Are some psychiatric labels just plain unfair?

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Which ones do you think are?

I think Borderline Personality Disorder is a label that is unfair because if someone was abandoned as a child, wouldn't it be normal to feel sad and fear abandonment?

Maybe some other symptoms like not feeling loved and hurting one self over the pain of being abandoned? Where do psychiatrists come up with this idea that it's abnormal to get sad over being abandoned to the point where it could cause turmoil in your life?

If a child is abandoned, is it instead normal for the child to shrug and say oh well!

I was just reading up on borderline personality disorder as I thought a friend of mine was BPD but it turns out I confused that with Histrionic personality disorder.

When I read up on BPD, what I saw was someone who was victimized and being faulted for something that someone else did to that person to hurt them.

What is the normal reaction to abandonment?

Well I doubt everyone with that disorder was abandoned.......obviously factors like that can contribute to mental issues, I don't think the label itself is unfair but the stigma attatched to mental disorders/illnesses is quite unfair as people with these sorts of problems don't choose to have them.

I'd definitely say BPD suits this. I don't have it, but some traits and was almost misdiagnosed with it as a kid, my mum fought it and told them straight up if I was diagnosed with it, would make a semblance of a regular life damn near impossible. Oddly enough, her good friend is in the hospital as she was misdiagnosed as BPD and the meds she has been taking have kept her on a suicidal edge for years and she hasn't been able to work,get a job, etc. I think BPD labels can be very unfair and cause problems in a persons future if they do not have it, hell, even if they do.

That is horrendous. That is malpractice on the part of these so-called doctors, or certainly should be considered malpractice. I mean, if the damn medication is not working, try another medication. This is where a doctor can be a stick-in-the-mud (esp. a psychiatrist). The doctor doesn't want to admit that his or her first diagnosis is not right, so they stick with something clearly not working for the patient ? ? ? It is incredible, but apparently all too common.

Yes, some psychiatrists are good, but a lot are not. A lot have big, inflated egos.

I really think for things like anxiety and/or depression, a person is likely to have better luck with a regular doctor like an internist or family practitioner, who is less likely to be married to a particular diagnosis and more likely to have a better sense of feel-and-texture for whether something is working.

I've heard that in the psych world BPD unofficial means "difficult patient -- avoid at all costs." Apparently, there is great stigma that goes along with a BDP label -- the of the stereotype is that they are very demanding, difficult, and unrewarding patients to work with. I've also read that some conscientious doctors/therapists have taken to using bipolar disorder as a substitute diagnosis for "borderline PD," to help patients escape the stigma. (What a mess.)

It's pretty messed up that if the job isn't fun enough for the doctor they feel ok about dropping the patient. I guess it's a good thing that surgeons and oncologists don't work that way.

I think malpractice happens too often. I even have found myself questioning the very practice when dealing with the system. If you do enough research into the DSM 5 proposals good psychiatrists are petitioning against it because it has simply become outrages, unscientific, and unreliable. They are even claiming PSM in women is a mental disorder.

BPD is BPD, no matter the cause. Which is worse, the label or the disorder? Does it really matter to you what they call the disorder, or would you rather that it was called something cute, like "Blue Unicorn Disorder" or "Bed-Time Bunny Syndrome"?


You seem to think that a diagnosis is a moral judgment. News Flash: It Isn't! What is unfair is believing that when someone has a maladaptive personality disorder, they are somehow morally deficient.


Repression is also a maladaptive disorder. What is normal is wanting and seeking help for the feelings resulting from abandonment.


Was this so that you could provide your own diagnosis, or were you just curious?


How were they "victimized"? What is this "something"? One reaction to intense feelings of abandonment is to physically attack someone else who merely threatens to leave. From the "victimized" person's perspective, this may be a perfectly reasonable and logical reaction to being told "I'm leaving you". Others may take a difference of opinion as a personal attack, and being proven wrong as a moral outrage.


Strong feelings of abandonment can override the decision to leave a crappy relationship. You may become anxious every time your partner goes to work, to the store, or just outside to water the lawn.

My ex-wife had Borderline Personality Disorder, as well as Bipolar Disorder. I thought her behavior was normal (at first) because my father had the same disorders. They were both alcoholics, as well. It took a long time before I could accept the fact that their abuse was not my fault - they were the ones who were maladaptive, they were the ones with BPD, and they were the ones who "victimized" others while claiming victimhood for themselves ... "I didn't mean to give you a bloody nose, but you drove me to it with your sniveling attitude" was a common theme running through their verbalized reasonings - it was always someone else's fault for their rage and violence, and never their own.

And that was really unfair!

After reading up more on BPD, my initial reaction was I hope this doesn't mean normal reactions that come from being abandoned like

Being depressed, fearing it happening again would be instantly thought of as BPD.

After further reading, I've concluded it does not.


The person in question is not apart of my life anymore as I grew tired of her endless need for attention and getting angry when she felt someone was giving me attention and not her. If a person just said one sentence to me, that would send her into a downward spiral sometimes even hitting herself. So after reading up on histrionic disorder, this seems to be more like her than BPD.

-She has to be the center of attention at all costs. If she is not, she will spread rumors about the person she felt had more attention that her, she will threaten to hurt herself (that is what made me think of BPD as I've heard a little about it).

-She's worn an arm bandage pretending she cut her wrist to make her boyfriend who broke up with her feel guilty.

-Had several babies by different men.

-Made a sex list and it had hundreds of people listed. (she was very proud of the list)

-Suddenly developed social anxiety if someone dragged her to an event lying to get out of it but had no problems with crowded places she insisted on going to.

-Drama, drama, drama

-Lies alot

-Never apologizes for anything

-Often used men and then they grew tired of her so onto the next one.

Whatever it is, BPD ain't it. BPD is an extreme, stable, global reaction to abandonment, neglect, or abuse of any type usually. Sometimes it will just show up, but usually it's associated with awful abuse. The reason BPD is a disorder is because it affects the lives of those who have it profoundly in a negative way. The big signs of BPD that differentiate it from other things is the diffusion/fracturing of self and the black and white views of personal relationships. Interestingly, there appears to be a genetic component. Consider BPD to be the FAR end of a continuum of personality. And, yes, BPD patients like all personality disorder patients are considered hard to deal with, because they don't think anything is wrong with them in a majority of cases.

My mum is a psychiatric nurse in a crisis team and she works mostly with people with personality disorder (cos they want to be seen where as other patients want to avoid intervention) and she tells me its a very negative label to acquire. Often nurses, doctors and support workers treat personality disorder patients more poorly than other patients, and whilst this is tempting as they can be very difficult its not professional or helpful. My mum says she points out to people who have a poor attitude to personality disorder patients that they did not choose to have a personality disorder. Its better now for them as new therapies (DBT) is really helping people and new research is showing they have brain differences in the amygdala (same bit effected by AS btw) so hopefully things will get better for them.

Good for your Mom.

The hard patients are the good patients. Maybe some of these other doctors, nurses, support workers need to remember why they went into the field.

Now, the thing with the amygdala, I'm going to kick on that one a little. Okay, so my amygdala is different, does that make me less of a human being? Don't I have the same rights as a human being, and the same count? Of course I do, and I want to hear a professional say that.

And, how wide is the range of amygdala function in 'normal' anyway?

Let me ask this about BPD...does someone who feels the need to shoulder blame for anything have BPD? Is it BPD if someone profusely apologizes for mistakes made even if it wasn't the person with BPD who made the mistake? I'm confused.

The following text is taken from U.S. National Library of Medicine website:

Nowhere does this description mention any moralistic judgments against a person with BPD, or how allegedly "unfair" it is to have BPD confirmed by a trained and licensed mental-healthcare professional.

Here's a link to the full article on Borderline Personality Disorder. Enjoy!

BPD is interesting. My mum definitely has it, and she's an idiot, and it's transparent the crap she pulls. But I think the girls who were good at reading me were maybe just smarter BPDs.

Anyone using a label on someone is trying to control them, though. There's an implication that you can be normal and that's something the person using the label is and you aren't. It's a useful psychological weapon, nothing more.

i was misdiagnosed with BPD about 3 years ago by a shrink that didn't read my file. he asked me a few questions and asked about family history. since my mother was dxed BPD - also retracted at that point - the shrink jumped to that conclusion. it got me some good therapy with people who had a mixture of issues, so it wasn't all bad, but i didn't even have all the required criteria. as of May 31, 2011, i was UNdiagnosed with BPD by a proper expert. in females, AS is sometimes mistaken for BPD.

i should add that someone tried to use that prior dx against me on the forum once, where they tried to blame my reaction in an argument to BPD, like people with BPD are not capable of rational reactions or something. i saw it happen to another member on here too, repeatedly. it's weird.