Borderline Personality Disorder

[iris lilies]

The thing I don't understand is this: Why do people often say this? "Be careful not to diagnose someone!!!"

Well, you yourself know that you’re not diagnosing anyone, so what is the point of putting a very specific mental illness label on someone? ‘Specially since you’d likely be wrong. Why does the specific label you assign really matter anyway in general social situations?

If a person with mental illness wants to talk about it and give people some ideas on the how are the illness affects him or her, and the best way to interact with him or her, that is a different thing.

[Ultralight]

Well, you yourself know that you’re not diagnosing anyone, so what is the point of putting a very specific mental illness label on someone?

It categorizes them in my mind. Remember, saying someone is "not stable" is labeling them too.

‘Specially since you’d likely be wrong. Why does the specific label you assign really matter anyway in general social situations?

Why would I be likely to be wrong? If the person exhibits a large cluster of the symptoms, I might well be right!

I just think to myself: "This woman probably has BPD. I think I should keep away from her."

I don't post it on billboards throughout the city.

[iris lilies]

It categorizes them in my mind. Remember, saying someone is "not stable" is labeling them too.



Why would I be likely to be wrong? If the person exhibits a large cluster of the symptoms, I might well be right!

I just think to myself: "This woman probably has BPD. I think I should keep away from her."

I don't post it on billboards throughout the city.

There’s nothing wrong in my mind with putting a label on someone for the purpose of social interaction. It’s just my opinion. So to me, “not a stable person “ is my layman’s term which conveys an idea about that person. It is clearly my own idea, and it conveys that it is my own assessment when I am talking to someone about that unstable person.


Specific mental health diagnoses are not something that you, UL, can make because you arent trained. You’re just not. But if you want to think of someone as for instance Bi Polar, think in your own mind about that, fine. It would only be a problem if you shared your personal diagnosis with other people since they may not understand that this is your else unscientific untrained opinion.

That said, I am pretty disgusted with mental health professionals and how they seem to be all over the map in diagnosing the same client. I think of much of it as a joke, And frankly, you may be as right as they are.

[Teacher Terry]

IL, it’s not a hard science and you can’t administer a test to diagnose. People spend years obtaining education and experience and still can disagree. People are complex as well as what they honestly reveal. This is really insulting to mental health professionals.

[iris lilies]

IL, it’s not a hard science and you can’t administer a test to diagnose. People spend years obtaining education and experience and still can disagree. People are complex as well as what they honestly reveal. This is really insulting to mental health professionals.

Ok. I am well aware that the mental health field isnt a hard science, since that forms much of the basis of my opinion. Agreed that people as medical subjects are complex and yes there certainly is the factor of what patients choose to reveal to their therapists.

All of that results in imprecise results. But that is true for much of the medical world, just especially so for mental health treatment.

[Tammy]

This is why I like working with the court ordered severely mentally ill population. We are treating them based on their danger to themselves and others. As long as the person isn’t dangerous, we don’t get them in our system. So I avoid much of those fluffy outer edges of psychiatry that can be so annoying in the questions about whether they really have a diagnosis, what is it, do they really need meds, etc.

[iris lilies]

This is why I like working with the court ordered severely mentally ill population. We are treating them based on their danger to themselves and others. As long as the person isn’t dangerous, we don’t get them in our system. So I avoid much of those fluffy outer edges of psychiatry that can be so annoying in the questions about whether they really have a diagnosis, what is it, do they really need meds, etc.

This would be a new layman label for me to use, “dangerous to themselves and others” where danger means physical harm.

In the general sense I think many of us are dangerous to ourselves but not in major ways and not in physical ways

[Tammy]

Right - it is physical danger and imminent danger.

So someone who doesn’t take their insulin but has no other symptoms and has blood sugars in the 300s - they wouldn’t be court ordered because they might be dangerous to themselves, but it will take a decade for the danger to show up in their body.

While someone threatening to overdose on their insulin would be court ordered.