TW/CW: I discuss my own, and my doctors previous prejudice around BPD.

Hey all, so I was told for the first time by my GP that she believes I have BPD. I have been getting treatment for major depression for about 3 years, and in hindsight I suppose I see that my providers have always skirted around the idea of a personality disorder. I'm too capable, too competent, "you're nowhere near as bad as that". I think they knew just as I do now that I fit the criteria almost to a tee, I was just high functioning so to speak. Maybe they didn't tell me on purpose, maybe because they knew I was scared of being diagnosed with a personality disorder.

I had heard about BPD before, and I guess I only knew it by the stigma around it. I thought it was just when people with depression don't act submissive enough and demand more from their doctors then they get branded with BPD as a short hand for "too hard basket". Or that it was a way of pathologizing being a jerk. I know how wrong I was though, part of that is seeing all you nice people posting in such pain, and seeing a reflection of a part of myself I never knew how to process.

I have been researching it for last couple days, here and elsewhere and I had never before had a way to so accurately describe the way I felt, why I did things that made me so ashamed of myself. Why sometimes I lost control and didn't even recognize the person I was being.

I'm 28, and I think that I have most of the symptoms under control (most of the time), I learned to do so in a trial by fire kinda way though, and I am realizing now that in many ways I simply swapped one set of maladaptive coping mechanisms with another which were simply easier to hide - more socially acceptable.

I am rambling now but I had to say this somewhere. I'm sorry if I said anything hurtful or stupid, but I'm feeling some strange and conflicting emotions about this. I'm using a throwaway, because I'm still a bit scared about how others see BPD.