Denial or just wishful thinking?

As I was typing this up for a post on a BPD message board I belong to, I couldn't help thinking that it would make a great blog post instead, especially since all the questions I was asking turned out to be rhetorical....

One of the most prominent symptoms of BPD is the unstable and intense interpersonal relationships. But of all the symptoms, this is the one I don't have much of a problem with. I read what others with borderline write in their blogs and on the message boards I belong to with respect to their relationships (be it family, friends, therapist, etc.) and most of the time, I really can't relate to any of it.

It's not that I don't have relationships with people, though I do have very few. The ones I do have, by all accounts, are amazingly healthy. I'm extremely close with my daughter, but it's a healthy closeness, not a smothering one. We don't yell, scream or fight with each other and never have. Sure we get angry at each other from time to time, but it's rare & usually it's when one of us is PMS'ing. We don't dwell on the negative or hold grudges, we address what we're angry about like adults (she is nearly 18) and then move on.

I'm extremely close to my younger sister and we both help each other a great deal, from helping take care of each other's daughters to being the person to call when we're feeling down. I'm not close to my parents, but it's because they were abusive when I was younger and have been emotionally unavailable my entire life. However, I've come to accept the limitations my relationship with them has to have. I am civil, even friendly & engaging sometimes, and normally don't mind having them around. I also get along with my other sister, though she isolates herself, and my brothers. I don't have many friends, but I get along with them just fine too.

The only relationship that was ever a true problem for me was the one with my exhubby. There was a lot of the "I hate you, don't leave me" towards the end of our marriage, but isn't that a normal response to fighting with someone you love? Someone you promised to spend the rest of your life with? Isn't it normal to feel abandoned when they cheat on you? The rest of our marriage was full of love and friendship. We rarely fought and our arguments centered around what most couples usually fight over...money. Even when I found out he was cheating, the highest level of betrayal and abandonment I can think of, I responded in the most logical and normal of ways, I threw the bastard out (albeit I did it calmly, whereas most are so angry they throw the person's belongings in the front yard or something).

Even when it comes to my therapists and pdocs, I don't see the intense idolization/devaluation that's supposedly a common pattern of those with BPD. I have never once idolized any of my therapists or pdocs, though after awhile, I will devalue them based on my interactions and perceptions about how well I feel they are performing their jobs.

I've read that having those intense unstable relationships is so central to BPD that those well educated in the treatment of borderline hesitate to diagnose a patient as BPD without this particular symptom being present. Since that doesn't apply to me, do I really have BPD?

The more I think about this, the more I begin to doubt the BPD diagnosis I was given. Is it denial or just wishful thinking? I don't know. Sure I meet the criteria, but I think most people reading the list of symptoms can relate to several of them. But when does relating cross over into being able to be clinically diagnosed with BPD or any other mental illness? The guidelines say if you have 5 of the 9 traits, you have BPD. Does it matter which 5? Does it matter how deeply they impact your life? I can relate all 9 to my life in some way, but what if they aren't very pervasive? What if some of them come and go with a decade or more in between, like the self injury that disappeared on its own when I was 24, only to return when I was 34?

I hate to even say it, but maybe the therapist from hell was right when she said that maybe I was misdiagnosed. But if it's not BPD, what the hell is wrong with my brain? The next logical answer is Bipolar II, since that is another diagnosis I've been given. But I don't ever get manic (except when it was drug-induced). I don't even get hypomanic, at least not by the definitions I've read. I don't respond well to the meds most often used to treat Bipolar, in fact, they are some of the ones I have the worst reactions to.

I've given this a lot of thought and here are the symptoms I experience most often. If I come up with more, I'll add them, but this is what I've been able to compile from thinking back over my past and through reading my journals.

1. Rage and/or extreme irritability that lasts for long periods of time, days or even weeks at a time
   
2. Severe depression that extends back to early childhood
   
3. Severe anxiety and panic attacks that started out of the blue when I was about 19
   
4. Psychotic symptoms including visual & auditory hallucinations and paranoia, particularly in times of high stress or extremely severe depression
5. Self injury, usually in the form of cutting, but I have used binge drinking as a means to self injure (occasionally medication abuse is added to the alcohol to intensify the level of self injury)
   
6. Intense self hatred
7. History of multiple complete mental breakdowns, the first one being at the age of 11, where I lose all grasp of reality
   
8. Chronic feelings of emptiness
9. Obsessive thoughts/rituals that for the most part tend to be on the mild side, but at times can interfere with my ability to function in the world
10. Chronic hopelessness
11. Chronic suicidal ideation with multiple suicide attempts
12. Past history of postpartum psychosis (this may or may not have any relevance so I'm including it just in case)
    

Guess I'll pass this list on to my therapist and pdoc and see what they have to say.