I got diagnosed with BPD last Friday and I’m having a really hard time coming to terms with it. I think I’ve know that that was going to be my diagnosis for quite a while but I’ve been so scared of it. I’m scared that others will look at me as someone who has bpd rather than a person, that happens to also have bpd.

My partner (m41) has been so supportive for our entire relationship, and since my diagnosis has made me feel almost completely that he was ok with it. He has said he has known for a while, even before we started dating 7 months ago.

There’s a lot of things that I’m concerned about - perception and stigma, opinions, the pathologising of any and all of my behaviour as a symptom, accepting things about myself that I’m scared of, etc. but the most pressing thing is that my partner promised me after my psych session that he wouldn’t tell anyone or discuss it until I was ready. That he would support me and this was my business and nobody else’s unless I wanted it to be. But on Wednesday night he told his two sisters, and when I asked him about it he swore on my life that he didn’t. Over the conversation it turned from a no, to a “we talked about BPD but I didn’t confirm anything” and finally, a “I’m sorry yes I did tell them.”

I’m a person that has major trust issues and I hate that about myself. But I was in a relationship for two years and was lied to about most aspects of this person, their life, as well as dealing with his infidelity and constant gaslighting. My current partner knew this - he pursued me for 5 months before I finally decided that maybe I wouldn’t ruin someone’s life, that someone could love me, that someone could find me interesting and attractive, and that was trustworthy and wouldn’t hurt me. He knew my issues with trust and he swore to me he would never lie and never treat me the way my ex did. It was only last week (a year after meeting)(still before my diagnosis) that I expressed how I felt like I was starting to feel comfortable in the relationship and that I - despite how much it scared me - felt like I could trust him.

After my diagnosis he held me in the car while I was crying, he held my the morning after, he reassured me that this changed nothing - and he promised me he would not betray my trust. And then he did, and then he lied about it.

I know that he only went to them to get support, but I don’t know how to handle the fact that he betrayed my trust by discussing something about me that I haven’t even had a week to process, and I’m really having a hard time with the lie - it’s sending me back to a scary place, one in which everything everyone has told me is a lie; one that I question every conversation he and I have ever had, because if he can lie about that, he can and probably did lie about so many other things that I didn’t catch him in.

What should I do? Am I overreacting? I’m scared, but in the past I would have felt so overwhelmed that it would not have been a question of staying together, I would have broken up with him. But I’m trying to move on from my past issues - I think my new meds (2 months on lamotrigine after dreadful experiences with duloxetine) might be helping, either that or my perception of reality is shifting, good, bad, or otherwise, I’m not sure yet.