Borderline Personality Disorder

@HunterCameronStone

Thank you for this. There is a lot of misunderstanding about Borderline Personality Disorder. As someone who has probably had it since I was 4 but officially diagnosed around 30, one of the most common misconceptions about it is that everyone displays the same symptoms or that there are specific symptoms a person "has" to have in order to be diagnosed. There are 9 characteristics and a person needs to display any 5 of them, according to the DSM. There are 256 combination of symptoms, so while it is common for two borderline to have the same exact symptoms, the other ones I've met don't have the same ones I do. There are 4 different types, although none of my therapists were well-versed in treating it so i was only ever diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. It is now found that it falls on a spectrum, with Borderlines experiencing various degrees of "severity" of symptoms.

There are many other misconceptions, but the ones I mentioned are the ones that infuriate me the most when I hear about it.

@HunterCameronStone Thank you for creating this thread. I need peoples expertise/thoughts please. I suspect my wife has BPD. About 9 Years ago she was diagnosed with ADHD and she takes Adderall only when she needs intense focus (at work each day). Otherwise takes no other meds. Below is a detailed description of our relationship and her behaviors. Please let me know your thoughts when you have time. Thank you

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I'll preface this thread by saying my wife is very well educated, smart and very successful at her career, however our marriage/relationship has been very rocky at times. I am a pretty chill person, educated, smart, driven, lively but not up for drama--I also have controllable anxiety which I take meds for. We also have two kids who are 6 and 8 years old. My wife of 12 years has ADHD. Her ADHD causes challenges in our relationship and I need advice/help/thoughts navigating them. The reoccurring issues surrounding our marriage/relationship and my wifes ADHD are:

- She says literally whatever is on her mind in the moment, which is good and bad. If what she says comes across as degrading to me I usually can shake it off, but sometimes I cannot and respond back verbally saying I didn't appreciate something she said, etc--which can create issues. Also, because she says whatever is on her mind/her opinion she can come across as a "know it all" or even aggressive to people outside of our marriage.

- She has gotten to the point where I cannot verbally share with her my feelings with her regarding if I feel slighted by something she said or did to me. If I do share, she often gets upset, won't hear me out, doesn't say sorry or even threatens for us to get a divorce, live in separate homes, etc.

- The day after making verbal threats like we should get a divorce, live in separate homes, etc--she doesn't address the threats, it's like she never said it. She has made these divorce/separate home threats about 3-4 times a year for the last 5 years--yet in that 5 years we have continued to buy/sell homes, go on family vacations, celebrate anniversaries etc. I usually don't bring up her threats again because in the past when I do, she gets upset our doubles down on the threats again.