Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder

[shadow8]

I saw my care coordinator today and asked what I had been dx with as it has been on my mind and no one has really told me about it. So she said that I have been dx with mixed anxiety depressive disorder which I found out from my day treatment discharge form anyway but no one had told me that. She also said it has been said I have emotionally unstable personality disorder and that when I went into hossie and had my discharge meeting that they were saying that too so I will prob be dx with that. She told me not to be scared of the title cos it isn't as bad as it sounds. I was wondering if anyone else has this or has any info on what it means really. I suppose I don't really know what I want from posting this.

EDIT: I have just googled it and it says it aka borderline personality disorder but my cc said it wasn't the same as that. I am a bit confused can anyone put any info to help me with this please.

Thanks

[hummm_mabbe]

Hi shad

All I know is that there are 2 systems of diagnosis - ICD and DSM. ICD is UK / Europe, DSM is the US. EUPD and BPD are said to be the equivalents of each other, which on paper they would seem to be, but there seems to be something of a secret club in psychiatry when it comes to what they really mean. As far as I can tell, most psychs see BPD as having 'signature' features, such as crisis, self harm and 'manipulative' behaviours doen out of desperation. I do wonder if this actually becomes a stereotype, and so 'if the face fits' you get dx'd with it, where it may bear little relation to what it says in the manuals. So I think at the end of the day you need to get inside your PDocs mind to really know what on earth s/he thinks is going on for you.

Maybe pop into waterstones and check out the Oxford Handbook of Psychiatry - that book has the closest thing to an organised explanation of how diagnoses are made. Here it is at amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Oxford-Handbook-Psychiatry-Handbooks/dp/0199239460/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273501931&sr=8-1

Sorry cant be more helpie

[snowman]

I was told by my T that BPD and EUPD are the same.........

[hummm_mabbe]

Ah here we go, google books preview! http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=1MeRuoTs0loC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Oxford+Handbook+of+Psychiatry&hl=en&ei=jxnoS_qrO-CpsQaZh9meBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

[doormouse]

I think to a certain extent the jury is still out on what/if there is one, the difference is. BPD and EUPD are often used interchangably, but I think the better informed pyschs see BPD (so named as it was thought to be on the border of psychosis)as being better defined with other terms.

My diagnosis is EUPD, borderline type, (the other option being impulsive type.) I personally prefer EUPD, because it is much more descriptive - in the same way that many people prefer manic-depressive to bipolar - and I feel that it better reflects what my problems actually are. The other advantage is that is it does seem to move away from those pre-conceived and misconceptions that are automatically associated with borderlines. I've often tried to explain my problems by saying that I have the intellect of an adult professional, but the emotions and emotional control of a young teenager, EUPD seems to reflect that much better than not only having to explain borderline, but also try and challenge the stereotype that goes with it.

[pepsimeg]

I was also told that BPD and EUP are the same

[hummm_mabbe]

Hi all

Ive just read this in the oxford handbook of psychiatry:

It is largely accepted that personality is best described and classified in terms of dimensions or traits. Although this also applies to personality disorder, our current psychiatric classifcations are categorical. The various categories of personality disorder described in ICD-10 and DSM-IV have a number of origins: psychodynamic theory, apparent similarities between certain personality disorders and certain mental illnesses, and descriptions of stereotypical personality types. The various categories used come together in a piecemeal and arbitrary fashion and do not represent any systematic understanding or study of personality disorder. The categorical classification of personality disorder is psychiatric classification at its worst.

Thats like basically saying 'everything we think we know on personality disorder is based on a bunch of loosely collected ideas rather than being a definitive object', so it may well be that the difference between BPD and EUPD practically means very little, apart from how your medics view you and how much stigma is attached to it. As long as you get the right treatment and people take your struggles seriously, thats the important part.

Ross

[shadow8]

Thanks for all your thoughts on this I appreciate it. I do just feel like stuff is said behind my back and I don't know what is going on til I ask about it. I need to be kept involved with what is going on cos when I ask its like it is a big secret they are keeping hidden and then it makes it seem worse than it is.

Thanks Ross, I am a bit rubbish picking out stuff from text books but have bookmarked it and will try and pick bits out of it in my own time thanks.

[shadow8]

Wow Ross I didn't know thats what they meant by that. My understanding of texts books isn't that good so it is good you have explained it like that thanks. Thats strange how they can have 2 dx mean the same thing but how you are viewed or treated by professionals is different.

[hummm_mabbe]

Wow Ross I didn't know thats what they meant by that. My understanding of texts books isn't that good so it is good you have explained it like that thanks. Thats strange how they can have 2 dx mean the same thing but how you are viewed or treated by professionals is different.

I guess what the book is saying is that PD's arent definable 'things' like say the flu or diabetes. They are random collections of observations of 'bits' of personality traits, all lumped into one by some psychs in the past, and then they all agreed to agree on it. There is no solid science or medical fact underpinning the idea of personality disorder as defined by the DSM or ICD, but that doesnt mean they dont exist.

The book is really saying that personality traits and how they combine is far more important than a sort of static, categorical definition. Its a bit like the difference between having a palette of colours with which to create an individual and unique new thing for each person, versus just saying "oh you're a mona lisa" or "you are Van Gogh's flowers". They are saying that the ICD and DSM are shoe-horning people into rigid classifications that actually have no real scientific basis (because real humans are a massive hodge-podge of things), and that a better way of understanding PD's would be through the use of putting together some sort of individual 'personality map' for each person based on their own unique profile of traits.

The thing about how you are treated has more to do with the bias of the people doing the treating. As we all know, in some corners BPD is given a bad rap, and that simply comes from handed down knowledge - gossip if you like.

[shadow8]

Thanks for the explaination and that makes sense that you need to focus on what got you there or how you react to things instead of what your dx is and treat everyone with that dx the same way.

I am prob being a pain here but could you tell me what DSM and ICD is please?

[hummm_mabbe]

Urm I think they stand for "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual" and "International Classification of Diseases".

Basically the INTERNATIONAL BIBLES OF LURGEY

Ross

[shadow8]

:lol: oh ok thanks.

[amaca]

Basically the INTERNATIONAL BIBLES OF LURGEY

ICD is the WHO's classification system and it goes back to the 19th century, covering all illnesses and not just mental health, so tit is the International Bible of Lurgey. DSM is the American Psychiatric Association's classification system and dates from just after WWII, and is the International Bible of Mental Lurgey. Both are due for the next version, ICD-11's alpha version is due out, er, today, and DSM-5 (alpha is out) is due out in 2012 though it's unlikely to make it because there are too many commercial interests involved. There are proposals to rename Borderline Personality Disorder as Borderline Type (though there is a possibility that APA will fall in line and use the much better description of Emotionally Unstable Type which has all the advantages of being more descriptive and not pejorative).

Bear in mind that it was only in 1974 that the APA voted to remove homosexuality as a disease. It's not that this isn't an exact science, it's barely a science at all. Psychiatrists largely treat using drugs and classify accordingly and in part by the drugs they have available with what has been observed (or the drug companies have claimed) with what happens. If the classifications were done by the people who deliver talking therapies, we'd get different classifications.

This is the draft of Borderline for DSM-5: Borderline type.

[hummm_mabbe]

^^

I am liking this post very much

Very much with bells and cake and icing on

Yum

Ross

[Elke]

EDIT: I have just googled it and it says it aka borderline personality disorder but my cc said it wasn't the same as that. I am a bit confused can anyone put any info to help me with this please.

Thanks

If she says its not the same as that, then I would ask her if you are the "impulsive type". As EUPD has two undertypes: one being borderline, the other impulsive. She should really put in some effort to tell you which type and not leave you confused about this. Unless she just doesnt know much of anything herself.

Elke

[shadow8]

Ok thanks Elke. I will ask my psychologist when I see her on thurs what she thinks. It is so hard to get info out of them. You have to ask the right questions to find out what is going on even tho its about me. I end up asking and not get all the info and then it goes round in my head and then get confused about it all.

[Ruth24]

Hiya,

Don't know if this helps but my sister is a doctor and said in Scotland they were thinking of changing the name of BPD to EUPD because they are one and the same. I was diagnosed with EUPD but it got shortened to BPD. Guess that extra letter makes a whole lot of difference :)

[shadow8]

Thanks Ingrid for your input on this. It is so confusing when there are different names for things or they keep changing it.

[starryeyesee]

i live in france and here BPD is more commonally known as EUPD so i think they are the same and have the same criteria

starry x

[*Summer*]

Hi shadow.

I was recently diagnosed with EUPD too,I made a post here somewhere too,I was so confused by it too.

I do think it is BPD,even though i have always been told i have BPD anyway,I don't know why my Pdoc used a different word,I think he was trying to confuse me :lol:

[doormouse]

In my experience better informed and up-to-date psychs use EUPD rather than BPD, but I clearly can't apply that nationally or internationally! I would personally always use EUPD rather than BPD if I were making notes on a patient, and both were on the records. The problem is that they are kinda interchangeable, and non-psychiatric doctors generally have no idea (in fact, many don't really know that BPD/EUPD is different from schizotypal or psychopathic PD's...basically all PD's are "untreatable" and the same.....I digress....idiots.... )

I guess its important to remember that nothing in medicine is an exact science - Even diabetes in some ways is a very inexact term, (diabetes mellitus types I and II, MODY - maturity onset diabetes of the young, nephrogenic and neurogenic diabetes insipidus......) - And thats a term for a physical syndrome which can be explained in terms of anatomy and biochemistry! Boundrys of definition in medicine change all the time, seemingly just to confuse everybody......

[WedtoDeath]

The more I read about BPD/EUPD (BTW, I live in the US and doctors here never use "EUPD"), the worse I feel.

Why don't they just junk both labels and say what they really think--that we're evil??? :angry:

[pepsimeg]

The more I read about BPD/EUPD (BTW, I live in the US and doctors here never use "EUPD"), the worse I feel.

Why don't they just junk both labels and say what they really think--that we're evil???

yeah we all mixed up F*****s hate labels........*rips mine off*

[doormouse]

labels can be derogatory - esp, it seems, PD labels.

But somtimes useful if they get you the help you need.

But otherwise - yes, I agree, think outside the box - in fact, stamp on the box, remove the whole concept of the box etc! :lol: