As a late diagnosed autist I will say one of the most damaging but transformative experiences I've ever had was being misdiagnosed with BPD.
Everyday my heart goes out to people with BPD.
The amount of stigma and silencing they face is astonishing and sickening.
I took DBT for years. Therapists use to turn me away because of my diagnosis.
I would be having full blown autistic meltdowns, crying for help literally - but because I was labeled as BPD ANY time I cried I was treated as manipulative and unstable.
As if the only reason I could be crying was if I was out to trick someone.
95% of the books out there with Borderline in the title are named shit like 'How to get away from a person with Borderline', 'How to stop walking on eggshells (with a person who has BPD)'
I was never allowed to feel true pain or panic or need.
That was 'attention seeking behavior', not me asking for help when a disability was literally inhibiting my ability to process emotions.
There were dozens of times where I had a full meltdown and was either threatened with institutionalization or told I was doing it for attention.
My failing relationships weren't due to a communication issue, or the inability to read social cues. No, because I was labeled borderline, my unstable relationships were my fault. Me beggong nuerotypicals to just be honest and blunt with what they meant was me pestering them for validation.
Borderline patients can't win.
And the funny thing is - I asked my therapist about autism. I told her I thought I was on the spectrum.
BPD is WILDLY misdiagnosed with those with autism and I had many clear signs.
Instead - she told me 'If you were autistic we wouldn't be able to have this conversation'. She made me go through a list of autistic traits made clearly for children, citing how I didn't fit each one.
And then she told me that me identifying with the autism community was the BPD making me search for identity to be accepted - and that I wasn't autistic, just desperate to fit in somewhere.
I didn't get diagnosed for another ten years. For ten years I avoided the autism community - feeling as if I were just a broken person who wanted to steal from people who 'really needed it'.
Because of my providers - I began to doubt my identity MORE, not less.
Ten years of thinking I was borderline and being emotionally neglected and demonized by a system meant to help me.
To this day, I still don't trust neurotypicals. Not fully.
I know I'm not borderline now - but my heart aches for them. Not for the usual stuff. But for the stigma. And the asshole doctors. And the dismissiveness and threatening and the idea of institutionalization hanging over their head.
I love Borderline people. I always will. I'm not Borderline but if you are I love you and I'm sorry.
You're not a bad person. You're not a therapists worst nightmare, you are a human with valid feelings and fears.
Borderline people I'm sorry.
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