- DX'D -

i’m not a doctor, but i don’t believe flashbacks are a mandatory symptom of ptsd, just a very common one. i also don’t remember most of my childhood and very rarely have actual flashbacks to moments from back then (though when i do they’re definitely more intense than anything else because they’re shoved deep down within my psyche).

repression is another very real form of trauma.

humans also have the ability to experience extensive abuse and come out of it un-traumatized. another possibility is the sexual assault just affected you more than the abuse from your parents did. in that case, it still wouldn’t mean you weren’t abused, you’d just have responded differently.

tl;dr: yes there is a difference. yes they are also connected.

though these things often go hand in hand, they are not interchangeable. even just going off of basics, bpd is a personality disorder, while depression and anxiety fall under mood disorders. speaking strictly medically, they aren’t in the same categories.

unfortunately, it’s very easy to mix these things up, as their symptoms cross streams constantly, so while your depression/anxiety combination could never be categorized legitimately as a personality disorder, you could very well exhibit many of the same symptoms and behaviors that one with bpd would.

the easiest way to look at the difference between a mood disorder and a personality disorder is that while a mood disorder focuses on, you guessed it, mood (or, more accurately, how an individual experiences and deals with emotions), personality disorders highlight a fundamental difference between an individual with said disorder and what’s considered the “norm.”

so, while someone with depression may act out similarly to someone with bpd during an episode (or a period of intense emotional output), it is considered a temporary departure from their norm, as they will eventually return to an emotionally balanced state. on the flip-side, while there is the possibility for someone with a personality disorder to be in a stage of “remission” where they are more or less emotionally leveled, as a whole the individual would live constantly in that state of emotional flux (or emotional stagnation depending on the pd), never quite returning to what others would consider balanced.

this fact ties into why many with personality disorders have trouble managing interpersonal relationships: at their roots they are vastly different than the majority (compare this with someone with depression who is “usually normal” but can become erratic under certain circumstance). there is leeway here too, of course, as the amount of time individuals experience their anxiety or their “bouts of depression” vary, but those who experience them for longer periods tend to begin trending towards a bipolar disorder diagnosis (which is one of the most common misdiagnosis before borderline). so...as i said, it’s really all muddy waters.

someone: what’s wrong??