Hi, Nikko .. so am I.

And before treatment for my Bipolar, I was frantically terrified of rejection to the point of the deveopment of physical illness that manifested whenever I was rejected. And some negative BPD-type behaviors of clinginess. I had an emtionally traumatic childhood. I was impulsive - high on the scale. I had some very disturbing self-mutilation fantasies in the past, and have had periods of suicidal gestures.

I had my first irritable rageful hypomanic episode when I was face to face with gross parental abuse when I was least able to do anything about it, when I needed them them the most. Up until then, my only hypomanic episodes were lovely highs (all 3-4 of them during my lifetime) - cheerfully positive, high accomplishment, creative and loving the world. Boy. do I miss them.

But since I've been on a mood stabilitzer, I have more moderate and manageable responses to emotionally distressing events, my impulsive behaviors greatly diminished - I have the ability to FEEL the impulsiveness, but to control its expression.

I am more able, for instance, to WRITE that impulsive email, but instead of pressing send, I am now able to save it to file so I have the time to rethink it. Mostly it is forgotten or greatly edited to hardly sound the same - certainly not likely to cause a major emotional event that ends up biting me in the butt.

There is more - but maybe I was short by one, maybe two, of the criteria of being BPD... but I AM on the Borderline Personality spectrum - no doubt.

Two of my sisters have lived on ADs for decades. One satisfies the BPD criteria. I haven't asked her, but she is now so stabilized and even, that I have to wonder if she is on a mood stabilizer. My younger daughter - I have been breaking my mind for years to figure out - is she bipolar or is she borderline or is she both? But I think her early bipolar (diagnosed in high school) has worsened to where she now acts borderline.

They know a great deal about the inheritability of the propensity to develop bipolar. They know an increasing amount about how the brain looks and functions in bipolar. The know there is a seeming inheritability of propensity component of BPD, that the brain looks & functions in PTSD (the development of which is considered to a major cross-over step to what is recognized as BPD.

And is also either recognized or suspected as one of the precipitating life-stress events in the first frank break-thru of completely recognizable bipolar.

It makes a great deal of sense. BPD is now seen as "curable" -- not in terms of not having to live on meds!!! But that mood stabilizing meds and ADs, plus cognitive therapy, DOES reduce symptomatology to where BPDs definitely and simply are not behaviorally recognizable as BPD at all.

Can't do that with other PDs. Yes, ADs can help depression they may have, but there remain PD'd. PDs are considered to be total depth PERSONALITIES, not an illness like bipolar. Certainly something to think about.

Teri