Hey all,

I was recently diagnosed with BPD and wanted to know if anyone else is familiar with these symptoms:

1. Disorientation— feeling lost and not knowing how other people acclimate and navigate new environments/socialize/plan/make decisions/use their time etc. An inability to know why you are where you are and why you are doing what you’re doing unless it is accompanied by or in service to someone else.

2. A slowed perception of time— as if you’ve fallen into a waking coma and intermittently are violently shaken “awake” by changes in your environment. Not knowing how much time to devote to any given activity, and being unable to decide “what comes next.” Everyone else seeming to have endless amounts of time for skills, hobbies, travel, and developing deep knowledge.

3. Intense inability to decide what action to take at any given time, as if you have no “internal guidance system” like other people (which to you looks like they got a primer on life, or were predestined to be who they are and do what they do). Alternating between catatonic immobility/indecision, stereotypic routines, and panicked/impulsive actions made out of fatal desperation.

4. Sheer terror at being alone, but accompanied by an incapacity to relate to others (due to shame, depression, severe social phobia, etc. ) which leads to experiencing lengthy periods of isolation and induced cabin fever/psychosis.

5. Feeling “retarded” or childlike, not just feeling but *knowing* something, or many somethings, are factually missing in your mind. A total lack of life skills and individual abilities not for lack of trying, practicing, reading. Awareness of your own incompetence, inability to be self-reliant, and even trust your own judgment/memory/perception. The perception of all of this by others reinforcing the previously stated shame, humiliation, and depression; and ultimately leading to being discarded/abandoned for not being able to truly be a self-sufficient adult.

6. Being unable to “wear the mask” other people do effortlessly, thus even when you believe you’re hiding your emotions and thoughts, other people are able to “read your mind” like an open book.

7. Being incapable of handling change, processing loss, updating oneself to new environments, or functioning at all without set structures, definite instructions, and hand-holding. 

This disorder is seriously a private hell, as it’s impossible for others to understand that it’s not just a delusional “fear of abandonment”,  (it’s knowing without the perception of others you’d lose any grip on reality, and without their help you’d die) or garden variety *depression* (but an emptiness of mind and soul that leaves you watching the world but unable to be a part of it, like a living death).

Has anyone experienced these things as a part of their BPD, or gotten help through an IOP or inpatient program? Outpatient therapy has been a joke to me, as every therapist has considered me “resistant” when I’ve refused deep breathing exercises and tried to outline the extent of my illness. 
