And oh jeeeeezzuz Christ! Those fucking dumb "managing emotions" classes. I spent the whole time (as I didn't know about this diagnostic "wet dream" the "psychiatrist" had) thinking to myself "why am I here?! I don't have these issues, my mood is the problem, I'm just feeling rock bottom??? And why is everyone else talking about BPD?" I mean I attended them in good faith, but at the end, I just felt that I had wasted my time. My illness seemed to have only a miniscule amount in common with other people there. And I certainly didn't feel any better.
When I went to the taster sessions, I found there were lots of people with problems other than BPD and whenever someone (not just me) said that they didn't think they had BPD, the organizers had the canned response: this service isn't just for people with the BPD diagnosis but it's for anyone who thinks these skills could help them. But if you ask what else is available, they say if you don't want to participate then you'll be referred back to your GP, presumably to go onto another waiting list for another service which may or may not help. I flat out refused to be transferred to the personality disorder service (maybe should be called the psychiatric delaying service) so instead I am now with both the general psychiatric team and the pds.
For these lazy psychiatrists, it's far easier to fob you off with BPD and send you to learn how to "manage your emotions" than to do the hard work of actually reaching a valid diagnosis.
Now, I agree, you seem to be smart enough to understand what is going on in your head. So they need to listen. If you can differentiate between your experience and the diagnostic criteria for BPD, then I have no reason to doubt you. The problem happens when these "professionals" tell "you" how "you feel", when that's a perverse inversion of reality. "You" tell "them" how "you" feel.
exactly.
I hope that your next appointment goes far better with the next psychiatrist. I would maybe see if you can bring someone with you, perhaps a professional advocate. I'm pretty sure Mind and similar organisations can offer this. Or perhaps your mum if you are comfortable with that. Maybe prepare a list of questions you want to ask and your reasons why you don't think the symptoms match up to make the diagnosis valid. In my case it was embarrassingly obvious that my "psychiatrist" had failed to look at my notes or just ignored them, and had failed to provide any evidence at all for his diagnosis. It boiled down to "this guy was abused as a child so it absolutely has to be BPD."
My mum has a tendancy to agree with anyone with authority. I can be quite assertive when I want to be so I'll see how it goes on my own.
Another thing I would recommend, if you don't do this already, look up "Logical Fallacies" familiarise yourself with them as these clowns commit them over and over, the most common examples are "Affirming the Consequent", "Denying the Antecedent", and "Straw man Fallacy." If you are good at coding, these are like methods you can call to show an argument has faulty premises and it makes it easier to expose them
I learnt about fallacies and argumenting as a teenager and used it to annoy the sunday school teachers. I don't remember the names of most of the fallacies now but the general techniques have stayed with me.
Incidentally, are you in the north or south of the UK? You don't have to tell me if you aren't comfortable. I just find your experience has been eerily similar to mine in some cases and I wouldnt be surprised if we were in the same "mental health trust".
I'll dm you the answer to this.
There is one thing, I've failed to ask though and I feel bad. How is your back doing? Have you thought any more about maybe having it looked at?
it's fine. Doesn't really hurt at all anymore although I can still poke things into the hole. I bought some bandages online and dressings online so it's covered most of the time. I'm not having it looked at. It seems to be getting better on its own.
