Is it possible for a pwBPD to go into remission if they acknowledge they have a problem, but refuse to label it?
I'm in a bit of a pickle with my GF who I am 99% sure has BPD and/or C-PTSD. Her behavior matches everything I've read about. She was diagnosed with BPD as a younger adult, and more recently another therapist told her she might have C-PTSD. The issue is that she has a chip on her shoulder with "Western medicine labels" because of medical malpractice when she was younger. She's also getting her doctorate in Chinese Medicine, and is in general very allergic to anything to do with the Western medicine system, including traditional mental health diagnosis.
That said, she is not in denial that she has a big issue, and that it's existed since way before we met. She takes accountability for things (even if it sometimes takes her a while, and takes us some arguing to get there) and is, in her own way, attempting to be more self aware and "fix" herself.
She's been successful to a point. She's identified that she has poor emotional regulation, that she resorts to anger too often, and that she has jealousy issues. And she's done a decent job at reducing the frequency and intensity of her splits by self-work like journaling and reflection.
However, I fear that she might be hitting a wall of the possible healing she can do if she's not tying it all together to a root cause with known solutions (i.e. BPD + DBT) Despite her improvements, there are still a lot of things she does that cause me distress which she is unaware of, but that I can directly link to her BPD. This has caused a kind of toxic situation where she thinks she's done everything she can to change, yet I still see so many things that need addressing. But when I point them out, her response is always that I'm expecting perfection, that I have her under a microscope, and that I never take accountability for myself and only blame her for all of our issues.
I'm torn now because on one hand, she's putting massive efforts into improving herself in the areas she's aware of. But on the other hand, she has a lot of blind spots that I think would be easily brought to light if she only accepted she has a mental disorder that's already been extensively studies and has proven strategies to tackle. And of course, what makes this the hardest, is that I truly love her a ton but she causes me a lot of distress. Anyone had a similar situation?
Posted Nov 3, 2025, 9:08 PM UTC