Emotionally unstable or Borderline Personality Disorder

[rosie93]

What helped you? What kind of drugs drugs? What kind of therapy? Any new methods no one heard about?

 

[whywere]

HI! I have massive depression AND the same goes for BPD. I think that BPD runs in my "dads" side of the family and I hate it. I have tried talk therapy, they gave me Klonopin? for it and nothing helped.

to this day I suffer with it all the time and I have always wondered with the light switch aspect of BPD on my behavior if it has always ruined my chances with having friends.

In work, I was always on a team of 1, myself and it worked ok.

I just try and keep to myself and check myself every second as far as how my personality and behavior are and leave it at that. The only thing that all the therapy did was making sure I was dead broke all the time and the drugs did nothing but make me even worse.

I send you lots of hugs, kindness and the knowledge that you are among friends here on SS and I wish you a great rest of this week and a beautiful upcoming weekend.

My best to you always,

Walter

 

[Bedrock48]

Medications for BPD and co-morbid disorders can be really tricky to get right. I probably tried at least 5 or 6 combinations of medications with all sorts of annoying symptoms (massive weight gain, tremors you name it) until I found a combination that sort of works for me. I have Quetiapine, Mirtazapine and Melatonin all in relatively low doses. Mainly they help with sleep and controlling hallucinations. I think they might 'mellow' me out a bit and make emotion spikes a little less intense but it's difficult to say. I think I've also noticed being generally able to function better while on them, probably thanks to the long sleep they afford me. Still an emotional and suicidal wreck at times though so I doubt they are perfect and meds don't normally work well without other factors like therapy and coping skills.

When I had the motivation, working out and going to exercise classes helped channel excess anger and such. I know it's a cliche thing people like to throw around but being a slight masochist that loves exercise probably helped lol.

It's still an uphill battle and I definitely haven't got everything sorted out. I hope other people have more suggestions that might prove useful. Best of luck in recovery.

 

[UseItOrLoseIt]

I was on SSRI's 15 years. Also, quetiapine for about 10. Didn't make me better. Made me worse. At the peak of the decline, I was 3 years on medical leave and have just been institutionalized for demolishing my room in a fit of rage. In the hospital, me and everyone else there were treated like shit.
After that, I quit every medication, tapering off through a long period of time (about 4 months I think), except the benzos, which I take from time to time before bed, cause the other meds gave me severe insomnia. Once I quit the drugs, I couldn't sleep anymore.
Anyway, I'm not suggesting anything. If you are motivated to get help this way, do it. Quetiapine, at the beggining, for years, was really working for me. Helped with anxiety, an it was pretty evident in my case, cause my tremor subsided considerably.
In the long term though, I'm not so sure drugs are the answer. Brain chemistry is not something to be messed with lightly.
I've been almost 3 years off. I can't say I'm better, I can't sleep and my dark thoughts are here, but at least I'm still working, I'm functioning and my job is not on the line because of meds (it's a long story, which I won't go into now). I don't have severe outburst anymore and not once have I smashed anything in all this time.
Despite my core problem, I call this being a little bit better.