anyone on here feel they need to stay sick to get a sense of identity

[asingledaisy]

hi...i know there is alink between Borderline PD and wanting to make sickness worse or exaggerate symptoms so they can keep mental health care or get attention and i relate to that....but does anyone else also feel th eneed to do this so they can keep an image of themselves as a sick person?
i dont know why i need thi simage of myself that way,..probablky because it means i get a lot of validation. i was abused as a child and ignored and disbelieved,,i felyt i was nothing. dull, ordinary and not worth anyones time. i was always bullied and had few friends
i developed real BPD symptoms early on as a child and teen, but once i started receiving validation and someone caring about me i decided toi make BPD my identity...so i made my symptoms worse. tried to stay sick. had self harmed and felt suicidal before but i began making suicide attempts and carrying on self harming because i felt i was a failure by my illness not being severe enough...
i couldnyt bear only to be a little sick..i had to be really sick...i had to be properly sick else i was being a failure.....
i told my DBT therapist this and she wasnt shocked...said people with BPD do that a lot...i still feel a fraud though for having treatment...i feel i created my BPD...even though i did have some genuine symptoms i felt like i made into a full blown thing.
i feel a lot of guilt and self disgust for this......the symptoms i have are horrible and now \m getting ones i didnt used to have when my BPD first started out....

[earthbound_misfit]

once i started receiving validation and someone caring about me i decided toi make BPD my identity...
...
i couldnyt bear only to be a little sick..i had to be really sick...i had to be properly sick else i was being a failure.....
i told my DBT therapist this and she wasnt shocked...said people with BPD do that a lot...

The very fact that you felt/feel like this and did/do this is actually a symptom. You being frightened that your BPD is 'fake' and not like those other people with BPD actually makes you firmly one of 'them'.
It is very hard to get your head around this, because you feel so undeserving of care, despite your very real and understandable pain.

I have to say, services are often very bad for accidentally encouraging this feeling because of the way they 'step down' support at any improvement. (Just something to be aware of.)

I really understand where you're coming from. In my case, services never took me seriously and symptoms worsened because I was getting desperate for them to notice and help and understand I really was in so much pain. However, now I see a therapist privately and also have a couple of supportive friends, the feeling of being allowed to be upset and be cared about is a huge, wonderful relief. And that's ok, as long as I recognise that I need the care because of the pain I carry from the past. And recovery is about healing from that pain, then I won't need the extra care anyway.

I think the problem is that it's very hard to get support/care for feeling overwhelming dreadful feelings. If you do something on the outside that shows that - eg. self-harm - people can see something's wrong. They can give you a label of mental illness and then care in a general way - "Oh, this person's ill". Even though it basically amounts to the same thing - they are caring because you feel overwhelming dreadful feelings!

I hope that makes some sense...

the symptoms i have are horrible and now m getting ones i didnt used to have when my BPD first started out....

Do you have any idea why this might be? I've heard DBT Stage One is very focussed on visible symptom reduction such as self-harm. If you're trying to stop certain ways of showing your distress, it seems likely other ones will pop up instead. Do you think there's another way you could show your pain or ask for support?

[sherlock holmes]

Yes. I was diagnosed with BPD when I was 18, and at this time I was incredibly entrenched into the 'sick' identity. Self harming and hospitals were my identity, I had nothing else in my life but being the ill person. I was sent to a unit with 5 other self harmers, most had BPD, and it was a nightmare for me. I saw it as a competition and that I was only truly ill if I could be the patient with the worst symptoms and self harm. I did get worse during this time and kept telling everyone I never wanted to recover.

It took me being sectioned and sent to a secure unit to rapidly change my mind. It was a hell hole in there, and I knew staying ill would mean I'd be there for years. Being sectioned for 6 months gives you a long time to think about you and what you're doing, plus I had intensive DBT during this time. I slowly began to lose the identity of being sick and to find out who I was without that identity.

It's been about 6 years now since I came out of hospital, and I've only been back for one weekend in all that time. I used to enjoy being in hospital, I used to enjoy going to A&E to be stitched up. And yet the last time I was in the acute ward for that weekend I hated every second and kept panicking because I didn't want to be that person any more.

Now things are totally different. I am still unwell at times, I've lost the BPD so it's no longer my diagnosis. But I still struggle with traits at times. But now I am so happy I lost that identity because now I'm me! I'm me without the illness, and it's not scary and terrifying like I always thought. I haven't lost support now that I'm more well. I haven't self harmed in 8 months (in in the past 6 years I've had periods of 2 or 3 years free of self harm) and the world has not ended.

There really is a life outside of having BPD. I never thought there could be, and I was wrong.

Keep fighting to get better and get control of your BPD behaviours!

[Ktulu]

I think it's very insightful and positive that you recognise this in yourself. Is this something you could discuss further with your therapist? Maybe together you could come up with a plan for recognosing and dealing with your pain in a more positive and validating manner?

[HopeRises]

I think I did a little..with the self harm but more in a sense that I would self harm to keep my identity. I think particularly it was to do with my friendship group and RYL. In my eyes at the time I needed to be ill to be here also being ill/ self harmed was my identity and when I stopped I wasn't "me"

Now I am Recovered and happy. Being well and happy and doing all the things I enjoy doing is my identity but during recovery, I would get scared I was " getting better"

I think recovery is very scary and lots of people would take deliberate step backs to prevent it. I think it is quite normal

[HildaOgden]

I can identify with this.
I first became 'ill' at the age of 25, which is 15 years ago. It feels though like I have been ill all of my life it's been that long. It feels like it's all I've ever known.
Just recently (in the past 12 months) I have done A LOT better (with a couple of blips) until I started working for the first time in 14 years. That was in May.

I coped working 20hours a week (albeit shift work and a stressful job) for about a month before mentally and emotionally collapsing and I've had a nightmare ever since.

I do wonder if my inability to maintain this job was more to do with being 'well' again. OK, may be if it had been a less stressful job and regular hours I would have coped better, but even so. I can't help but ask myself if I'm just too 'used' to be ill.

I have to say.. it's not put me off working though. I do want to work again, but in the meantime I'm going to concentrate on DBT which I'm just starting out with.

I had an old psychiatrist who used to describe the 'surfboard effect'. Where your recovery is like surfing. You try and try to stand up on the surf board and surf and when you actually manage to do it, you realise your actually doing it and promptly fall off. Does that make sense? Recovery is a bit like that she said.. or at least that was her interpretation of it.

I am ashamed to say that I have exaggerated symptoms in the past to come over more ill than I am. I think I wanted the attention and underneath I was hurting but didn't know how else to ask for help. This is something I plan on discussing with my DBT therapist.

Recovery is scary but with the right support we'll get there :)

[KelcieLe]

Hey, don't be like this. Increasing your symptoms and showing it to others won't grab anyone's attention but will make your condition worse. This is not a wise thing to do.

[HildaOgden]

Thank you for calling me very stupid. Now I feel even worse about this.

[Doikers]

You're NOT Stupid , Diagnonsene , That was a idiotic thing for someone to have said . I do know how you are feeling so can emphathise, I didn't post as I find it hard to articulate myself. *Hugs if Okay*

[HildaOgden]

thanks Doikers, thanks for the hugs.