BPD vs CPTSD

[bruceli]

What the different behaviors/criteria between the two. How do clinicians differentiate?

[Cat of the Canals]

There was a topic in this vein a while back on the Parents board: https://www.outofthefog.net/forum/index.php?topic=91559.0

Your question about clinicians is a difficult one to answer, since there is no hard and fast rule when it comes to "how to diagnose." One clinician might diagnose BPD, and another might diagnose CPTSD. Is one wrong and one right? This is not a conundrum limited to these conditions, either. Psychiatric diagnoses on the whole have always been tricky. There's no blood test for BPD or CPTSD or bipolar or OCD. Clinicians have to rely on what they are told and what they observe and try to cobble together the most appropriate/accurate diagnosis based on that.

Another huge limitation is the fact that there is no separate diagnosis in the DSM for Complex PTSD. Only "regular" PTSD. That means some clinicians will not diagnose it at all.

[Lookin 2 B Free]

This is a good question.  I'm not a clinician, but i can share my observations. 

I've known quite a number of people with CPTSD who perhaps had behaviors like that of a pwBPD (maybe a bad case of the fleas), but with help were capable of self-reflection, change, and taking responsibility for their part in things.  I've known (and in one cased lived with) a few BPD's.  They had an emotional stunting and disordered thinking pattern that made the changes above impossible, no matter how much T or other help they got.  Their reasoning (emotional rather than logical), unrelenting splitting, and constant blame-shifting prevented any meaningful change at all.

This is just my personal experience and opinion based on nothing official at all.   

[Pepin]

Two people that I have found to be incredibly helpful are The Crappy Childhood Fairy and Patrick Teahan.  They actually both did a podcast together called Growing Up with CPTSD and that reduced me to tears.  Watching that video clarified to me that (even though I knew I had CPTSD already) that my husband also had CPTSD.  Since his role in his family was different than mine, we both have different coping mechanisms -- and he doesn't quite understand yet that he was abused within his FOO.  I was worried that I had missed the signs of him possibly being a PD. 

I believe that CN MIL did suffer from CPTSD from her own upbringing as well.  The difference as far as I can tell is that she has a history of the same repeated behavior.  She had an extremely difficult time grasping new concepts of any kind - because this is how she manipulated.  The difference with her, myself and DH is that she also lacked a natural curiosity to learn and grow.  She knew what she knew and that was where it ended.  Helping her to understand or see things in another way were fruitless.  I don't see patterns with DH, just lots of ragged lines - similar to myself.  With CN MIL, the patterns have been clear for the few decades that I have known her.