Hi everyone, 

So I don't have a diagnosis yet. It's in the works. I've reached out to see a psychiatrist, because I know there is something wrong with me, and BPD seems to fit the bill. This is going through public health channels, so it's taking a bit of time and I have to jump through a few hoops first. 

Anyways, I've been looking at treatment options online for BPD and read about CBT and DBT. That just seems like it's... the worst? Like, I don't want to do that at all? I'm suffering pretty badly, but I just feel the whole mindset is contemptuous, dismissive of the patient's experiences and overall shitty, and I think I would probably prefer to stick with the suffering I know than constantly telling myself, and being told by others, that I'm wrong for having the feelings I have?   

It seems like every treatment for BPD out there is focused on trying to show the patient (lucky me) that they're just wrong about their whole worldview because they have "cognitive distortion", whereas, of course, the therapist doesn't and just knows the truth about life (sure). The patient then has to change completely who they are in order to be even remotely acceptable to society. What trauma they might have gone through doesn't matter, because what's important is that they get SKILLZ to be "normal". 

Actually, being normal seems like it's really important in those therapies, somehow, whereas I don't really care about being "normal", whatever that means. I care about suffering less and not being an asshole to others. 

Just for context, I'm almost functional. I'm freaking out most of the time, but I'm in a long term relationship (8 years and counting), I can hold a job, I went back to college where I'm pretty much getting straight A's and I'm about to graduate...  I can't seem to stop smoking, but many people struggle with that. I don't think it means that I have such "maladaptive behavior" that I need to change who I am. 

When I first went through the Wikipedia article for CBT, I was mad for two days straight. DBT just seems like it's everything that irks me about CBT, but more. It just looks the same to me as saying to a depressed person "have you tried being happy instead?", or to an anxious person "You have nothing to worry about". Gee, thanks, my mental health problems are fixed forever! Except that on top of it, if you don't believe the therapist, then it's because you're a bad bad person that has BPD, and as we all know, people with BPD are evil. /s  

And what about that whole "tolerating distress" bullshit? Like, I thought the whole point of therapy was that I'm not in distress 100% of the time? But no, it looks like I just have to accept that life sucks and that's the therapy? WTF? How is saying that to people not resulting in more suicides? 

So I'm super adverse to it. And I don't feel like that spells success for me, you know? 

I heard that those things help. I just can't seem to see how. Actually, I'm worried that trying to go through with that is just going to trigger the worst out of me. If I feel angry just reading about it online, how am I going to react when the therapist, that I have no reason to trust, will tell me that I should just take a deep breath when I'm panicked about something that's legitimately scary, or sad about something that really sucks, or angry about something that's unacceptable? 

I'm questioning even getting a diagnosis at this point. Why would I do that if the next step is being labelled, marginalized and "reprogrammed" with bullshit positivism rooted in denial? I wonder if I'm just better off never going back. 

I know it might be the BPD talking. But still, I think my concerns are valid. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has them. 

What do you think? DAE?