Borderline Personality Disorder Doctors Deserve Sympathy, Too

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is complex and challenging--for both patients and their doctors (among other clinicians). As patients suffering at BPD's mercy, however, sometimes we forget that doctors of borderline personality disorder are human and deserve sympathy, too.

My Experience With BPD Doctors in a Failing Mental Health System

As mental health consumers with BPD, many of us have been failed by the mental healthcare system. It failed me. For years I floundered -- in school, in my relationships, with my identity. Diagnostic failure due to ignorance and stigma within both lay and professional communities led to inappropriate treatment, a laundry list of medications with severe side effects, and ineffective approaches in therapy. My interactions with doctors in both hospital and outpatient settings were not only unhelpful, they were traumatizing. The flawed system cost me years of my life and hundreds of thousands of dollars in ineffective treatments and tuition lost on unfinished semesters of college (not to mention lost earnings and productivity). Only recently did I uncover the truth and begin my recovery. Additionally, work in the mental healthcare arena allowed me to witness insufferable hate crimes committed by colleagues every day. Composure required more self-control than even the most well-adjusted are capable of maintaining and a constant reminder of the realistic pace of progress.

Sympathy for Borderline Personality Disorder Doctors in a Failing System

If you're like me, you're angry for having been failed, and rightfully so. But it's important to understand that the vast majority of problems are a result of a system failure and are not necessarily any individual's fault. As dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) instructs, all people--including BPD doctors--are doing their best with what they have. And a lack of resources and training around BPD means that many don't have much with which to work.

Most doctors, nurses, and therapists treating borderline personality disorder clients find those clients to be very difficult, more difficult than working with other client groups. Similarly, nearly all doctors express high frustration feelings, such as anger, impatience, and agitation, when working with BPD clients. It's not entirely surprising, however, considering the stress of the job. BPD doctors experience grief, associated with sadness, pain, and loss, and related to feeling inadequate. The negative emotions and difficulties in treating BPD patients stem from an awareness of BPD patients' suicidal tendencies. Ultimately, a lack of training in therapy methods addressing these tendencies is responsible.

Like families of people with BPD, doctors feel inadequate, isolated, and stigmatized. While families experience "surplus stigma," borderline personality disorder doctors experience "courtesy stigma" or "associative stigma" and feel isolated within their profession. While these issues are addressed with psychoeducation, the stigma of being a mental health consumer as a doctor can be fatal to one's career. More emphasis on psychoeducation for everyone would communicate mental health's universal importance and the valuable role of the professional.

Acceptance and Change Around Borderline Personality Disorder Doctors

Much like their patients with BPD, doctors have learned maladaptive coping as a response to the emotional stress of the workplace. To protect themselves from burnout, clinicians have learned to avoid BPD patients, and if this possibility does not exist, as for staff of an inpatient psychiatric facility, they have learned to depersonalize and mistreat borderlines. However, in Nhat Hanh's words:

When you understand, you cannot help but love. You cannot get angry. To develop understanding, you have to practice looking at all living beings with the eyes of compassion. When you understand, you love. And when you love, you naturally act in a way that can relieve the suffering of people.

People with BPD experience immense suffering. While most BPD doctors will never be able to understand the extent of that suffering, they must at least understand that their patients' behaviors have meaning and are a function of survival. But BPD doctors' behaviors have meaning and are a function of survival, too. Only with an understanding and acceptance of the human behind the illness--and behind the professional--will suffering cease and change occur.

Find Mary on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.