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I'm only 17. They put me in a mental hospital at 15 for a suicide attempt. Two weeks later they decided that unless I have some huge magical shift in the way I work then I'll be officially declaired BPD once I turn 18. I've only gotten worse. I just wanna have people who can understand how hard I'm trying to get better and who can offer me new ideas to try to be better. Is this the right place for me?

Hi and welcome to BPDR. I understand that you feel pretty down right now, but I wish you wouldn't think of yourself as a "failure." To some extent, some more and some less, we've all screwed up and regret stuff that's happened. I know I have -- losing my job in a most embarrassing way, getting divorced, two stints in the hospital. But I refuse to brand myself a failure, no matter what my own "fault" is in those various events. I was sick, I couldn't cope, I fell apart. Blaming myself for all that isn't going to help me at all.

I know a lot of docs won't diagnose BPD in anybody under 18 -- I guess that seems arbitrary (why not 16? 20?) but they have to draw a line somewhere, and because some of the symptoms of BPD are things that can be seen in a turbulent adolescence, it must make sense to them to hold off on a diagnosis like BPD until adulthood is more or less official.

You CAN get better, if you want to badly enough. It means some hard work, being really tough with yourself to counteract your bad thinking, volatile emotions, impulsiveness, self-harm, or other bad behavior. There is no easy fix -- no drug that will take all the bad stuff away. Hopefully you have a good psychiatrist, and a therapist who you trust. But read through some of the threads in our different forums, and check out our "Tools" in the box on the left, and see if you can find some additional ways to help yourself.

[quote="Failure"]I'm only 17. They put me in a mental hospital at 15 for a suicide attempt. Two weeks later they decided that unless I have some huge magical shift in the way I work then I'll be officially declaired BPD once I turn 18. I've only gotten worse. I just wanna have people who can understand how hard I'm trying to get better and who can offer me new ideas to try to be better. Is this the right place for me? [/quote]

Hi,

Just wanted to say - if you get diagnosed as BPD in an official way - you are also entitled to receive treatment - that means psychodinamic therapy, cognitive behavior therapy.
It is really not such a bad thing to be able to get help - in recovery.

There are some people who are anxious to be officially diagnosed as BPD patients in order to get help.

If you fear the "lable", all I can say is - you tried to kill yourself once, you were in mental hospital - there are people who never tried and never spent a day in mental hospital and are BPD - so being BPD is really not that terrible, and also - it can be curable.

I'm all hope that you will find within yourself the strenght to overcome whatever inside you that is trying to kill or harm you, or get you down, or block you from living

RecoverQuest

hey i would be happy to talk if you ever want to