AMAZING improvement for my friend with BPD!!! If you haven’t tried an anti-psychotic, it is an absolute game changer.

Hi guys, I just wanted to share this news so that hopefully others here can share in my joy and maybe also benefit from this info. ❤️❤️❤️

One of my best friends got their diagnosis a couple years back, and the last few years have been a real challenge. Multiple in patient stays, every form of therapy possible (PHPs, IOPs, trauma, EMDR, DBT, CBT, etc.) and things were only getting worse. We tried everything (including residential programs) with no relief. She worked soooo hard to get better.

And then finally, her psychologists (in patient at the time, and her regular guy) made a medication adjustment that focused on changing and majorly upping her anti-psychotic. And man, what a game changer. My friend still struggles with BPD symptoms, but this medication has gotten her to a place where she can manage it now with DBT and other therapeutic support. She’s no longer completely self-destructive and the SI has disappeared completely. I’m going to be honest there, for many many months she was an absolute bitch. Made absolutely awful assumptions about others, treated them like absolute shit (especially her husband), took risks that put herself and others in danger, had an extramarital affair (which is such a huge departure from her ethics/morals) - I mean she was really off her rocker. Physically and verbally assaulting her husband. Completely intolerable. All typical BPD stuff, of course, but it was hard to watch her struggling with the inner turmoil and blazing path of destruction that she left behind. This is one of my very favorite people and she was hurting SO much.

But we just kept saying that we needed to find the right combination of meds, and once we found that, things would get better. Things would be manageable again.

And guys, it got better. It got So. Much. Better. I got my friend back. She’s laughing at jokes again. She’s repairing the relationships she ruined. She’s getting back to school and planning to get back to work. She can function in the world. It’s night and day.

We’ve discussed this a lot now, and it seems like many mental health care providers forget that BPD gets its name from being on the borderline between a mood disorder and a disorder of psychosis. (In our experience) they’re all quick to prescribe a mood stabilizer - and that does help - but they very rarely consider an anti-psychotic (even though that is by definition half of the disorder!). I think the industry understanding of psychosis has been pigeon holed into the way it presents for schizophrenics - seeing and hearing things that aren’t there - when really the broader definition is a loss of touch with reality. Which is EXACTLY what people with BPD experience. It’s just that their disconnect from reality is tied exclusively to the intentions and motivations of other people. So OF COURSE an anti-psychotic is incredibly effective at reining that in. Now that she’s on this med, it is so much easier for her to consider other perspectives. She’s far far less prone to splitting, she’s more regulated, she’s less volatile/reactive.

She didn’t need a stronger anti-depressant when she was suicidal, she needed a stronger anti-psychotic. She wasn’t suicidal because she was depressed. She was suicidal because her perception of the world was so warped that she could only believe that she was no good and no one loved her. And that couldn’t be further from the truth. Once she could see the word clearly, once that reality snapped back into focus and she could really feel the love and support her family and friends had been offering this whole time, the SI dissolved completely.

TRLD: If you’re struggling with severe symptoms, please consider getting onto or upping your anti-psychotic. It’s an absolute game changer.