"but I Wasnt Abused"

[hummm_mabbe]

Unfortunately bad parents can adopt just as they can reproduce.

I was adopted at 3 days old 30 years later and having learned of my bio-family, I can say...both options had their pros and cons. In either case I think BPD for me could have happened. Probably the combination of pre-disposition, abandonment and a bad invalidating childhood. Oh being gay doesn't help either. Anyway to quote my bio-sister "she did the best she could" that also doesn't mean it was good enough, as sounds the case for you and def for me.

I have no idea if I have BPD but as a baby who was kept by a mother who should have put her children up for adoption I feel I have so many issues by being KEPT. Being adopted is not necessarily a bad thing. Terrible, I don't doubt. I often wonder if it would have been worse or maybe just different.

I think maybe you misunderstood what I was saying. The twin and adoption studies claimed (and this is what I disagree with) that because the child of previously schizophrenic parents had been adopted away, that therefore the family they went into must be perfectly ok and so therefore schizophrenia is entirely genetic, and thatfamily influence is minimal. Its a huge assumption made by the study, and in fact when researchers went and followed up the twin and adoption studies years later, they found, as you have, that the adoptive family was just as damaging. They pre-seelcted people on the basis of having schizophrenia AND having been adopted, and made the assumption that the adoptive family was fine when it was not. Its like ignoring the extremely loud and angry elephant in the room. But in order for their study to hold water, they did not talk about the nature of the adoptive families.

So I agree completely that an adoptive family can be just as bad as a biological one.

Actually ignore the whole reply - I got my thread directions and who replied to who confused! :(

[hummm_mabbe]

Thank you soo much for this post I often feel like I dont have a reason to be the way I am which makes me feel more invalidated. I am having a bad time and reading this made me feel a bit better

Hurray! :)

[hummm_mabbe]

have re read whole topic

still having trouble with accepting it though

I can feel it all being dismissed and pushed out of my head

Did you look into getting some schema yet, seeing as the CBT failed for you? Schema is the normal "next destination" after CBT fails.

[walker]

there is no money, unless i am at work

and no one nearby

I hear/read the similarities to me - with others on here - but then the differences keep screaming out - saying

its not true - you do not need help -

I have no doubt you have despaired of me by now - sorry, but i feel like i am searching for excuses for my pathetic behaviour - and

making a mountain out of nothing

the greatest irony seems to be that if my parents have made me like this - it is also them that have made controlled enough to survive.

I seem to live a life of fear rather than impulsivity

but please please dont hate me

i have, read all you have said to me - and re read it

but the battle with what is in my head is intense - and the past always wins - partly because in my home it is also the present.

[hummm_mabbe]

You spoke to hubby about it - for richer or for poorer, can he not help you out with overcoming this lifelong crippling illness? Perhaps if therapy starts to work then you can go back to earning. If you do nothing, and stay ill, then you definitely wont. I think its probably a little much for hub to hope that you just happen to get better with time.

You mentioned that he was surprsied and seemed supportive when you told him about the BPD dx, so what makes you think he will automatically say no? Or is it just your tendency to belive that you dont deserve it, and so arent trying in the first place?

Belief drives action, or lack of it. You need therapy. NHS CBT failed for you. Past psychodynamic therapy failed for you. Both these therapies are known to have reduced success rates with BPD. Schema was desgined FOR BPD. Schema is not avaliable on the NHS. This does not prove you are hopeless or any of the things you keep saying to yourself, it just proves you havent yet found a therapy with a higher chance of helping you.

I do private therapy and im on disability benefit, and I make sure I afford it because getting better is the most important thing in my life. I do not feel I can complain about my situation if I do nothing to alter it.

You have a mental illness, possibly BPD. You need therapy. What does it matter whether you believe that you do or dont deserve it, or whether you belive your parents were perfect or not? You NEED therapy, you DO feel awful. You doint have to go through the international panel of "you deserve therapy" judges before you get it.

[walker]

i will stop complaing then

but there is no extra money

and hub does not rate therapy, he is a drugs man

and

since i have been better since I stopped seeing James, that proves his theory

I will be going back to work, because the deep deep depression has gone

yes - i am stuck and will stay stuck until i have the courage to make the changes necessary - which are just SO big - i dont think i can

I am not a person on my own

im not saying its easy for you - because I can see how damn hard you try

but there are a whole host of things in my life which make

damn it doesnt matter

forget it

they are all right - shut up and stop thinking and talking about it - and get on

f*ck it

[hummm_mabbe]

i will stop complaing then

but there is no extra money

and hub does not rate therapy, he is a drugs man

and

since i have been better since I stopped seeing James, that proves his theory

I will be going back to work, because the deep deep depression has gone

yes - i am stuck and will stay stuck until i have the courage to make the changes necessary - which are just SO big - i dont think i can

I am not a person on my own

im not saying its easy for you - because I can see how damn hard you try

but there are a whole host of things in my life which make

damn it doesnt matter

forget it

they are all right - shut up and stop thinking and talking about it - and get on

f*ck it

And this, for me, is the effect of the "its just me" outlook and is an example of what Im talking about above. When you belive its just you, that you are fatally flawed, you give up. Nothing can be done because this is "just the way you are". The fact that you have never had an experience that could show you this is not true acts as proof you are unhelpable. I know you have had experiences of feeling better, but it seems that even this is not enough to suggest that better things are out there, if you will only reach for them.

Does the fact that you dont get better prove that you really are bioloigcally flawed, or does the initial belief you are biologically flawed simply resonate with a (possibly temporary) therapy failure? I have had 5 therapists and 4 types of therapy. Only 2 of the therapists helped. That means I had a therapy failure with 3 - had I belived it was my biology, my fault, I would have given up and had seemingly excellent proof it was true. Yet ONE therapist led me to a breakthrough. The "I am broken " theory bit the dust.

I do not belive in the biological fatal flaw, or the character flaw. I believe only in the power of belief and self fulfilling prophecy. Is it truly "different for everyone" in terms of whether biology makes them have BPD, or is it just "different for everyone" in what they belive about the source of their mental illness, and the effect this has on their recovery?

[hummm_mabbe]

I can see that this thread may go on for some time, and is by its very nature controversial, so I guess I want to make it clear why I feel so strongly.

In BPD, we tend to have the matra "Its my fault, I am bad, I am evil". Anything that reflects this message is easily absorbed by us, and it places us straight back into that position of weakness and hopelessness we know so well. Once in that place, all our other behaviours come out - the ones we want so much to change.

The message of biological pshcyiatry - "I was made bad, its just me" clicks with the BPD mantra of "its my fault". Some people might surmise "well perhaps thats an accurate suspicion". This might be good reasoning, if it werent for the common thread of invalidation that runs throughout the lives of those with BPD.

What is invalidation? It is the word that actually DESCRIBES being told "its your fault, you are bad, you are too sensitive, your emotions are out of control". What the person saying it really means is, "your emotions are too much for ME". Now that can be just as much a function of the parents inability to cope as any actual problem wioth the child - but its known that invalidation in itself can lead to mental health problems. "What you feel you cannot be feeling, what you think is not right, and so I cannot help you. Whats more you are disturbing me, and that makes me angry. You were just born bad - its not my fault that I cant cope with you, you were just born bad". How similar is this final message to "you were born with a biological sensitivity"? If invlidation hurts us so much, then why do medics think that somehow the ultimate invalidation - its just your biology - is going to be HELPFUL to us?

That, plus the lack of actual science to back it up, is why I feel so strongly about the biology theory. It is simply a device that smooths the lives of a therapist and parent. It is a cop out that fills the hole of "I dont know" on the part of the therapist, and assuages guilt on the part of the parent. The only person it does not help is the patient, especially if their belief in the fatal flaw means they are more likely to give up after a therapy failure or relapse.

[walker]

guess im just not 'ill enough'

dont really think much about it being biological

indeed i tend far more towards the nurture approach

i believe that we are intensely a result of our environment and relationships

because I know how rapidly and intensely these things affect me now

but

i can only sometimes see my past in that equation

as i say

i am not ill enough to warrant staying home anylonger, or justifying support

i have, and will, 'get by'

it hurts deeply, and my heart is crying out for more, but that is all

other people get on with their lives - in the face of far far far more than me

even my gp said the other day that I am living in 'child mode' - that hurt as I know it is partly true -

fact is - you became seriously ill

i am not

i was perhaps - but not now

and if I ever do get this review meeting - then I guess they will discharge me - I am functioning -

(whatever they say about this being caused by my coming off medication - professionals, hub and friends - I know it was growing inside me for at least 2 years - and having K leave home and my brother desert me to the other side of the world - these are the things that have left me in pain - no bloody drugs)

[hummm_mabbe]

OK, well that is your belief about yourself, founded possibly or not in fact. You are running with that belief, and its driving your actions.

Of course you may be totally wrong, but you arent entertaining that possibility, and instead you are going to place yourself into a situation you know you dont feel you can handle, and then you are going to feel bad in it and complain about it.

The last thing you are going to do is look into another source of therapy, because your belief is that you arent ill. You post one post saying your life is in the bin and that everythuing feels awful, then you say youre not ill. The two views are mutually incompatible with one another, but it does keep you posting and posting about how awful everything is whilst providing you with an effective excuse to take no action. And then when i point this out, you just say "see? its just me being attention seeking - Ill shut up, i dont deserve help, everyone was right etc etc". Then a day later a new post arrives about what a disaster it all is. The moment anyone tries to help you, you shift the goal posts to make it impossible for anyone to make even the slightest dent.

Remember what i said before about how some people do not recieve support and compassion because they, in some way, push it away from themselves or just simply mentally deflect its impact? Above, in a nutshell, is how you do it. And that can only be got over in therapy - not just because some guy on the internet demands it.

[walker]

i would like to believe it was illness but everything in me is fighting against it

what you see on here is the fight

sorry

ed

hub just said this would be a good time to buy a new car - I said 'could we not afford therapy for me then?' - he didnt answer - he didnt even look at me

he doesnt believe im ill either - he says he does - but like i said - not ill enough

I can see what you are saying - and I know you feel like you are banging your head against a brick wall

I am alongside you - against the same wall -

i am crying on the outside and screaming on the inside

but

i cant break it down

they all see it as an inulgence - paying someone to be nice to you -

my head is such a mess, the only time it settles for a bit is when i believe them all - so what is right?

[hummm_mabbe]

i would like to believe it was illness but everything in me is fighting against it

what you see on here is the fight

sorry

On the battlefields of World War One, men died in combat.

Meanwhile, politicians in quiet buildings tried to come to terms that would end the bloodshed.

The fighting didnt need to stop before the reasoning began.

[walker]

i do understand - honestly

but my reality is so so ingrained that it is just that - 'reality'

it is like i am standing on the edge of a knife - in pain - terrified of slipping either way

[hummm_mabbe]

ed

hub just said this would be a good time to buy a new car - I said 'could we not afford therapy for me then?' - he didnt answer - he didnt even look at me

he doesnt believe im ill either - he says he does - but like i said - not ill enough

I can see what you are saying - and I know you feel like you are banging your head against a brick wall

I am alongside you - against the same wall -

i am crying on the outside and screaming on the inside

but

i cant break it down

they all see it as an inulgence - paying someone to be nice to you -

my head is such a mess, the only time it settles for a bit is when i believe them all - so what is right?

OK, well there we go.

Good luck.

[hummm_mabbe]

Hullo everyone

Actually now I just feel guilty about this entire thread from start to finish.

Sorry, I was being a silly opinionated wiffle bat, I shouldnt cram my poltics and so on down peoples throats, its not cool.

Soz everybod **blush**

[walker]

i dont think you should feel guilty

i know i am not moving

but your words help many many people in ways you may never know

you have a wealth of knowledge and a great clarity of understanding

i realise it may not seem like it - but i have greatly appreciated your insights - they are what i return to as I try to find a way through.

you have every right to be well proud of yourself for the effort you put into your posts

you are passionate about your beliefs - if you werent - you would not be able to d the work you are doing

i sit here and whinge

you sit there and try to help

dont stop Ross - many many people appreciate your efforts

( even me - the cracks ARE beginning to appear)

[hummm_mabbe]

:hug2:

[rozekat]

I'll try to write the reply I had in mind as I read all of these posts, but there was so many my brain is starting to feel mushy...

I was not abused growing up. Neither was my sister. We had very similar upbringings. Our parents never split, so it's not like we had to deal with that. I ended up developing a borderline personality. She didn't. She is a couple of years younger than me (24, I'm 26) and she has is highly independent, has a great partner and a new baby. I'm still trying to get through school and live with my parents.

Two differing kinds of events, seem to me, to be part of the root of my BPD. They are more like child-rearing practices. Firstly, when we were young our parents worked and we stayed with our grandparents alot. Mum went back to work when my sister was 18mths, and we continued this until I was about 9. Secondly, we were always told, "don't be silly", "that's ridiculous", "stop bunging it on" when we were to react to something in an emotional way. This is that emotionally invalidating kind of behaviour that has been discussed. I didn't mind the academic side of school, although my sister hated it. But, socially, I found school to be the most traumatic and humiliating experience of my life. My sister loved it.

While there is plenty of argument to suggest it is the disruption to those really early formative years for people who go on to form a borderline personality disorder, I think these later years need to also be considered. They are the years where you start to challenge everything you've been taught and everything that you are, and at the end of it come out with a clearly-defined sense of self. Unless you're us that is. By the time we have reached those years, our sense of self is already shaky and therefore have more difficulty going through that adolescent process. And we're mostly unsuccessful (does that make sense?) which is why we lack a clear definition of our self, our identity. This was my experience. Added together with that continual emotional invalidation from my family (who thought they were doing what's best to toughen me).

I'm a lucky person. I get to do DBT and it is the best thing I have ever done in my life. I've been in the program since July. Where I live, they're doing research comparing the DBT model of therapy with the Conversational model, and I blindly chose DBT (which was what I wanted). Where they used to have a year long waiting list for patients, they now have too many therapists and I got in straight away. The improvement I have seen in 4 months is amazing! That aside, my point is, through the team of therapists we have been taught that it is believed by the scientific community that some people just happen to be born more emotionally sensitive than other people.

So, the theory as it has been told to me is that people who are born like this are more sensitive to their emotions: they get set off sooner, they peak higher and they last longer. This makes sense to me and in no way makes me feel like anyone in particular needs to be blamed, and it does not invalidate anything for me. It explains why I always cried more than my sister. Why I've gone through years of mental illness (until the correct diagnosis). Why I cry at happy things. Why my world can crumble beneath me so quickly over the slightest thing. Even though we were raised in the same environment and subject to the same conditions (as close to as possible), I was the one who developed BPD and she didn't. I was born more emotionally sensitive than her and I accept that as just the way it is (my ability to do so is probably a result of intensive therapy).

It was said somewhere in here something about people accepting the nature theory over the nurture theory because it means they don't have to look at the things that cause them pain (I think that was the gist). Like most people with borderline personality disorder who have this really strong emotional sensitivity I have gone through times when I just wanted it gone. I wanted to never feel anything again. All I could feel was pain. And I still do feel pain. But I have come to accept it as part of myself and almost as a gift. Sure, I can feel pain and misery in the most excrutiating of ways. But when I am happy, when I am in love, it is exquisite. And I can't have that, I can't have that ability to feel those wonderful things so strongly without that ability to feel its opposite. It's just the way life is. I don't always like it, but I accept it. And acceptance makes it feel less painful when I do feel pain. Pain is a part of life, and it can't be escaped. Sometimes you just have to allow yourself to feel it. And not only because without you wouldn't feel happiness or love, but because in allowing yourself to feel pain, you lessen its hold on you. You actually make it less. Now that I understand this, I am terrified of losing that emotional sensitivity.

Anyway, I'm sorry if I went off topic. Hope I added something of worth

Hi there

It would seem that for you the message of biological sensitivity was helpful, and I think this is good. I would be interested to see if this still holds years down the line and whether your opinion on the long term effectiveness of DBT still holds. Its worth noting that the "cehmical imbalance" theory of depression is 'widely accepted', yet is not backed up by science - thats right, there is no proof for the theory that sells billions of pounds worth of drugs a year. Its widely accepted, but it is not proven. The studies challening the effect versus placebo of antidepressants is now highlighting this. Water boils at 100 degrees C at sea level - thats provable science fact. The universe exists in multiple dimensions above and beyond the ones we see now - thats widely accepted science THEORY, but we havent proved it. Theories stand or fall on the facts that are found to support or disconfirm them, such as the earth is flat. Observations of earth curvature dont fit the theory, the theory dies, no matter how widely accepted it was before (in the case of flat earth, it was universally accepted).

I have a sister also. She is older than me and does not have BPD. She has good friends, and for a long time it was easy to believe that I must have been naturally more sensitive because after all, we had the same parents.

Then I realised - parents do not treat their children the same. Parenting is not a uniformly homogenous experience in which each child gets an identical treatment. Sometimes one child is favoured. Sometimes one child has greater expectations placed on it. Sometimes a first child gets poorer initial parenting BECAUSE they are the first and their parents are inexperienced. As research shows, mums emotional state right after birth has a huge impact on ability to cope with parenting and so make a healthy child. The fact that you have it and your sister doesn’t could even be interpreted as DISAGREEING with the biology theory, because now we have to explain why the so called gene for BPD skipped your sister. Is it recessive? We don’t know, because no one has found such a gene.

You have described the invalidating environment. You may be interested to know that a number of researchers are applying a type of 'chaos theory' to the development of mental illness. The idea is that life throws combinations at you, and if you get enough of the wrong combinations, then you end up with mental illness. You cannot know how you were treated as a baby - its a period we cant remember. You cannot know whether your mum behaved the same with you as with your sister. You cannot know if the things that were learned raising you helped to avoid that with your sister. Added to this - siblings have to adapt. Siblings very often are different because they see how the other behaves and realise that, in order to get a fair share, they need to act differently. Something as simple as your sister observing your reaction and going "oh no that doesn’t work - Ill try something else" very very early on would have lead to one of these alternate choices.

The thing about biology is that it is simple and easy to understand - I was born this way. The concept of tiny options and changes at each stage of life feels uncontrollable, intangible. To believe that some organ in our body causes us to get BPD is much easier to understand, and for some comforting. In this case, its nicer for you to believe that you have a biological sensitivity to being emotionally unstable than it is to look into the array of things that may have happened to you as a baby and later, as a child. For me, I am discovering the things that happened to me back then - but not to my sister - as I get older, and the message that I was "just born that way" gets weaker and weaker. The differences in the way my mum treated me and my sister are becoming glaring.

Think about this. Just for the sake of illustration, lets say for 2 occasions, you got angry as a baby. Lets say your parents dont like angry children, and so they scolded you when really you needed to be soothed. They decided you were an emotional child, and from that point on decided to treat you in such as way that you knew they "wouldnt stand for your nonsense". What was nonsense and what was real distress became blurred, and all your emotions were lumped into the "nonsense" category. The invalidation reinforces your emotional problems because you don’t get the support you need.

Lets say your sister, on 2 similar occasions, either didn’t get so angry or your parents were in better moods. You had just done your angry bit. "See how different this one is? She is much calmer. Why cant YOU be more like your sister?". Sister gets treated well because parents like "good babies". They then behave in a way that reinforces that. If this sounds insane, there is good research to show that this is in fact the way it works. One important event means that you begin to fall one side of the barrier or the other - and yes in this you are right - later events then add to it or take it away. Each experience at each moment of life shapes the next - that is how things work. Look how simple it is to be branded with a chronically invalidating message that eats at you, from within, forever until someone comes along and tells you "the message was wrong". Is this a trivial example? What is trivial, to a child? Who decides that? The adult? The same adult who branded your behaviour "nonsensical", and so started the whole reinforcement loop in the first place?

It may be a good way to explain the difference, but the problem is that "biology" still does not have any solid, believable evidence base to it. Its USEFUL for some to be told it, and in your case may even help you to deal, right now, with how you feel. Not to be mean though, but the belief has no basis in science, apart from those studies already mentioned which were extremely flawed. Dont forget that BPD as a dx is simply a collection of descriptive terms that describe a sometimes seen combination of behaviours and experiences. No two "BPD's" are the same. To say that you "got BPD" is a misnomer - what happened is you developed a way of responding and coping that could broadly be said to fit under this descriptive heading. Nature does not recognise the illness of BPD in the same way it recognises the influenza virus, but as these terms are all couched in the language of disease, we ask the question "why did I GET BPD and my sibling didnt?". The question should be "why did my sibling develop strong, adaptive coping responses, the ability to feel soothed, and the ability to let people into her life who are supportive, when I didnt? What did I fail to learn, and why? What did I miss out on that she didnt?"

To me the biology version of events is offensive, it closes down options because people think "oh I will just accept how I am" when in fact they can recover well beyond what they think they can (given the right circumstances, which the behavioral therapies may not represent) and it just adds to the sense of "oh its all my fault" that many people with BPD suffer from. Without proper evidence I find accepting something this damaging to be extremely difficult, but that is both the scientist AND the BPD advocate in me talking.

Why am I saying this? Am I being mean? The thing that concerns me is this: I had CBT, similar to DBT, for a year. I got better, I felt great. For 6 months. And then I relapsed and went back to exactly what I was before. It destroyed me, and I kept trying to do the exercises that the method suggested. The thing was, it wasn’t the method that caused the change in feeling - it was the PERSON I was seeing, it was the therapist. Without him, I did not feel better. This was because of the ESSENTIAL EMOTIONAL NEEDS that had been chronically frustrated when I was little. He acted in the precise opposite way to what my childhood experiences were. He gave me what I had never had, and the reaction, internally and in my mind, was huge. Energy. My skin looked different. My voice sounded different. All things that FELT like biology, but were connected entirely with the experience with this person.

I did not do it for long enough, and what’s more I did not deal with the underlying problem - the chronic sense of abandonment by my parents, the chronic invalidation, the chronic imbalance of how my sister was treated versus how I was treated, the expectations on her versus the expectations on me and the subtle ways that made me see my place in the world. Thats right - my upbringing drove how I acted towards others, when I acted that way, they responded a certain way. That kept the same old loop going and going. But therapy didnt touch any of these things - it just gave me what I needed at the time and that made me feel better. But without understanding all the ways I was neglected - and believe me, I didn’t want to believe I had been, I didn’t even want to look at the past. I just BLAMED MYSELF. However now, I see its NOT my fault. Blame is not a state I intend to stay in, so I have no fear of blaming my parents. This fear does not stop me from looking at my past objectively.

Did you know that even biological psychiatry agrees that even if there is a biological sensitivity, good parenting will override any natural temperamental deficit? That is, even if you are "born sensitive", good parenting will stop you from developing mental illness? Now who begins to look like the greatest culprit?

When you accept the biology model, it means you don’t have to look there in detail. You can just generalise your whole childhood experience and say "oh it was ok generally, and anyway my sister turned out ok so it must just be me". This seems to be working for you, but if you ever have a relapse, it means you are more likely to say "oh I am so silly, its my fault I cant get better, I will always be like this" than to say "perhaps this type of therapy has missed something. Maybe its not biology, maybe there is something deeper that I cannot currently see". The way you view your problem DEFINES how you tackle it - that’s a core tenet of science. The IMO fatalistic view of "its biology" leads you much more swiftly to the route of "its hopeless" than does the nurture path. However, nurture is infinitely more complex, and so less inherently appealing, than biology.

As someone who has experienced all these things myself, spoken to hundreds of folks online with the same experiences, and having a background in analytical science, it is very very hard to reconcile the widely accepted theory of biology with what I see again and again - and the fact that it keeps a lot of people stuck and hurting, to my mind, makes it not only scientifically wrong but all the more unpleasant.

I feel confident that I can accept the biology theory as a CONTRIBUTING factor, without blaming myself. After all, its no differnt to say, having diabetes. A diabetic doesn't blame himself for being that way, neither does a blind person or a deaf person blame themself for being born that way. A person born with dwarfism doesn't blame themself.

You have strongly stated the fact that there is no proof of the biology theory. And I am willing to accept that. But I would love it if you could provide me with some of your sources (I'm a fan of scientific research). But to use one of your examples...for thousands of years the thought that the world could be round was dismissed for lack of proof. That didn't stop the earth from being round. Likewise, the biology theory can be dismissed for lack of proof but it doesn't stop it from being biology fact. Many other mental illnesses have a biology fact factor to them, for example depression. If BPD is a combination of a range of symptoms under an umbrella term, and that some of those symptoms (which could exist as separate mental illnesses) have a known biological cause, then could it not follow that BPD has similar biological causes?

As for the differences that exist in child-rearing within a single family, I concede that you are right. It is not homogenous and styles vary from child to child after mistakes are taken into consideration and a new approach taken (I know I felt that burn). But if anything, I was the 'favourite'. My father picked on my sister incessantly and I was always hailed as the smart child, the sensible child, the one to do great things. If anything, I felt the mantle of responsiblity and expectation choke me. My sister rebelled at about 15/16, and I waited till I was about 25 to relive my teenage years!

[hummm_mabbe]

Hi Rozekat

Your "world is flat" example can be applied both ways, and in fact biology currently is the dominant belief system - despite its lack of proofs -and so by that standard is the equivalent of "the world is flat". I am in a minority in my beliefs when it comes to the psychology and psychiatry community, and at this point I could pull out arguments about how einstein was ignored and in a minority until everyone agreed with him. The problem is this is "rhetoric", much like in politics, and it does nothing to establish what is truly known and being said. It just establishes whether people belive you and the human tendency to go with consensus.

My sources are from a number of papers I have read online in the past and I cannot remember all the titles, but if you want a small cross section then you can find them in "The Handbook Of Personology and Psychopathology" (various authors) and "Models of Madness" or "Madness Explained" by Richard Bentall. The first two are collections of papers on the issue. Stand alone unipolar depression does affect your biology, clearly - but there is still no explanation of mechanism or initiating cause via a biological route.

The way I understand the "biology influences mental illness" model is that the parts of the brain responsible for soothing, coping skills, production of stress hormones etc are in some way faulty and then , when a stressor comes along, the system is less able to cope - mental illness ensues. The problem is that this theory ignores the work done both by John Bowlby on the impact of early infant / mother interaction, and the large more recent body of research that shows exactly how these infant interactions actually shape the biology of the brain. That is - nurture influences nature. Which part of the brain is influenced by this nurture? The OrbitoFrontal Cortex - the part of the brain responsible for soothing and organising coping responses. The way the infant is treated actually drives the way the brain connections - synapses, axons and so on - are made. Treatment drives brain structure, so if mum screws up here, it can affect the rest of your life. (A great book to sum all that research up - because there are hundreds of papers, is Sue Gerhardts "Why love matters"). Whilst this sounds hopeless, the ongoing discoveries on synaptic plasticity mean that we understand the degree to which the brain can change - and in fact psychotherapy aims to reverse those chnages made - or not - by a less than optimal infancy. (In the book "Feeling Good" by David Burns, he talks about MRI scans done of patients who have been treated with CBT for depression. Changes to those key regions of the brain are seen in those patients receiving therapy. I dont know what his source is but the guy is an MD). This is not, and will never be, an appealing theory for parents - but yet that is what discoveries are telling us. Again - its an emotional feeling that stops people from wanting to accept that though.

Even biological psychiatry's most fierce backers agree that "nurture can overcome any effects of 'bad biology' ". That can be found in the Models of Madness book. I would give you the page number but the book is back at the library right now ....

Here is one quote from "Madness Explained" by Richard Bentall (winner of British Psyhcological Society Book Award 2004) "For example, studies of patients suffering from personility disorders have consistently yielded lower heritability estimates (A measure of the genetic component of an illness)", and the reference is "Heritability of Personality Disorders in childhood", Journal of Personality Disorders.

If someone had a theory that the moon was made of cheese, and they kept sending space shuttles up there to find it, but after 1000 shuttle trips they found no cheese, wouldnt it be time to say "maybe there is no cheese and we only kep going back because we belive there might be, and whats more if people know this, there will be no grants for Lunar Cheese Researchers or training and jobs for Cheese Astronauts and we'll all be out of an income?". This is the case with the biological theory of BPD, depression and all mental illness. In 2007 over 300 papers were published on the biology of mental illness - a figure representative of preceding years - and not one of them found a definite mechanism. They always call for more research. "We're sure the cheese is there! Just keep looking! And anyway, the more paper we produce, the more we can say 'theres a strong consensus' ". Psychiatry has been lookng for it since early 1900 when Emil Kraepelin put forward his biology theory of mental illness. 100 years later and we are still looking, in vain. The most promising current theory is Molecular Genetics, which claims that a myriad of smaller contribtuing genes adds up to vulnerability to mental illness. So far they have no direct and repeatable findings, but they too will keep trying - because Psychiatry's future rests on it. In the same Bentall book he also discusses the lengths that MG researchers go to to try to interpret their data in a way that confirms their hypothesis - making the commonly seen assumptions, generalisations and 'a priori' truths that psychiatry has always relied on. Psychiatrists claim this biological vulnerbality makes up 80% of your chance of getting ill (taken from the Handbook of Personology and Psychopathology), yet they also admit that good upbringing can counter your biology. The two statements are mutually exclusive.

If you like the biology theory and it is helpful to you, then thats great because anything that makes you feel better is valuable. I do not want to take that away from you, my aim is to show those folks that do not feel its valid, and in some cases is actually invalidating and brings a sense of hopelessness, that its not necessarily supported by the science. I hope this will encourage them to pursue and have greater belief in a psychological therapy.

Environmental / psychological models of "pathogenesis", or getting ill, have been developed and applied into effective psyhcological treatments, and whilst psychiatrists struggle in vain with filling people with drugs, the therapies report far higher and longer term recovery rates. Proving there is no biology is 'proving a negative' and hard to do, so for now psychiatry can keep spending money on looking for it and fluffing their results to look good. The rest of the world can only sit by and wonder, when exactly are they going to ask the question - "maybe we're looking for the abominable snowman?"

[KarmaKitty]

I am thankful for this topic because I get the whole "you don't have BPD, you weren't abused" bullshit from others I know who were abused.

[hummm_mabbe]

I am thankful for this topic because I get the whole "you don't have BPD, you weren't abused" bullshit from others I know who were abused.

Im glad of that, that was precisely what I was hoping to address

[rozekat]

Hi Rozekat

Your "world is flat" example can be applied both ways, and in fact biology currently is the dominant belief system - despite its lack of proofs -and so by that standard is the equivalent of "the world is flat". I am in a minority in my beliefs when it comes to the psychology and psychiatry community, and at this point I could pull out arguments about how einstein was ignored and in a minority until everyone agreed with him. The problem is this is "rhetoric", much like in politics, and it does nothing to establish what is truly known and being said. It just establishes whether people belive you and the human tendency to go with consensus.

My sources are from a number of papers I have read online in the past and I cannot remember all the titles, but if you want a small cross section then you can find them in "The Handbook Of Personology and Psychopathology" (various authors) and "Models of Madness" or "Madness Explained" by Richard Bentall. The first two are collections of papers on the issue. Stand alone unipolar depression does affect your biology, clearly - but there is still no explanation of mechanism or initiating cause via a biological route.

The way I understand the "biology influences mental illness" model is that the parts of the brain responsible for soothing, coping skills, production of stress hormones etc are in some way faulty and then , when a stressor comes along, the system is less able to cope - mental illness ensues. The problem is that this theory ignores the work done both by John Bowlby on the impact of early infant / mother interaction, and the large more recent body of research that shows exactly how these infant interactions actually shape the biology of the brain. That is - nurture influences nature. Which part of the brain is influenced by this nurture? The OrbitoFrontal Cortex - the part of the brain responsible for soothing and organising coping responses. The way the infant is treated actually drives the way the brain connections - synapses, axons and so on - are made. Treatment drives brain structure, so if mum screws up here, it can affect the rest of your life. (A great book to sum all that research up - because there are hundreds of papers, is Sue Gerhardts "Why love matters"). Whilst this sounds hopeless, the ongoing discoveries on synaptic plasticity mean that we understand the degree to which the brain can change - and in fact psychotherapy aims to reverse those chnages made - or not - by a less than optimal infancy. (In the book "Feeling Good" by David Burns, he talks about MRI scans done of patients who have been treated with CBT for depression. Changes to those key regions of the brain are seen in those patients receiving therapy. I dont know what his source is but the guy is an MD). This is not, and will never be, an appealing theory for parents - but yet that is what discoveries are telling us. Again - its an emotional feeling that stops people from wanting to accept that though.

Even biological psychiatry's most fierce backers agree that "nurture can overcome any effects of 'bad biology' ". That can be found in the Models of Madness book. I would give you the page number but the book is back at the library right now ....

Here is one quote from "Madness Explained" by Richard Bentall (winner of British Psyhcological Society Book Award 2004) "For example, studies of patients suffering from personility disorders have consistently yielded lower heritability estimates (A measure of the genetic component of an illness)", and the reference is "Heritability of Personality Disorders in childhood", Journal of Personality Disorders.

If someone had a theory that the moon was made of cheese, and they kept sending space shuttles up there to find it, but after 1000 shuttle trips they found no cheese, wouldnt it be time to say "maybe there is no cheese and we only kep going back because we belive there might be, and whats more if people know this, there will be no grants for Lunar Cheese Researchers or training and jobs for Cheese Astronauts and we'll all be out of an income?". This is the case with the biological theory of BPD, depression and all mental illness. In 2007 over 300 papers were published on the biology of mental illness - a figure representative of preceding years - and not one of them found a definite mechanism. They always call for more research. "We're sure the cheese is there! Just keep looking! And anyway, the more paper we produce, the more we can say 'theres a strong consensus' ". Psychiatry has been lookng for it since early 1900 when Emil Kraepelin put forward his biology theory of mental illness. 100 years later and we are still looking, in vain. The most promising current theory is Molecular Genetics, which claims that a myriad of smaller contribtuing genes adds up to vulnerability to mental illness. So far they have no direct and repeatable findings, but they too will keep trying - because Psychiatry's future rests on it. In the same Bentall book he also discusses the lengths that MG researchers go to to try to interpret their data in a way that confirms their hypothesis - making the commonly seen assumptions, generalisations and 'a priori' truths that psychiatry has always relied on. Psychiatrists claim this biological vulnerbality makes up 80% of your chance of getting ill (taken from the Handbook of Personology and Psychopathology), yet they also admit that good upbringing can counter your biology. The two statements are mutually exclusive.

If you like the biology theory and it is helpful to you, then thats great because anything that makes you feel better is valuable. I do not want to take that away from you, my aim is to show those folks that do not feel its valid, and in some cases is actually invalidating and brings a sense of hopelessness, that its not necessarily supported by the science. I hope this will encourage them to pursue and have greater belief in a psychological therapy.

Environmental / psychological models of "pathogenesis", or getting ill, have been developed and applied into effective psyhcological treatments, and whilst psychiatrists struggle in vain with filling people with drugs, the therapies report far higher and longer term recovery rates. Proving there is no biology is 'proving a negative' and hard to do, so for now psychiatry can keep spending money on looking for it and fluffing their results to look good. The rest of the world can only sit by and wonder, when exactly are they going to ask the question - "maybe we're looking for the abominable snowman?"

Thanks for clearing those few things up for me. I didn't mean to put you down in any way in asking for your sources - I'm sure you can appreciate my hesitancy to just take your word for it. I mean, you can't believe half of the 'legitimate' stuff you find on the net, and the posts of someone in a forum who you don't know even less (I hope that came out right). Point is, I start my degree in psychology at uni next year so it was from a completely academic point of view that I asked those questions.

The Handbook of Personology and Psychopathology I have on my computer here somewhere (I downloaded a huge torrent that had a stackload of textbooks), and when I get some time I'll check it out a bit. At the moment I'm working on establishing a Mental Health Collective at uni for next year to help support students with mental illness.

On a separate but relevant note, I would like to know your thoughts on DBT, but I think it might be best done in a separate thread, so please check back in the forum foyer for my post, and I would love to hear your reply.

[hummm_mabbe]

Thanks for clearing those few things up for me. I didn't mean to put you down in any way in asking for your sources - I'm sure you can appreciate my hesitancy to just take your word for it. I mean, you can't believe half of the 'legitimate' stuff you find on the net, and the posts of someone in a forum who you don't know even less (I hope that came out right). Point is, I start my degree in psychology at uni next year so it was from a completely academic point of view that I asked those questions.

The Handbook of Personology and Psychopathology I have on my computer here somewhere (I downloaded a huge torrent that had a stackload of textbooks), and when I get some time I'll check it out a bit. At the moment I'm working on establishing a Mental Health Collective at uni for next year to help support students with mental illness.

On a separate but relevant note, I would like to know your thoughts on DBT, but I think it might be best done in a separate thread, so please check back in the forum foyer for my post, and I would love to hear your reply.

Im EXTREMELY jealous that you got a free copy of the Handbook - I paid 50 quid for it! I deleted all my P2P programs after they started arresting people The Handbook is my (main easily re-findable source cos its on my shelf) for the "pro-biology" point of view.

I will have a look for the DBT thread :D

[roxy222]

v intresting thread. Re genetics, schizophrenia is the most 'heritable' mh problem, however even then the genetic influence is v minor shown by studies of identical twins, when one has it only 30% chance the other will, as the genetics are identical clearly they do not play a defining role, higly recommend oilver james book they fuck you up for further explaination. also re adoption its v important also not too under estimate the damaging effect on attachment and the massive role this plays in our development of our sence of self. bruce perrys articles on this are very intresting

[hummm_mabbe]

v intresting thread. Re genetics, schizophrenia is the most 'heritable' mh problem, however even then the genetic influence is v minor shown by studies of identical twins, when one has it only 30% chance the other will, as the genetics are identical clearly they do not play a defining role, higly recommend oilver james book they fuck you up for further explaination. also re adoption its v important also not too under estimate the damaging effect on attachment and the massive role this plays in our development of our sence of self. bruce perrys articles on this are very intresting

Oliver James and Bruce Perry, I will have a lookie at them There is also am association of psychiatrists and psychologists called the ISPS - the International Society for the Psychological Treatments of the Schizophrenias (and other psyhcoses).

I think this is the lobgest thread I ever started, anywhere, ever. Yay ^_^