Hopefully I am not crossing any boundaries here, but I usually hang out with my bipolar bears over in r/bipolar.  I have started lurking a but here very recently, because my therapist and I very recently got into some shit in my life that, to me, immediately sounded like borderline symptoms.  So we have been talking about that, but he wants to hesr more aling these lines, and my deeper past before a diagnosis.

I thought that I would listen to the actually stories, discussions about BPD are, because the good ol' DSM criteria are, in my opinion, vastly inferior to the experiences of those with such a disorder.

That is what I did when I started to realize I was almost definitely bipolar (which, jesus, I am), because I knew and now know that the experiences are worth so much more, and are the real lives of real people, and not some list of criteria.

So, thanks, and thanks in advance for helping me out, and hopefully I can do the same in helping this community in whatever way I can.