I know that BPD can look a lot of different ways and there's a lot of different symptoms so maybe sometimes it's confusing that we don't all have the same ones. Though I've been told over and over again that I need to get the thought I have BPD out of my head by my counsellor and my best friend (who's almost a doctor). The thing is I know I probably don't meet the criteria for diagnosis right now, I got diagnosed 5 years a go and I've made a lot of recovery since then. I've been told by a lot of people that you can't get better from BPD but over 50% of patients don't meet the criteria for diagnosis after 2 years of treatment [Reference](https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.ajp.2009.09081130). I was diagnosed at 18, I know that's young but they told me when I was &lt;18 that I had the signs I was developing it, I didn't get all the treatment I needed, things got worse and at 18 they were like "yep we're sure you got it now". I honestly think (based on what they say) the reason people don't believe me about this is because I'm generally seen as a 'nice' person (often excessively, to my own and others detriment), so I'm not aggressive and don't engage in much conflict. Also I'm a man. That's just some media bullshit view of BPD and we're all different. This diagnosis has helped me in so many ways, not only in understanding myself but also in accessing treatment and getting support at University, so I wish people would stop pretending that telling me I don't have it is some kind of compliment, it's actually very devalidating. It's not like they offer me an alternative diagnosis anyway.

**TL;DR: I'm upset because people don't take my BPD diagnosis seriously.**

