So I just want to clear up things because I’ve seen multiple people confuse these two (and Ill be speaking from experience since I have both disorders.
BPD and DID are different disorders. The name Borderline Personality Disorder is misleading to a lot of people because they associate it with multiple personalities. BPD isn’t not a disorder that will give you multiple personalities, DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) will. DID isn’t a personality disorder.
For a quick summary DID is a disorder characterized by multiple identities called alters. These identities have their own opinions, personalities, feelings, relationships with people, genders, sexualities, etc. Basically they function as entirely different people and should be treated as such but they all share one body. DID is caused by extreme repeated trauma at a young age that causes a personality to not fully develop and fracture into alters. Usually (but not always) a child with DID has/had a caregiver who is unpredictable and switches between affection, extreme/horrific abuse, and gaslighting which leaves the child unable to make sense of their behavior. Their trauma is so intense that the child can’t bear to remember it so the personality fragments. (Someone can have trauma without getting DID but everyone with DID has trauma).
BPD is a personality disorder characterized by extreme fear of abandonment, mood swings, impulsive/dangerous behavior, s/icidal threats/self h/rm, dissociative/paranoid episodes, black and white thinking, intense anger, problems with self image or feeling as though you aren’t real, and extremely intense emotions.
People with BPD can also have DID but it isn’t part of the disorder.
If you have any questions feel free to ask below!
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I have a question that I’m curious and also just want to be aware off I’m sorry if any word might be offensive but do people w BPD get triggered more easily? When I was reading the BPD poster(?) above I saw ‘mood swing’ and I automatically think of ‘easily triggered’ though obvious it’s not it but that’s just the first thing that came into mind cause I was thinking of menopause with their insane(kinda exaggerated) mood swing (personal experience).
And also how do BPD people feel about people labeling them and also categorizing them with the stigma? Because personally for me if people were to label me as for example ‘selfish’ I would actually feel like a knife stabbing and twisting into my heart. It’s really unpleasant so I wonder if that’s how BPD feels but maybe worse?
I’m sorry for my ignorance if anything offend you. Please let me know if any did so I’ll be more aware in the future TYSM <3!
Ah don’t worry about it and we get triggered more easily a lot because a lot of us have trauma and everyone with bpd constantly gets triggered by anything that makes them feel like they are going to get abandoned (which can even be a change in someones tone of voice). But the mood swinging symptom had more to do with our moods lasting like an hour and not always matching the situation we’re in (for example I can only be happy/angry/sad for like an hour.)
Ah well the stigma feels like shit tbh. I’m kinda tired of people saying we are “manipulative, crazy, selfish, & dangerous”. It makes me feel alone and a lot of us feel really angry. Even some mental health professionals will refuse to treat us because of the stigma.
And dw it’s fine you didn’t say anything wrong!!
Thanks for clearing that up. Sorry about mixing the two up. I do have some questions though.
1. Is it possible for someone to fall in love with an alters?
2. Is it possible for alters to go away?
These are personal question for you.
3. If it is possible to fall in love with an alters. Has someone ever fallen in love with one of your alters? Or become particularly close with one of them?
4. Has one of your alters ever had a crush on one of your friends?
5. Have you ever liked someone that your alters did not like? And vise visa.
I hope these questions make sense. I have many more but I don’t want to bombard you with a million questions. If any of my questions come off offensive I'm sorry. I do not mean it in that way.
for 1) I don’t know if you were trying to say multiple alters or one alter but I’ll answer both. A person can fall in love with one alter or all of them.
2) some systems can integrate with tons of therapy. Intergrating is basically two or more (potentially all) becoming one. But the thing is most of us don’t want to even if we can (and not everyone can) because it’s really terrifying. I’m an individual person as an alter and even if I could intergrate I don’t want to lose myself and we have
DID because we have such intense trauma and I really don’t think I could handle remembering it. (And those are typically the reasons other systems don’t want to intergrate as well). We see it as a kind of death and trying to make a system intergrate can end up creating even more alters or sending the system into a mental breakdown. Because of this, usually the goal of therapy isn’t to intergrate but to improve communication and relationships between alters and to stabilize the system.
3) yes people can fall in love with alters. I’m technically an alter too and I’ve had people fall for me, d (using initials instead of alters full names), au, & k.
And yeah alters have their own friends that they are close with
4) yes. A lot. Usually we can agree on who to date though. I’m the host so I’m typically the alter most active in relationships.
5)yes also a lot. Usually Eli doesn’t approve of anyone I date & aa thinks dating is a waste of time and I’m just gonna end up broken hearted. And for the second part typically k and d are the worst with picking out shitty people. They pick out really toxic people that are either just in it for sex or (in d’s case) to abuse him and be codependent with him.
And dont worry none of it was offensive or anything and if you have anything else you are curious about feel free to ask
why do you seem so passionate about this?
Because I have both disorders and they are insanely stigmatized.
So want to spread as much positive/educational info as possible
And I’m typically the only person someone knows that has the disorders so I have to be an advocate and educate constantly
Great information!
but my toes are scared rn,how dare u try to curse it.