Dependent Personality

[walker]

so I am being told that I have a dependent personality

I hate it

its shit

it stinks

I can barely sit with myself, i detest who i am so much

please please tell me that i am not alone

that there are other people out there who are dependent

maybe that is why i dont fit in here - because its not bpd, but dpd

but the two are so similar

the fear of abandonment, the anger, the emptiness, the lack of identity

Honestly - it is actually hurting me right now - to say this and to be here with myself

If I could leave myself - I would

[walker]

ok so it is just me

I cant live with myself like this

[janey]

it's not just you... i'm the same and it sucks. I understand how difficult it is... every day hurts.

keep posting if it helps... it does for me.

janey

[Roses]

I'm sorry but I don't know what a dependant personality is. I just wanted to reply to you to let you know that you are not alone and I'm sorry you are so upset with your diagnosis. You wanna talk about it in here I'm here.

[walker]

its not my diagnosis

its what someone said,

my ex T said BPD, but the pdoc said could be dependent

i have read about it

it makes me feel sick

i am so full of loathing right now

[walker]

just proves that i really really dont belong here

i just dont belong anywhere

surely im not alone in this-

i cant face it

[Roses]

I'm sorry for misunderstanding you. You are not alone and you are not in the wrong place. Please believe me that I did not mean to upset you. Do you have anyone to talk to?

[walker]

no no no you didnt upset me - not in any way - i was greatful for you hearing me

I upset me !!!!!!!

[Roses]

I'm sooooo glad. I hate upsetting people. I've just googled dependant personaily disorder and it doesn't sound too bad compared to some of the other stuff I've read about various illnesses. One site said that BPD can be a symptom of dep pers disorder so it's no wonder you are getting conflicting opinions. Maybe you should get an 3rd, independant opinion? Last year my 'carer' (who is no longer my carer) was trying to push me into getting diagnosed with BPD so I know how confusing it is when you're not sure where you fit. I spent a year in and out of a psyche ward (longest continual stay 5 months) and was on lots and lots of different meds before I got anywhere near to being relatively OK. Look on the bright side, you are in comfortable surroundings with all your stuff and you have your freedom. Do you have family to talk to? Can you talk to your partner? If not, you can talk to me. Here's a hug for now...

:bigarmhug[1]:

[walker]

i know

i have everything

yet i want it all to go

but i dont

but i want to go

but i dont

always feeling bad - or being told i am bad - or being told i make things bad

damn this shitty shitty life

if i wasnt so dependent i would be gone

if i was sufficiently bad i would

i just wanted to know that other people felt the same - but they dont, and its hurting so so much

[Faerielight]

im so sorry yourre feeling like youre bad.. youre so not.. the dependant pd isnt your fault something or a series of things must have happened to have caused that disorder, therefor its not your fault, whats your support like atm? do u have a nurse/ therapist?? im sure its all stuff that can be worked through with the right support. hugs faerie x

[Rael]

im pretty sure i have a dependent personality too. i read up on it once and it pretty much all fit. i know how hard it can be thinking you dont fit anywhere, but you do belong here.

just wanted to let you know you are not alone.

xxx

[Roses]

You are not a bad person and other people do feel the same as you. I always think I am going to burn in hell for how I feel and I need so much that I end up not asking for anything cos I'm afraid of rejection.

[walker]

things become more tolerable for me when i know i do not sit alone with them

but this is tough

it is not somewhere i want to be, but it is somewhere i am driven

[Roses]

Nobody wants to be where we are. Just hang in there hun, tomorrow is a shiny new day!

[Elke.]

You are not in good company walker. How can you feel well being told such crappy stuff. I dont know much about you, but "these" are the people you are dependent upon? Dependent upon what?

[walker]

tld today apparently there is a note in my file at cmhc from old T

The one who insisited it was bpd

note say Dpd

bastrd

dont want to be dependent

but know i am

but so are others

so why am i so bad

bloody bloody bloody bloody hell

why wont it all f*ck off and leave me alone

bastard life

[Roses]

It is just a name. It doesn't mean that is the way it is always going to be. I am here for you. xxx

[hummm_mabbe]

Hullo Missie Walkie T

The thing that strikes me as being at odds with DPD for you is the fact that you are ASHAMED of your dependence, whereas if you were DPD you would firmly belive it is your right to be dependent.

In terms of schemas, you do have a very strong dependence schema - that is why you always seek so much advice but little helps you, because you are really seeking reassurance and soothing. That is why you feel unable to take and act on advice - because underneath theres a sense of "thats not what I wanted! Ididnt get what I needed!". As soon as people stop talking, you are thrown back into needing reassurance from others which is draining for you and can be frustrating for others. This is not a reason to hate yourself, because when you shame a part of who you are you only drive it underground and make it stronger. ITS OK that you are who you are.

And this is where I have the question over DPD. You despise this part of yourself, but still feel driven to it. You seem to lack the purer entitlement schema that would make you feel you have every right to always rely on others. You seem desperately afraid and need someone to hold you and guide you - you have no belief in your ability to cope or be in the world, and this is reflected in not being able to go on trains and so on. In this you have, I think, a vulnerability schema.

But your most driving urge seems to be to have others reassure you. You have a deep need for it but it never seems to give you what you are truly needing - and for this reason I think that your most core schema is emotional deprivation. When children are growing up, they need certain needs to be met. One of these is guidance and protection, as well as nurturance and empathy. Children may not become able to fend for themselves, and instead feel reliant on their parents for everything. Maybe because they make you dependent by not reinforcing your own competency, tell you that you are not able to look after yourself or insist on overprotecting and doing everything for you 'because they worry' or are 'just trying to do whats best'. In this way you can grow up feeling that your parents always had your best interests at heart, because you remember them intervening so often.

But this is a form of neglect by OMISSION - it is something they fail to do, and that makes it 100 times harder to spot. That is why its so hard to see what was wrong, and why its so easy to blame yourself. If you dont develop that belief that you can cope, then you feel always afraid of the world. You never come to believe that you can make it alone - and so always need someone there for you. Because you may sense that something you need is missing, reassurance becomes the surrogate. It feels like attention, and if there are things also missing in the nurturance and empathy boxes, you may have ended up "taking all thats left" - the attention of needing to be told what to do. This is the crux of dependence.

However you also have a part of you that looks down on and disdains your neediness, and your whole self. Perhaps there IS a little sense of entitlement - "well if I cant get what I really want, then I am going to get something like it - why shouldnt I have reassurance?", but you may punish yourself for that. You may have been told that you were selfish or grabbing a lot, without their understanding WHY you were acting that way. Without understanding what was missing for you. You arent allowed to express anger - it may have come out passively aggressive. And when it did, you were perhaps punished again.

You have a dependence schema, and perhaps some sense of entitlement to be dependent. But you have terrific SHAME of that need, and see it as acting bad or spoilt. The lines between what is ok to ask for, and feeling like you are acting spoiled, seems to be blurred. And that is where DPD falls down for me - people with DPD dont usually feel bad about their dependence - they fully belive thats how things should be and have no guilt about it. You belive thats how it should be, but feel EXTREMELY guilty about it. Dependent personality would reflect a very strong, pure dependence and entitlement schema. You seem to also have subjugation and self-punitiveness as well as the abandonment and defectiveness you would associate with DPD.

All in all, you are not a pure type. You wouldnt fit BPD, or DPD or any of these things exactly. I dont. Most people dont - pure types are extremely rare, and that is why schema is good - it lets you adjust the therapy to the person, not the diagnosis. But the problem you are running into here is that your need for reassurance, and the fact that dvice leaves you feeling something is missing, means that people try to help and end up feeling frsutrated. They can never get through to you because it seems you feel better for a moment - because you have had the reassurance of contact and advice - but soon that need for more comes back. Dependence is insatiable - and the only way to break it is to give up the need for reassurance. You need to understand whats REALLY MISSING - and for dependence with emotional deprivation that is a sense of competency, safety and nurturance. All the while you only seek reassurance and seem to push it away, you maintain the schema rather than fighting it. You are cripplied by anxiety and lack of belief, and so you are unable to even try to do the things that might give you a sense of competency.

Doctors and medics who lack the education and understanding of what dependence is and how to break it see you as resistant, they get frustrated - and like others who may have tried to help and run up against that same apparent insatiability, may give up on you NOT BECAUSE they 'hate' you, but because they feel overwhelmed and consumed by their own inability to seemingly give you what you need. You will not make that attempt to break free of your dependence and start to learn to feel competent and safe. A therapist would need to actually forcibly PUSH you to act independently, and that means having to set strong limits. It means ALMOST being 'nasty' to you, because as long as they provide only empathy and caring, this feeds your need for reassrance. But the only thing running the need for reasurance is the fact you feel incompetent and unsafe!

However nost therapist find setting such limits a challenge. They are used to being empathic and kind - and when they feel blocked and stuck, may lash out and 'prove' all the bad things you already thought about yourself. You need something VERY SPECIFIC from a therapist - someone who is willing to push you, to tolerate the crying and fear, but to also provide you with a sense of SAFETY and belief in you. By being strong and setting those limits, you are almost FORCED to accept that its ok for you to have needs, its ok to as for things. However you also need to learn that its safe to be independent. Its safe to go out into the world. Your dependence and vulnerability schemas are working together to cripple you by stopping you from being able to get out there and use trains and so on, and this and yoru reliance on reassurance reinforces your sense of incompetence. Then your punitiveness - the voices - comes along and tops it all off, shits on you, and places you back at the start of your vicious circle, and so once again needing something to soothe you - your own personal drug, reassurance. It all works to keep you in the exact same place.

I dont think there is much value in labeling you DPD, BPD or any of those things. A label is not going to allow you to get what you, as a unique person, actually need.

I am not going to suggest what you should do, I think you know what I will say and it will probably make you feel that I dont understand, that somehow I have missed the point. But if my estimation of your schemas is right, the reason you will be feeling that way is because you are not going to be wanting advice - you are just going to be wanting to feel better - calm. Reassured.

[hummm_mabbe]

To add

dx's are just a useful shorthand - they do not reflect YOU. It may be that this doc sees DPD as a closest fit.

Here is a part of the description of DPD that illustrates my point about how you are, and what DPD is:

... individuals with DPD will approach both their own and others' failures and shortcomings with a saccharine attitude and indulgent tolerance ...

Clearly you do not indulge your mistakes - you let them have both barrels and then some. The voices are bitter and cruel, not saccharine and indulgent.

You are YOU - not a simple diagnostic criteria in a book. But a dx may be .... reassuring!

[Roses]

I just read that Ross and it's blown my mind. After I told my Mum about the abuse from my Mother, although they didn't protect me in every way they should, the one thing they did do for me was to protect me from the rest of the world to the point that a lot of what you have just said is true for me as well. I constantly seek praise and reassurance but the way I get it is to do things for people and receive praise for my efforts and I find it hard to say no to people and feel I always have to be looking good and slim and perfect and then everyone will like me. I have to be social and intelligent and articulate. Clever, funny and witty. But it is just a different way of getting that attention isn't it?

[Roses]

sorry - abuse from my 'brother'

[hummm_mabbe]

I just read that Ross and it's blown my mind. After I told my Mum about the abuse from my Mother, although they didn't protect me in every way they should, the one thing they did do for me was to protect me from the rest of the world to the point that a lot of what you have just said is true for me as well. I constantly seek praise and reassurance but the way I get it is to do things for people and receive praise for my efforts and I find it hard to say no to people and feel I always have to be looking good and slim and perfect and then everyone will like me. I have to be social and intelligent and articulate. Clever, funny and witty. But it is just a different way of getting that attention isn't it?

It also makes you super lovely and caring, so dont miss that out

What you are descrining there is a combination of things. Doing thungs for others so they like you is another schema called "self-sacrifice". Seeking praise comes from the approval seeking schema, and feeling you must be perfect is the Unrelenting Standards schema. You are right that in having all those things done for you, that you will also have the dependence schema to a certain extent.

It is this unique nature of schema combionation that makes each persons difficulties unique, as personalities are also unique. The way someone deals with a schema can vary - they may Surrender to it, that is give into it and behave like "thats just how I am". They may Avoid it - take steps to not feel the feeling, such as by drinking, dissociating etc. Or they may overcompensate - act the OPPOSITE of the feeling. For example if you have a defectiveness schema, you may try to be act perfect in all things. As a rsult of this you may also develop an unreleting standards schema. The way they interact is complex and unique to the person, and that is why when we read about others with the same dx we tend to go "ooh I relate to that bit and that bit, but not that bit".

The problem with self-sacrifice is as the name suggests - by attending to the needs of others too much, you never get your own met. As a result, you may end up also making an Emotional Deprivation schema worse. There is massive interaction between schemas, especially in personality disorder, and that is why some therapies seem to help a bit, but not completely. Its a bit like a fault line in an earthquake zone - you get an earthquake in california and all that stress gets released. But the movement of the ground up there, causes the straining of the ground in Mexico. The stress redistributes itself, and you get aftershocks.

Similarly in therapy, you may work on something that helps self-sacrifice, and has a knock on effect of helping emotional deprivation. However if you have a subjugation schema, you may begin to fear that others will become angry at you for getting all these needs met. When you leave your therapist, this guilt may start to accumulate again, and you will use self-sacrifice to deal with it, meaning the schema comes back. If you also have the abandonment schema, you may even fear that is you keep getting all these needs met, that the person may leave you out of spite. Relapse happens and you feel hopeless, that therapy is pointless and you can never be better.

Although the stress gets relived in one area, it can build in another, and again this is unique for everyone. That is why a dx is only of limited use in actually TREATING a person.

[hummm_mabbe]

PS sorry about all the typos, I think my hands went to sleep :(

[Roses]

Thank you for saying I am super lovely and caring Ross, that's a really nice thing to say to me, and thank you for the detailed reply. I am feeling a bit like I'm hijacking Walker's thread. Sorry Walker. Thanks again Ross and hugs to you Walker, I hope all this wonderful information is helping you too. Lots of love to you both. xxx