Writing to add a few more things I have observed. I'm on mobile please forgive typos: Abandonment and people's judgement of you are constant stressors I've seen you fighting with. The only real anger outbursts were more of longburning pain and frustration at being or feeling left out that we don't always understand and are taken aback by (game session issue way back then is kind of one?) Intense and unstable relationships: from my viewpoint the roller coaster of your romantic relationships leaves me often vaguely worried by how much you seek validation through them. Impulsivity in BDSM: I think I brought this subject up to you. To clarify, part of it was how quickly you entered sexual relationships with people that did not practice safe sex. Like the guy who never did aftercare (that was really frightening based on the sub drop you had after and I officially hate him) and the guy who lied about sexual partners. Fuck him too. Might be more of you having difficulty in knowing safe boundaries and having fewer expectations due to your abuse? Some of the ways you deal with Internet drama or with exposing yourself to some stuff (a lot of the stuff you reblog during your worst spells leaves me concerned about where you get it and if it might feed into suicidal ideation and self hate?) Feelings of emptiness might also be related to the suicidal and "useless" feelings you've expressed before. Not just bored. It seems right on to me. Might remember more relevant stuff but I definitely think bpd is v. likely
1) Just because you don't have all markers doesn't mean that's not the acronym that fits. Fuck people that say you "should," like, why even. 2) "Inappropriate" anger could also be the simmering, black-tar resentment that gets in the hollow of your stomach. Like, apparently you're not supposed to be angry, resentful, vengeful, upset that people are spending time with people other than you, I've learned. 3) BPD is not the death sentence it used to be. After all, that you acknowledge the problem at all means you are not too far gone. 4) This sounds like me when I was at my worst. I was diagnosed with bipolar II at the time. Turns out it was depression + BPD + probably ADHD. 5) Even if it's not BPD, you might benefit from the same kind of CBT/DBT that BPD people benefit from. (Mostly because it's hella useful.) Just my two cents.
I'm also wondering if the standard BPD symptoms list is, like many others, biased towards male socialization and the greater degree to which outbursts of anger are permitted to men in American culture. Women may learn to stifle or sublimate those angers, or tun them inward, since those are the cultural norms.
Okay so wearing my psych major hat: personality disorders are hella weird. It's hard to say if personality disorders even deserve their own category. More than half of people who meet the criteria for one personality disorder will also meet the criteria for another personality disorder. Two or maybe even three personality disorders are almost certainly actually schizophrenia-spectrum disorders, even respond to antipsychotics, and may even all be the same thing. A patient that goes to see Dr. Seebs and gets diagnosed with BPD may go for a second opinion and find that Dr. Aya thinks they have HPD instead, and upon visiting Dr. Sock to resolve the confusion may well hear that they have an anxiety disorder. The DSM tried to move toward a trait-based rather than category-based description of personality disorders for 5th edition but didn't make a full transition, but in the future we probably won't be talking about whether someone has Whatever-The-Fuck Personality Disorder and will instead be talking about whether they display X traits. Borderline personality disorder is also a particularly weird diagnosis from a historical viewpoint. People receiving the diagnosis today usually don't have much in common with the people who were originally diagnosed under that label. In more recent history, BPD has been used to pathologize women who express anger in the same ways and/or the same frequency as men. Even if your therapist generally tries to be egalitarian about diagnostic criteria, the image of a woman with BPD has that sort of connotation to it and that's how people in psychology are likely to think. (I could go on for years about how personality disorder diagnoses in particular have been used to pathologize people who display traits against gender/cultural/racial/socioeconomic status, but that's not what this thread is about.) So in summary: If it's useful to you to think of yourself as having BPD, or for your therapist to understand what you're trying to convey, or for the insurance company to use for billing, then I don't think there's any good reason to say you don't.
Personally I find the category of complex PTSD to be much more useful than BPD, at least for people with histories of abuse. (People without histories of abuse are another matter entirely.)
That sounds like some of what I deal with, and I've been diagnosed with BPD. How accurate that diagnosis is, is still uncertain. There's so much potential for co-morbidity, and as people above have pointed out the symptoms are common to different issues. Sometimes I wonder if my psychiatrist looked at all the things that could be wrong with me and just circled them. I guess what advice I can offer is to just try and remain self-aware. Maybe at the end of the day take a moment to think back over your interactions and how they made you feel. One thing I do that usually is very helpful is play the 'why' game. For example: I have a mini-meltdown over something that seems trivial, and then question it until I reach the root of the problem. I am angry > I am angry because of Z > Z happened because of Y > Y happened because of X > I am actually upset about X, not Z.