The Attention-Seeking Theory of BPD

There is lots of stigma surrouding mental illness. Borderline personality disorder is no exception. In fact, it is among the more stigmatized illnesses. Particularly, people believe borderlines act out to gain attention, while there's evidence they do it out of a need to regulate emotions.

I am very thankful that I didn't have the BPD diagnosis when I was first hospitalized in 2007. I had done something that can with good reason be seen as attention-seeking - made a suicidal threat in public -, but I was realy not thinking of the attention I'd get with this. Besides, the kind of attention I got, did matter quite a bit. It is not purely for attention, even though my threat had a signaling function.

In like 2006, before any mental condition had been diagnosed, I was talking to my named support worker at an idependence training facility about my recurrent meltdowns. At one point she concluded that I did it for attention. "So we won't give you attention anymore. Don't think you can do this for attention." In reality, the majority of my meltdowns and acting-out behaviors have the function of either regulating emotions or overwhelming stimuli.

Another thing with the attention-seeking theory is that nothing really is wrong with attention-seeking. Of course, having a meltdown for attention is not appropriate, but it is not like ignoring the person is going to make them better. It will just lead to them giving up and developing learned helplessness. Rather, professionals and others need to help the borderline by providing the right kind of attention before behavior escalates. I strongly disagree with the ida that borderlines need to be left to solve their own problems. We lack skills in emotion regulation, and need to actually be taught these skills. When other conditions, like autism, come into the equation, it gets more complicated, because we truly do not have the ability to process ordinaryy stimuli. I, for one, have a hard time communicating when overwhelmed, so I can't get across my needs in an appropriate manner. It is further reinforcing learned helplnessness to just ignore me in such a state.

Ramblings on Self-Image and Diagnosis

This afternoon, I was discussing y treatment plan with my psychologist. I heard her saying something about diagnosis and treatment being complicated by a combination of autism with axis II symptomatology. "Axis II," I thought, "that's personality disorders. Have they finally gotten to diagnose me as BPD?" And yes, they have. And instantly the DID and PTSD diagnoses went out the window. Not only that, but BPD, not Asperger's, is my "main diagnosis" now.

What does this mean? I anticipated it for a long time. In fact, I've always doubted the diagnosis of DID. When initially diagnosed, I was too overwhelmed by some of the consulting psychologist's questions to answer them with the nuance they required. Like, the psychologist asked whether we are aware of what happens when another alter is out. I said no, but the real truth is that we could not have known, since if we lost time, we would only find evidence later and not know that an alter had been out unless we'd had soome awareness of that alter.

I have a very unstable self-image, which goes with both DID and BPD. In addition, I need concrete qualifiers for myself, which I theorize could be an autistic feature. This gets me to identify myself not with abstract characteristics like creative, intelligent or whatever, but with the labels I've been given. I've gotten better over the past year or so at identifying myself with neutral labels like crafter and blogger.

At the same time, I still do have characteristics that are more abstract. I am not just an autistic, a crafter and a woman. I am not just a dissociator or a borderline. Yet what I am in terms of these labels, fundamentally impacts how people see my characteristics. Like, borderlines are generally assumed to be manipulative attention-seekers. If I'm seen as manipulative when a vulnerable alter is out, for example, that means my needs won't be listened to. In contrast if I'm seen as vulnerable when I'm manipulating, I won't unlearn to manipulate. Furthermore, my poor self-image may not alter the core of my mental problems - whether that be a drive to manipulate or emotional vulnerability or both or soomething else entirely -, but it sure alters the way I perceive this core.