Borderline

I feel quite sad and depressed since friday. On friday and on monday it was very bad. Now it is sometimes quite bad and sometimes ok. I don't know what to do with this feelings. I don't know where they come from either, as I'm not depressed about anything special.

Today I talked about my doctor with my best friend from work. She asked me what I feel when I sit in the doctors office. I only could answer her, what I think when I sit there, but the question is interesting so I thought about that. I think, I don't feel so much at that specific moment, as I'm just very stressed about finding the correct words and so on. And I have pretty good avoidance tactics to avoid feeling too much, which in my case is just not saying to much. But what I feel is depression and sadness. And when I leave the doctor and am alone again I usally feel this very much as the stress-level goes down then. After my doctor visits I feel very sad and depressed, sometimes (or more often than just sometimes to the extend that I feel suicidal). I didn't thought at that when my friend was asking me because she was asking me how I feel at the doctors office. There, I think I pretty much avoid feelings by searching for words and by speaking not much. I don't even tell my doctor anymore that I have pain. I already told him, and nothing has changed. She sais, I should complain more, that is my role as a patient.

And yes, I am always thinking, I'm just the patient. I don't have to teach the doctor. I don't have to tell him how sensitivity of pain increases over time, what pain does whith your nervous system, what the diagnoses criteria for certain illnesses are, and so on. So I just shut up. But that seems not to be wished, either.

A problem of mine is, that I have lots of comorbid disorders. I was in treatment and in (psychiatric) hospital for a long time. During my youth I used to cut as stress-relieve and I have scars from that on my body (I still have the urge to do that sometimes but I don't do). I was, due to that, diagnosed with borderline-personality-disorder in the past (after seeing the psychiatrist for like 5-10 minutes). The diagnoses was revised later. But my pain-doctor, even though he never talked about any personal stuff with me and even though he never did any psychological testing putted the borderline-diagnoses in my medical-findings. I don't understand that. I don't want to discuss with him whether I have borderline or not, but he is not even trained to judge on that, he has not done any assessment, and he can not have simply copied it from elsewhere.

My problem is, I go to conferences too, I hear doctors talking too, when they think they are under themselves, and they are so judgemental. You don't need to have any interpreting skills to understand. They say: "Borderline-patients are the worst. They manipulate you whenever they can." or "You never want to treat a Borderline-patients that's really the worst." Things like that. I'm sorry for the Borderline-patients, because of course everybody has reasons to be how he is. And if he is manipulative, I believe, that there is a reason. Of course it makes therapy more complicated. In my case any therapy will be very complicated as well, because I have lots and lots of difficulties, e.g. with talking and finding out what I am feeling and so on but I don't think that I'm manipulative (at all). Nor do I think that I fit the other borderline diagnosis-criteria to an extent that would allow the diagnosis (not at all).

Btw, nearly the same which is true for borderline is also true for Fibromyalgia. It is awful to hear doctors hear talk about Fibromyalgia. They don't seem to be sure that patients with Fibromyalgia actually suffer. Bad theory-of-mind, I can only say.

But that's awful and all that drives my feeling that no one believes me. When I did tell nothing but the truth but without any exaggerating show. My friend from work says I should explain the doctor that this is my personality. That I simply can't give him this show. But I don't know, because saying "Sorry, I'm different, I just don't show pain much on the outside." to me has something... redundant.

I hope you understood something I was writing. I'm so tired.
Thank you for reading and for comments.

Can not express my pain.

Hi,

I guess I have a problem. I always think I should go to the hospital or somewhere (I don't know where exactly, a friend from work (the second one in my life!) was telling me that the hospital would be the right place for such cases but I don't know), because of my pain.

I think the problem is that I can't express my pain. I don't show any signs. She also tells me this. She also tells me this in other case, like I don't look scared or I don't look nervous when I really am so scared than I think I might die. That is strange, isn't it? No one has ever before told me this! But I then understand a bit why the doctor finds it difficult to believe me (well not really, because I would believe if someone would come to me and tell me about his pain and not showing any signs. This is not fiction but actually the case and I do believe to ppl!).

So the point I want to say is: I think I should do something really fast. I should go to hospital or somewhere else (I also have blood in my stool, but for a very long time now so I'll probably not die from that - and the pain I also have already for more than 2 years. I think the hospital does not treat chronic diseases even though I'm not sure.)

But for work... I have so much work. It is just so very, very much. And there is no end. I can not see the end coming. And then I make mistakes, and I have to correct for these mistakes. And currently my experiment is not working as it should. So I am not sure if I should just go to the hospital, because the experiments I am doing are worth nothing anyways or if I should try and do the experiments and if I'm really, really lucky they work and I get results (it depends on technical stuff which I can't influence). I really need those results, but it is questionable if I get them, even if I work on them. I also really need a solution for my pain, but for that it is even more questionable if I get it, as I did not get any solution for the last 2 years.

I hope you understand what I am trying to say? The friend from work told me, that most ppl think that if you are able to go to work the pain can't be that bad. I told her that this is not always the case and I think she agreed. Do you agree too? I mean, this is really not always the case!

When I can do one thing then it is carry on under what circumstances ever. When I went to school and made the Higher School Certificate, I was really stressed, and I lost a lot of weight because I stopped eating (I only drank milk for the last 4 month of school). But I didn't question the idea of stopping school to go in a hospital or something like that. (Then I was put in hospital in intensive-care 4 days after I wrote my Higher School Certifiate.)

Now I feel even worse then back these days. But I am told that no one can see. So I don't know how to tell. My doctor does not believe me all my pain. How can I get help now?

Please excuse my errors. I am very tired, because I can't sleep due to pain.

Thank you for reading! Thank you for comments!

EDIT at November, 10th, 2012:

I want to show you a picture of my back/butt. I'm sorry I didn't get all onto it (the left side is missing) because I made it by myself. The lower half I cutted of because I don't want to show my butt. Those are the marks form using the hot-water-bottle when ever I can, because it is pain-relieve. It is damaging, but I can't stop, because it just huts so much (the back/butt-pain (it's more in the butt than in the back)).

Problems with medical doctor: don't know how to speak/communicate with him

Hi,

I tried to make this post more readable. Hope this helps:

right now (that means for the last few month) I am having big problems with my medical doctor.
To explain this I have to explain first that I have very bad bud / hip / low bag pain. So this means, it hurts very much. It distracts me from everything. I can't concentrate on my work and I basically can't do anything in my free-time due to that pain because I just want to sit on a hot-water-bottle all the time because this decreases the pain.

The pain started in autumn 2010.

Background-Info which maybe is not necessary:

My doctor (another one) told me that it was just psycological, because I had a lot of stress. And I believed him, because I had a lot of stress.
However, I found out later, that I have lyme-disease (IgM and IgG positiv in a lot of tests!) (and other bacterial ilnesses which can in some cases cause joint pain, like yersinia). I know that there is a big debate about whether chronic lyme-disease exists or does not exit. For me, I am really sure that chronic lyme-disease does exist (in some cases). There have been studies which have proven that. Of course nobody knows how many people have chronic lyme disease but that doesn't matter.
And for my specific case it is as sure as it can be that I have chronic lyme disease. Of course there is some possibily for false positiv tests left, but that's always the case. And of course it is possible that my pain doesn't come from this or not only from this but has another reason.
So, I'm not saying it's totally certain, but it is as certain as it can be.
But my doctor, who is a specialist in pain, does not seem to understand. First he denied that it is possible (I'm not saying anything further) that my pain comes from lymes-diseas. Then I visited a specialist in lyme-disease who confimed that I have lyme-disease (he and another specialist in lyme-disease have confimend this several times now) and he seems (or seemed) to believe me now.
Or he seemed to acceped that it is possible that I do have pain due to lyme-disease.

End of Background-Info.

But I'm sorry, that is not what I want to tell you... It's difficult. Because the point is not that it is possible that I most possibly have pain due to lyme-disease (the chance is really high) but the point is that I actually do have very strong pain and that I want some treatment. But I don't get!

Or well, I do get SOME treatment (pain-killers from the doctor who is specialist in pain and antibiotics from the other doc occationally). But it doesn't help me enough. It is still so bad, I can't express. And the part of the last sentence is the point. I can't express. I don't know what to say. I don't know!! I am telling my doctor that I have pain and that it is strong! What else should I tell him? I do not know. Recently I have even stoped to tell him that I have pain, because I think he would already know if he believed me. I don't know if he does believe me because he sometimes pointed out that I don't have a prolapse and that there is a difference (?? don't know how to say) between the objective findings and my pain. So (when I don't say anything when coming to the appointment) he just asks me some stupid question about my work (because I work in research in a related field) and I give a stupid answer and thats all and than I feel really bad because I had the hope that he would help me.

You understand me?


There are always long brakes off silence when I visit him because I have no ideas what to say. I already said that I have pain, and he already said that there is nothing more to do for me (no more medication at least). Because he sais he doesn't want to give me more of my pain-killers and he sais there isn't an other one. The thing is that I know he is false. There are of course lots of other ones, I'm not that stupid. But from previous contact with other ppl and especially doctor I have figured out that it is a very bad ideas to tell them that you think that you think you know better than them. Of course I do not know if other pain-killer would work for me, I just know that they exist! But that is for sure! Maybe he knows and is just lying to me.

One time I was at he specialist for lyme-disease and he said he received a letter from my pain-doctor. The copied that letter for me. In that letter the pain-docter claimed that there is no good doctor-patient relation-ship. Well, I'm not the one who is lying. I'm not the one who is hiding information. I'm just the one who has learned that it is better not to tell the ppl who are hiding information what they are doing.

Why doesn't he just take it as it is?

Thank you for reading!