Personality Disorder

lilly81

I have been diagnosed with personality disorder, just wondering if anybody else has this diagnosise and what help is out there?

FleurDuLys

I'm sorry to hear about your diagnosis. The psychiatrist who diagnosed you should be helping you - have you got a CPN?

LadyMorticia

Which personality disorder?

I have a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder. It was kind of a relief getting a diagnosis because I like to box things so I can deal with them.

I'm not sure if there is any help out there specifically for personality disorders. I think it depends on which type and any co-morbid disorders/symptoms.

Two4Tuesday

I also have Borderline Personality Disorder. Apart from seeing my shrink every few months at the CMHT, there's nothing they can do for me. At least until I decide I want to get better.

erdd2

lilly81 wrote: »

I have been diagnosed with personality disorder, just wondering if anybody else has this diagnosise and what help is out there?

have they provided evidence of this diagnosis and what is available to assist you cope with same !!! they are legally obliged?

passatrider

I was diagnosed with Avoidant personality disorder last year and have been having therapy for it ever since - paid for by myself. Iam alot more optimistic about the future but I'm still unsure as to whether I can hold down a job or not. Do people with personality disorders hold down jobs successfully or are we doomed?

cootambear

There are many therapies for PD out there, they are often clustered together in the form of DBT. DBT teaches many skills such as distraction, mindfullness, safe space, opposite action etc etc. Groups or 1 to 1 sessions are usually led by a psychologist, but it could be a SW, CPN etc.

The general view is that PD is a life long condition, but the therapies teach coping skills which enable patients to lead fuller lives. Mood stabilising tablets can help with mood swings.

As some of you will be aware, funding for mental health in this country is dire, and with cuts will only get worse. Its a sad irony that the mess caused by lunatic financial speculation by the banks is being paid for by cutting services to those who need mental health support.

I digress. You will have a hard fight to get meaningful therapy like DBT, resources being so scarce, but if you don`t fight you won`t get it.

If you get turned down write to your MP, the Dept of Health etc.

cootambear

passatrider wrote: »

I was diagnosed with Avoidant personality disorder last year and have been having therapy for it ever since - paid for by myself. Iam alot more optimistic about the future but I'm still unsure as to whether I can hold down a job or not. Do people with personality disorders hold down jobs successfully or are we doomed?

Plenty do.

I joke not, but a high proportion of businessmen and politicians are PD. Their impaired sense of empathy allows them to trample others with impunity in the search for money and power.

It also helps a career in crime.

Not all people with PD are like this I hasten to add, and many have `normal` jobs

http://medweb4.bham.ac.uk/websites/key_health_data/2005/tables/ch_11/tb_11.14.2.htm

thats just women in the west midlands. 65,000

we are talking 1-3 million adults in the UK with PD, and most will have jobs.

savagej

I would google "pharmacotherapy borderline personality" as you will find many articles stating it can be treated. Many experts now beleive it is not a true personality disorder but actually on the "affective spectrum" and as such a mood disorder like bipolar and depression. Same for avoidant, many doctors think it is an extreme form of social phobia and repsonds to the same treatment as that does. I would have once been able to fit the diagnosis for it, was put on Seroxat for depression before anyone knew it could be used for anything else and without 3 weeks I was a different person it worked miracles and they decided I must have been socially phobic instead (if you google it you will also find in low doses the clonazepam, the only benzo that works in these circumstances, can change the lives of people with avoidant / sociallly phobic traits).

One of my relatives is a Consultant Psychiatrist and told me about a patient they had labelled with borderline personality until they decided to try here on lithium, her symptoms disappears and they had to change her diagnosis to rapid-cycling bipolar affective disorder.

It seems very little is cut and dry in psychiatry, all diagnosis are man made categories, except things like organic brain damage, alzhemiers, and everyone responds differently to medication.

lilly81

The phyciatrist diagnosed me with personallity but didn't say which one. I've been reffered to the complex needs team, who think I have narcissistic personality disorder. My son is autistic and I wonder if I have Aspergers instead of PD?