least 5 of the main symptoms of BPD and many of us even have all 9 (if not more) of them with the childhood trauma thrown in for good measure. Plus, we go through many of these symptoms on a day-by-day base, not just once in a while or when something triggers us as those of us with BPD don’t need anything to trigger our depression or mania, it will often come and go throughout the day!
So next time someone tells you “I think I might I have BPD as well!” nod politely and tell them “Yes, we might all have a little bit of BPD inside of us and that is why it is so important for people with those signs to get the help they need, much like I did.” then simply walk away safe in the knowledge that you haven’t let them belittle you in any way and just in case they do indeed have the symptoms of BPD you have given them the best advice.
Mic drop – rant over.
