cPTSD is real, but it’s also used as a placeholder. Real cPTSD is stuff like children who have been abused for years, people living in war zones getting shelled for years, etc. becasue BPD has such a stigma attached to it and BPDd are prone to flouncing, some therapists use it as a diagnosis to bill and treat to keep someone in treatment. It’s also trendy to label yourself with. See: well, half the cows.
It can be greatly improved by it. I’m not sure it can be cured
It’s becasue it was seen in the borderline of psychosis and neurosis - in the Freudian sense of the definitions I think?
I agree with this and it’s something I’ve thought for a long time. A six week old baby is utterly dependent on you and gets very distressed when separated from the mother. Early daycare is traumatising children and leading to big societal problems.
I think many do. People mellow and learn coping strategies (some of them anyway.) schizophrenia can also improve with age (obv not a personality disorder.)
BPDs can be a nightmare, as can narcs. My first encounter with real narc/BPD pairs was at a job I had in the 2000s. I had to work with this woman who literally tried to take my personality, while trying to run me down at every opportunity. It was bizarre. She claimed to speak a language I do (she doesn’t.) she claimed to have the same qualifications as me. She’d wear the same clothes, then her orbiter would try to attack and get me into trouble with management. It was extremely peculiar and made me very stressed at work - I left the workplace and she followed me. She then spent the next five years (I moved towns) trying to sneak into my life in various ways. It was really awful.
Kudos to anyone who has it, has insight and does the DBT work to treat it.
cPTSD is real, but it’s also used as a placeholder. Real cPTSD is stuff like children who have been abused for years, people living in war zones getting shelled for years, etc. becasue BPD has such a stigma attached to it and BPDd are prone to flouncing, some therapists use it as a diagnosis to bill and treat to keep someone in treatment. It’s also trendy to label yourself with. See: well, half the cows.
Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is very real. It's also very very distinct from BPD. It's just that to a lazy or to a time-stressed Psych trying to figure a person out, it can get misdiagnosed. People who have PTSD usually have one or more short sharp events where they nearly die, or they see someone else die, perhaps both. Someone might get it from being in a car accident, someone else might get it from witnessing a car accident. Rape victims who are threatened with death so as they comply can get it, thinking they are about to be murdered.
People with Complex PTSD are hostage victims. Children that suffer low level abuse from an early age, probably better called 'neglect'. But then again 'neglected' children can often be well dressed, well fed, well spoken. The abuse is psychological, emotional. Very often when you deal with people who have been raped or beaten to a pulp, and people who have been emotionally or psychologically abused, those that have been emotionally/psych abused will say they wish the assaults were physical or even sexual, as that would denote a marker/boundary. There is no such marker with emotional/psych abuse. This is why they are so head-fucked, because they have been headfucked. A scar is proof of abuse taking place. A rape is proof of abuse taking place. Always being put down, always being told you will amount to nothing - well - there is no marker for that. Each incident is innocent enough. This is not to take away from the evil that physical abuse/rape presents.
Both CPTSD and BPD are distinct categories (even if one has not been taken up yet by the DSM/IV or the ICD). And CPTSD and PTSD are very distinct from each other as well. If you know what you're talking about.
Remember, the map is not the territory. How many people can define what HPD is compared to BPD. Yes, they are both Cluster B, what makes one so, and the other, not so? And why is even ASPD defined as a Cluster B as well? Mmmm good question.
The fact is we are all grasping at straws. The map is not the territory. Psych shit is not a hard science. But it's surprising how well it does. There are certain fractures common to the human brain/consciousness. And when they do break, they tend to break along certain points. They tend to break along certain stress points that we all have. Then again, we are all different.
Should Pyschiatry and Psychoanalyis be abandoned as a bad job? Hell no! It's all we've got. As imperfect a metric as it provides. The problem is knowing when contributors to these metrics act in bad faith. Many governments do. See the dissidents in the Russia of old, locked up for 'impure thoughts' just because they disagreed with the state taking everything they had and murdering their family. You'd probably have 'impure thoughts' about that too. Who will be the arbiter of the mind.
Who will watch the watchers?
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Just because you have a lot of cop-outs from society self-diagnosing, and getting that diagnoses confused, does not mean that a diagnosis is not available. Hell, even fucking autism is fashionable once or twice a year, then falls out of fashion, then it's something else.
On top of that you do have a lot of misdiagnoses, and yes, some malicious from professional practioners. Therapist abuse is a big thing. But most of it is over-stretched practioners and ill-informed and 'not-quite-ready-yet' psychologists/psychiatrists. Not everyone can be R.D. Laing. Not everyone can be Murray Bowen.
Keep in mind that the fields of Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis and Psychology are all discrete and distinct enterprises. Couple that with the fact, that just like a Professor in the USA is very different to a Professor in the UK, well, a Psychiatrist in the States is very different to a Psychiatrist in Bongland.
Witnessing death or facing death, tends to give people PTSD.
Being kidnapped, or abused consistently for decades (sometimes in to late adulthood) by family members, tends to give people CPTSD.
Being abused in another very specific way from childhood, tends to give you BPD/EUPD.
But it's how you turn out as an adult at the end of it, and present your fuckups to the wider world that really matters. Yes there are overlaps, but not really if you take the time to diagnose. Those with CPTSD are far more withdrawn and will have different comorbidities compared to someone with BPD, who will tend to be more aggressive and outgoing and conniving. Bi-Polar is not unheard of with those with BPD. And that complicates things by an order of magnititude again.
The map is not the territory.
It's almost impossible to say. Every unique individual provides a unique case to be studied. We can do nothing more than compare notes, and be compassionate. One thing these people all have is a history of trauma. Yes, BPD people tend to be more unpleasant (usually women, men get diagnosed less with this). They often are abusive towards their psychs: I DON'T FUCKING LIKE YOU. That sets the tone for the session doesn't it?
To be clear. I am not a professional. Just a layman. So
cum grano salis.
I have one girl in my therapy group I've done a lot of work with. And she hates being labeled a 'Borderline'. She prefers EUPD (Emotionally Unstable). And when we talked about the possible misdiagnosis of her condition, she said that she thought she really had CPTSD. It's a less offensive label. It offers up more support and more understanding and sympathy. BPD's are known for being manipulative fuckers. But CPTSD's are just 'misunderstood'. Everyone prefers being 'misunderstood' to just being called out for what they are: manipulative and abusive fuckers. See Amber fucking Turd. Thank fuck I'm not a professional.
The field of psychology/psychiatry/psychoanalysis runs deep and wide and muddy and murky.
There are great truths that can be learned from Freud, and especially Jung. But you need to know when to chuck the baby out with the bathwater. Because even though they got some things very very right. They got even more things very very wrong.
It's very difficult for Cluster B's to get meaningful treatment, because they never seek it, they always avoid it. And when they do get it, it's 90 percent of the time because they have got in trouble with the law, or have been forced in to it by a spouse. Cluster B's never see anything wrong with their
Weltanschauung, their world view. It is always someone else's fault. In that regard, the BPD or NPD who provokes a partner to violence so they get locked up, has much in common with an ASPD (AntiSocial Personality Disorder), who sees their victims very much as 'victims' - deserving of their fate because they were either too weak or too dumb to see what was happening to them. It's a lack of empathy at a core level, that is shocking to those of us who can feel emotions, both in ourselves and for others in our care.
Personality disorders are personality disorders because they present not just a serious problem for the individual involved (who has the PD) but for those in their immediate environment/family. And by extension, they provide a greater problem for people in their community and wider society as a whole. If you believe the figures, something like 80 percent of ALL people in prison are Cluster B!
Then again, those with serious Cluster A personality disorders such as Schizoid PD, well, they never commit crimes. They never cheat people. They are always honest. They never make promises they won't keep. They keep themselves clean and tidy and their environment too. They tend to work jobs where they can indulge in their needed behaviour for seclusion and isolation (say Lighthouse keeper or Drone bomber in a bunker in Bumfuckistan). They are even warm to their very closest siblings and family members. But more than that? They want fuck all to do with humanity. At all. And who can blame them. Should they be labeled as having 'Personality Disorders' when they do not wreak havoc on society the way that Cluster B ASPD's do?
People with CPTSD are closer to those in the Cluster C group of disorders - Obsessive, avoidant, dependant.
People with BPD are closer to the histrionic and anti social and narcissistic types. That is why they are Cluster B.
People with PTSD do not have a personality disorder. They have a 'condition'. It was not put upon them from childhood, and they are generally not a threat to others. They tend to be much more disorganised as well. As are CPTSD.
Those with Cluster B PD's tend to be a lot more focused and organised and cognizant and manipulative. But even within these sub-groups there are sub-types. You can have a grand and malignant narcissist. Or you can have an inverse or covert narcissist.
The map is not the territory.
No one in the history of the human race has ever come close to figuring out the clusterfuck of the human mind. This is why we will never have AI in our lifetime. All we can do is compare notes. If we can admit our defeat in the face of such overwhelming odds, then mabye, just maybe, we can make a start to getting some real work done on how we need to start caring for each other, healing each other, and hopefully making this world a better place to live in. For future generations onward...
This is the Captain of The Starship Enterprise...
...logging the fuck out before they lock me up for another night!
(nurse really shouldn't have shared that wireless key)
psychology
