*shrugs* I didn’t have a problem with it.

IB - just an observation (not a criticism). This is obviously a discussion between Beakie and yourself BUT

I do feel that you see this site in very black and white terms - “Service Users” on one side and professional mental health staff on the other.

I’m just wondering if this is helpful for you or anyone else.

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^^ passive aggressive bullying at work.

(and you don’t know me that well - I am quite happy to let that thread stand exactly as is)

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beakie wrote:

IB - as I understand it, this is a moderated site … blah etc …

I shall cast no more aspersions nor make snide remarks. You are a jerk mate. You don’t even remember what you said a day ago half the time.

And you are the bully: the passive aggressive tone in your posts makes me feel physically sick.

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No I didn’t. I pointed out how aversive constant tales of horrible health professionals might be for casual visitors to this blog. That was not directed at you, and I’m sorry if you felt it was.

My comment about “nice little personality disorder” was not meant in anything but a flip way, and it’s interesting that the one person I’m aware of who was actually diagnosed with a PD had no problem with it.

Again, I would thank you not to cast aspersions on my abilities to do my job based on my contributions here. It’s unnecessary, offensive and bullying.

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I think people with Personality Disorders should be treated by the “ducking stool”.

As they are responsible for everything they do, should they chose to live when under the water, that will prove they had a really messy Personality Disorder. We are therefore better off without them so at that point they could be thrown back in tied to rocks or given a chemical cosh to control their unruly behaviour.

Should they die it will prove they weren’t responsible for everything they did and had an “organic mental illness” after all. Then we can give them a half decent burial and save quite a lot of money on unproven treatments.

This would be a great crowd puller and Mental Health Trusts could boost their ailing finances with the ticket revenues and TV sponsorship for the ducking events. Then people with “real” mental illnesses could get all the help they so rightly deserve.

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“IB - are you going to stalk me round this site picking apart everything I write from hereonin? Just let me know if you are, so I’ll know what to expect.”

No way mate … not my style … actually last night I was contemplating our previous spat: I came to the conclusion that you are probably a little marxist in your politics and meta-analysis of the human situation and that that lead in large part to the confusions between us: We were working and speaking from different meta-paradigms. I was contemplating that we might both learn something if we explored that more. In particular I thought it might be something that could inform us both through a more private dialogue as in comment threads it becomes too confused with the input of others.

But where I see absolute bunkum, contradictory statements or poorly argued thinking I reserve the right to argue with it to my hearts content.

Regards to what I wrote above I am not picking you apart - you simply can’t have it both ways.

You told me off in no uncertain terms for potentially making a visit to this site unpleasant. If the idea that visiting this site is not to be a negative experience for people in trouble is as important to you as you say, then be more careful about what you say:

““If you’ve spent, say, 18 years of your life developing and maturing a nice little personality disorder”

I find that to be insulting, belittling and to show a total lack of understanding and a deep lack of compassion. I am worried that people with personality disorders looking for information may come accross what you have written and end up feeling that little bit worse about themselves than they already did.

Might be the straw that breaks the camels back. As a MH professional and trainer I really would expect a greater awareness of the subtlety of such issues than you seem to exhibit. Especially as you made such a point out of this yourself.

Be consistent and support what you say with logical statements. Live by the edicts you pronounce others must live by. And stop trying to have the last word when what you say is plainly unsupportable.

I’m sure we’ll have every possibility of ending up best of friends at the end of the day, because I know I am not a bad person and I have no reason to suspect you are either.

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Yes, my therapist uses the collaborative approach too. It’s empowering, no?

Initially I found the CBT really challenging but I’m getting the hang of it now.

Look forward to meeting the duck

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No not CBT. it’s Psychoanalytic based Psychotherapy but with a very highly trained therapist specialising in issues such as mine. It’s very non confrontational and I feel like its my space for me to heal. I also have the chance to undertake other approached through the clinic and with their help.

They see themselves as facilitating my recovery and not as “treating” me “confining” me or anything else.

I am not expected to lay on a couch with the therapist behind me - something the Tavistock tried to force on me when they treated my non-existent “Personality Disorder”. Can you imagine a therapeutic recipe worse for a survivor of prolongued ritualised abuse than expectinmg them to relate to a disembodied voice behind them? lol I can’t and I’ve tried a few things.

The clinic also offer me telephone support whenever I need it and help pay for complimentary therapies.

If I am not up to travelling on public transport they pay for a cab to be sure I can go.

I would like to add some CBT in to the mix soon but that is to address some specific issues. It is good to hear how effective it has been for you.

And yes, as long as its all in moderation you can buy the champagne cocktails - I’ll bring the rubber duck
Matthew

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It’s great to hear your story. You should be really proud of yourself and it proves that Borderline Personality Disorder IS treatable and recovery IS possible.

Great to hear your comments.

L x

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Just wondered if you were finding therapy helpful. Is it CBT?

I see a CBT therapist weekly. Until then, I wasn’t aware that the choices I made were often based on negative voices from my childhood. I was/still am mentally ill, but now I am beginning to challenge these voices and make choices that help me to live as a happier, healthier adult.

Now, even if I’m in the middle of making an unhelpful choice (say, self-harming) I am more able to analyse the reasons behind it and how I can take steps to seek out alternative methods of coping. It doesn’t always work but as I’ve already mentioned, it takes time and perserverence from both patient and therapist.

I am obviously one of the lucky ones.

IB - see you in the Jacuzzi. Champagne cocktails on me.

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I went to a Therapeutic Community for 3 of the 12 months one would normally spend there. It worked by putting my behaviour up to my face in the form of 15 or so other patients. I soon realised how much I didn’t want to be like them and haven’t looked back since.

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Then they realised (after I pointed it out) that I didn’t have a personality disorder at all but that I suffered Chronic PTSD, and later it was recognised that I suffer DID. Now the NHS is paying £25,000 a year for some very specialised and beneficial therapy from an independent provider.

How much spa treatment would that run to? Actually if I booked into a spa for a year they’d probably do it for that .. and Id have 24/7 pampering as opposed to 2 hrs a week of chatter.

Lou I might look into this
Interestingly whilst under the diagnosis of personality disorder I was “responsible for all my actions”. Now I am not, apparantly, though actually the truth is I am, only some of those actions don’t come from the same ‘personality’ as others. Some of them come from a little child in me who stopped growing age seven … some from younger personalities.

Say someone pins me up against a wall and threatens me. That triggers a different personality who is very socially undeveloped and unaware but very self-defensive. I kill them in rage triggered by what they are doing to me.

Which personality would you hold responsible Ariel? And given that my condition is recognised as meaning that at certain times I can be triggered into a personality with a mental age and development of a child, can I be held criminally responsible for my actions in such a state? Should I be?

No, of course not. The responsible persons are: the abusers who left me in this state; the mental health system which took years to recognise my condition - because it chose to ignore the abuse history and therefore failed to intervene at the earliest opportunity; and, the fool who pinned me up against a wall without knowing what I was capable of.

Yet .. whilst I had that label of “Personality Disorder” pinned over me I would have been banged up for life and labelled as having not learned “to control and moderate (my) own behaviour”.

Of course I didn’t. My body and mind were violently ripped away from me throughout childhood: I never learned to control my own behaviour because I was taught from very early on that my body and mind were not mine to control.

Hence the diagnosis Dissociative Identity Disorder: NOT my body NOT my mind. And this is actually the disorder that most people diagnosed PD probably have, according to Valerie Sinason, one of the leading practitioners in this field and with possibly a greater knowledge of the subject than anyone else in the UK.

The theory is their violent outbursts and other symptoms are not “knowing acts” but the repressed personalities trying to break out, through the control of one overwhelming personality that embodies and enshrines their final teenage response to their childhood as a “nasty c**t”

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Although I think Elvita Adams must have been a size zero.

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