this post was submitted on 14 May 2026
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Mental Health
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Disorder names change all the time and cluster B personality disorders are inherently discriminatory. I don't think there's enough solid ground in this space to make it worthwhile to stake a claim on an acronym to define your lived experience. People are going to continue mixing up those acronyms and you will never have control over it.
BPD has been its own acronym since 1980, which was 46 years ago. This isn't very affirming for a mental health page. Cluster B disorders are actual conditions needing treatment. It isn't discrimination for me to be diagnosed with it; it's completely medically accurate.
Mental health conditions don't have to look pretty to be medically accurate descriptions.
Of course cluster B diagnoses deserve treatment, but the diagnoses themselves do more to further stigma than to inform treatment. And once you've been given one of these labels, you define yourself by it and form codependent relationships with others with the same label, ultimately reinforcing the underlying traumas. When a new client tells me they have BPD, my work becomes about helping them see themselves as more than a diagnosis.
The thing is, I see myself as more than a diagnosis. I just also view it as a medical condition requiring treatment to help my situation. My girlfriend can attest to the fact that I've been learning and coping fairly well for someone who hasn't even done DBT yet. In fact, I'm further ahead of some folks already in therapy, so I'm clearly working pretty hard on it. I'm way better than I was 3 years ago, which is a success in itself.
The only contexts where I worry about BPD being possibly used against me is in hospitals and by certain family members. They could blame the unstable person with an illness instead of listening to any points I have about being horrifically traumatised.
I genuinely got traumatised so badly that I developed a severe form of OCD rendering me incapable of working. My BPD is a pain in the ass, but the OCD legitimately mentally cripples me to the point of being on welfare and disability tax benefits.
While that is very fair, it also seems valid for them to express their frustration about folks getting something wrong about condition that has a big impact on them. I think the frustration at being misunderstood or at common mental health misconceptions is understandable.
Folks with ocd often find the misconceptions unhelpful. Folks with bipolar disorder often find the misconceptions unhelpful. Folks with depression or ADHD often find people's misconceptions about their experience unhelpful.
To me the post just read as someone venting that theyre frustrated with people not understanding something that feels important and relevant in their world. I think thats okay ๐คท๐ปโโ๏ธ I may be frustrated in their position to. God only knows how many little things people simply dont get about mental illness irk me and make me feel kinda alienated ๐
Personally I think its best to just let folks have their frustration. This meme isnt really expressing anything unhealthy, or even about whether all mental health diagnosis are the most productive way to help someone, just that they're frustrated or bummed when people misunderstand them, which is pretty valid