TL;DR:  I am open about having BPD because I think it's important for my loved ones to know, but I'm starting to think the stigma is causing more harm than the disorder.


When I (25F) was a teenager, a psychiatrist said he didn't want to give me a diagnosis because it could make my life difficult.  3 years ago, I felt kind of relieved to be diagnosed with BPD because I thought I could finally get the right kind of help.  Psychiatrists are very, very hard to see where I live, but that one visit got me onto way better meds and set me on a better path.  Now I'm wondering if it's doing more harm than good.

I was diagnosed with BPD early in a romantic relationship, but it was emphasized by the psychiatrist that I'm high functioning so we decided to continue.  I mean, I had been working on it for years at this point because I was tipped off by that first psych.  Less than a year later, I found out that my mom had chosen not to disclose that I had ADHD and I ended up starting treatment for that, as well.  Again, it takes a lot to see a psychiatrist here (hospitalization and then maybe a 6 month wait for follow-up), so I never had the diagnostic overlaps reviewed.  ADHD medications really helped my relationship, but obviously things weren't perfect all of the time.  We tried couples therapy sometime into the relationship, and we found someone who claimed to have experience with BPD and ADHD so that these aspects could be factored in.  Frankly, they weren't.  We had the same experience that I had with other therapists - they kind of dismissed it as irrelevant, and I don't know if they didn't believe that either disorder existed or if I just seemed too self-aware and functional to have my concerns taken seriously.

Fast forward to a couple months ago.  I'm still with the same partner, and she starts seeing her own therapist.  That's honestly great.  Eventually, though, she tells the therapist (we'll call them TH) about me having BPD. TH starts pushing that I need to get my own psychiatrist (not possible) because TH didn't think anyone else was "qualified to deal with me".  My partner didn't like that, but she thought TH had good intentions and probably just had some trauma from a client with BPD or something.  They didn't have another session for a while, but about a week ago she goes again.  We'd been fighting over an issue with our social group and it was rough for both of us, but we had agreed not to make any big decisions for the next couple of months.  She breaks up with me a few days after the appointment.

Now, that's a whole other can of worms, but in short we agreed that we had developed some toxic dynamics and I felt I really understood what I needed to do about it after the initial "talk".  I didn't understand this sudden conviction she had to totally separate herself from me, though, because nothing threatening had happened and she insisted she wasn't closing the door to trying again.  Basically, she told me that her therapist helped her realize that we had an emotionally abusive relationship and she was just addicted to it.  I took this really seriously and eventually came forward to take responsibility for it, but she was super insistent that she really doesn't believe it was one sided.  

I haven't been able to find anyone to help me with BPD, and now I'm wondering... if I wasn't so open about having BPD, would I be able to find a therapist who would take my concerns seriously?  I've been really honest for the sake of other people in my life, but I'm starting to feel demonized by people who haven't even met me.  If my (ex) partner had just talked about our relationship and not mentioned my diagnosis, would her therapist have even thought it was "abusive"?  I want to take ownership of my issues and I want people to be able to call me out on bad behaviours, but am I making myself too vulnerable to blame/gaslighting by being so open about it?