Why Does my Daughter in England Have BPD?
QUESTION:
Dear Dr. Heller:
Our daughter, now 28, was diagnosed as having BPD just a couple of years ago after 10 years of misdiagnosis, spells in psychiatric hospital, suicide attempts and desperate unhappiness for her and for the rest of the family seeing her suffer and not understanding why. Since the BPD diagnosis we have read many books including ‘Biological Unhappiness’ and we are now looking for a DBT therapist (we live in England) to help her to cope with her life.
Unfortunately her doctor, psychologist and psychiatrist are not interested in treating her for anything other than ‘depression’ which hasn’t helped her at all. As her mother, what I would dearly like to know is, why has she got BPD? There is no history of BPD in our family and she had a very loving non-abusive or violent in any way upbringing – her sister is perfectly OK. However, she was born 3 months premature, at 26 weeks weighing just 820 grams – a miracle baby, the smallest baby to survive in Australia at that time (1971). Could the trauma of that birth have caused her BPD? Do you know of any doctors in England who treat BPD as you do?
Kind regards.
ANSWER:
Theres no information about birth trauma that Im aware of, but its a logical assumption – particularly in view of the information that head injuries can cause the BPD. Attention Deficit Disorder seems to cause the BPD as well. I dont personally know any doctors in England, but the BPD section on this Website has a wealth of information that a concerned, open minded physician can use.
