I guess I'm both venting and seeking support? After waiting a month, I finally was able to go to a new psychologist (I only saw the old one once, but she was sadly way too expensive) and I brought up my concerns of identifying really strongly with both ADHD-PI and BDP. He told me first thing that he's not into labels because he finds it hurts people more than it helps them when they focus too much on their diagnosis vs what's "normal." I told him I'm not too hung up on labels, but still want diagnosis to know what's wrong as a starting place, so I started to talk about some general symptoms (extreme forgetfulness, lack of time management, extreme rage), but became flustered when he told me he didn't think I have either of those and rather that I'm pathologizing. He basically described it as having too high of expectations for myself, so when things don't go "right," I look to explain it away with over-identifying with symptoms of mental illness. He said I don't fidget enough and was too focused to have ADHD which stuck me as odd because being fidgety isn't a symptom of PI, and of course I'm hyperfocused on being focused when I have limited time and money trying to solve/treat a chronic issue. He also said I'm too self-aware to have BPD because they wouldn't be able to accept blame/responsibility to get help in the first place. I ended up not going through most of my symptoms and personal examples list because he basically told me my symptoms aren't real. 




I like him, but I feel stuck. I'm not hung up on **the** label, but I do want to identify what's wrong. He acknowledged that I probably carry a decent amount of trauma from childhood emotional abuse, but then that's trauma, not BPD he says. He also talked a lot about BPD still not being well understood in regards to how it develops and if it's genetic or not, but is that true? Isn't BPD a product of childhood environment?




I'm supposed to see him again in 2 weeks and the only thing he asked me to do was to lower my expectations for myself and notice out loud when I'm judging myself...I already know I judge myself a lot and said as much...I'm well aware of how often I do it. Also how low should my expectations be? I feel like it's pretty reasonable to be frustrated with myself when it's a struggle to fulfill basic necessities (feeding myself, personal hygiene, etc) and work on the days I'm feeling up to it, which usually leaves me too worn out to do anything else including things I find enjoyable. I guess I'm wondering if I should continue on with him and try to reiterate more firmly next session or is this just not the right fit? Thanks to anyone that took the time to read this. 