A Professional's View?

[nicolak10]

I am so annoyed right now!! I am reading a book by a doctor about life as a doctor and this is what he thinks about me -

Here is a direct quote:

"Seeing a genuinely depressed patient is upsetting. They deserve your full attention and care as they are just as ill as anyone with a heart attack or broken bone but, as described above, a section of patients do take minor overdoses as a way of getting attention. Instead of being recognised as such they are now labelled as having a personality disorder. It can be very hard to make the distinction between people genuinely in need of help and those with a personality disorder (who also need help - but not by being referred as an emergency as that just gives positive feedback to their behaviour)."

Would you feel annoyed or am I overreacting?

I really despise this diagnosis sometimes and feel that it is just a way for doctors to speak in code about me. What it really seems to mean is 'attention seeker' and 'time waster', showing that nobody really understands the way I feel at all!!!

AAaaaarrrrggghhhhhhh!!!!!!

[bunnies123]

Hi Nicklenoo,

I'm very annoyed having read that! So I can understand how you're feeling.

I was diagnosed with Borderline around a year ago, and have found it much harder to get decent care than when I was previously diagnosed with recurrent major depressive disorder.

I think the author of that book, and the doctors and professionals who think in the same way are helping to create more problems for borderlines, and people with other personality disorders. I know I am easily triggered by professionals telling me that they don't think I'm feeling that bad, or that psychiatric nurses and services are only for people that have serious mental health problems like bipolar or schizophrenia. It's a feeling of being abandoned and not knowing what I have to do in order for them to understand that I am not feeling well. I'm only speaking from personal experience, but I could imagine a lot of other people feeling the same, and this leading them to the destructive behaviours like minor overdoses, (which I'm sure don't feel minor at the time!) which the doctors then complain about.

I now repeatedly ask for the doctors/professionals that I see to discount this diagnosis in the hope that they will then look at my symptoms as an individual case and not come to conclusions like the ones in the book extract you've posted.

I hope you can take the doctor's comment with a pinch of salt and not get too upset over it, I know it's really frustrating but I'm sure there must be some doctors and professionals out there who do take these conditions seriously, otherwise they would not have made it into the DSM classifications. It's worth hoping at least!

Sarah

[nicolak10]

Sarah, thanks for your reply. It would be so much easier to be diagnosed with 'depression'. I really want rid of this stupid label!!

[bunnies123]

I agree there, but then I found when I was first diagnosed with depression professionals couldn't comprehend that I had 'up' periods as well as 'downs' and that was frustrating. I think in the end it's all swings and roundabouts with a lot of diagnosises, and the personality disorders are still very new on the scene compared to bipolar etc. so a lot more research has to be done before they can be fully accepted into society, or so that they can be scrapped and hopefully the medical boffins will come up with something better!

[toaster]

I don't know if PDs are 'new', rather the treatments are becoming better and more widely available compared to what they were...

As for the stigma - well that doctor seems to be very closed minded, something I often find ironically amusing they accuse (well, actually in my case, quite rightly so) of people with BPD of having black and white thinking - well I suppose it is one of the defining features - BUT there are doctors, nurses, 'professionals' out there with the very FIXED, BLACK AND WHITE VIEW that people with PDs cannot be treated!

I have to laugh at it they are doing EXACTLY what they say we do!

:)

[icu_baby]

I am very annoyed after reading that. What book did you find that in?

I have been on life support numerous times and then just dismissed as an attention seeking and even called that by a doctor (I complained about her and received an apology). Now I have the diagnoses of bipolar disorder/mixed affective states and I get much better care. I think that the health community needs a lot of education about people with bpd. It just makes me sick.

[carlylight1]

sounds like a really closed minded and uninformed dr saying that pd's can't be treated. also surely someone could have both a pd and a depressive disorder.

[Shadow girl]

Good point Vivien - indeed, it is usual for sufferers of BPD to have other disorders alongside it, frequently depression, anxiety, eating disorders etc. Which makes,( to take Toasters point) the writers comments even more laughable. Not only is he practicing black and white thinking he is also splitting (judging people as either all good or all bad) so he's doing two of what are supposedly our traits. I wonder? Is he so anti BPD patients because he is in denial about his own condition?

[nicolak10]

Thanks for your replies guys, it's made me feel a bit more gutsy. It was 'in stitches' - the fact that it is written by an asshole goes without saying!!