u/Aggressive_Act_5874

The more I read about those three, the more the lines blur with fear of abandonment, push-pull relationship patterns, emotional intensity, trouble trusting people who get close. They all seem to show up in similar ways.

So i’m trying to understand the actual distinctions:
What separates anxious-avoidant attachment from BPD clinically?

Is CPTSD more about origin (chronic relational trauma) than the symptom picture itself?

Can push-pull attachment patterns exist without it being BPD or CPTSD at all?

Do learning attachment theory change how you see your own patterns, or do it feel separate?

Would love input from clinicians and people with lived experience of either diagnosis.

edit: bpd as in borderline not bipolar

I’m diagnosed with OCD, and my psychiatrist agrees trauma is very much part of my picture (SA history and parental neglect and abandonment) What she hasn’t been able to confirm yet is whether what I’m also dealing with is BPD, CPTSD, or some overlap, and we’re working on.

I have also an anxious-avoidant attachment style, and I notice a strong push-pull pattern with the few people I let close, including, honestly, my own psychiatrist and therapist. I’m socially isolated outside of them, and I’ve become intensely attached to my long-term therapist in particular. At times this all gets heavy enough that I have suicidal ideation, which comes and goes in severity.

I’m trying to understand myself better while my specialists work out the fuller picture, so I’d really appreciate hearing from:

Clinicians/specialists: what are the actual differentiating features between BPD and CPTSD, especially when OCD and trauma are already confirmed and the attachment/relational patterns look similar on the surface?

People with BPD or CPTSD: how did you or your specialist start telling the two apart in your own experience? What did the push-pull with attachment figures feel like from the inside for you?

Not looking for a diagnosis from Reddit, just trying to learn the nuances so I can have a better-informed conversation with my psychiatrist next session. Thanks for reading.

edit: bpd as in borderline not bipolar

So I’m diagnosed with OCD, and my psychiatrist agrees trauma is very much part of my picture (SA history and parental neglect and abandonment) What she hasn’t been able to confirm yet is whether what I’m also dealing with is BPD, CPTSD, or some overlap, and we’re working on.

I have also an anxious-avoidant attachment style, and I notice a strong push-pull pattern with the few people I let close, including, honestly, my own psychiatrist and therapist. I’m socially isolated outside of them, and I’ve become intensely attached to my long-term therapist in particular. At times this all gets heavy enough that I have suicidal ideation, which comes and goes in severity.

I’m trying to understand myself better while my specialists work out the fuller picture, so I’d really appreciate hearing from:

**Clinicians/specialists**: what are the actual differentiating features between BPD and CPTSD, especially when OCD and trauma are already confirmed and the attachment/relational patterns look similar on the surface?

**People with BPD or CPTSD**: how did you or your specialist start telling the two apart in your own experience? What did the push-pull with attachment figures feel like from the inside for you?

Not looking for a diagnosis from Reddit, just trying to learn the nuances so I can have a better-informed conversation with my psychiatrist next session. Thanks for reading.

I’m diagnosed with OCD, and my psychiatrist agrees trauma is very much part of my picture (SA history and parental neglect and abandonment) What she hasn’t been able to confirm yet is whether what I’m also dealing with is BPD, CPTSD, or some overlap, and we’re working on.

I have also an anxious-avoidant attachment style, and I notice a strong push-pull pattern with the few people I let close, including, honestly, my own psychiatrist and therapist. I’m socially isolated outside of them, and I’ve become intensely attached to my long-term therapist in particular. At times this all gets heavy enough that I have suicidal ideation, which comes and goes in severity.

I’m trying to understand myself better while my specialists work out the fuller picture, so I’d really appreciate hearing from:

Clinicians/specialists: what are the actual differentiating features between BPD and CPTSD, especially when OCD and trauma are already confirmed and the attachment/relational patterns look similar on the surface?

People with BPD or CPTSD: how did you or your specialist start telling the two apart in your own experience? What did the push-pull with attachment figures feel like from the inside for you?

Not looking for a diagnosis from Reddit, just trying to learn the nuances so I can have a better-informed conversation with my psychiatrist next session. Thanks for reading.

I used to hate reading. As a teenager, I could stretch out finishing one book for an entire year, it felt like a chore I kept putting off. Then I picked up The Philosopher’s Stone, and something just clicked. I couldn’t put it down. I was reading in the bathroom, reading in bed, finishing all 7 books with one breath.

Since then, reading (especially HP rereads) has become my passion and my escape even in the darkest of times. I genuinely can’t thank J.K. Rowling enough for that first spark.

Anyone else have the same story?

p.s it was my first non-native language book

I’ve read the books maybe a decade ago (so correct me whenever i can be wrong)but i rewatch the movies all the times and so I’ve been down a rabbit hole and I need your help in this. (not even sure if this has been discussed already, so sorry for repetition)

Sooo I think there’s a hidden missed (even not hiddedn already lol) parallel between Dumbledore and Antioch Peverell (the eldest of the Three Brothers) that goes way beyond “he owned the wand.”

The obvious part: In-universe, the Elder Wand’s very first owner was Antioch Peverell, the eldest brother, who is remembered as the Peverell brother tied to the Elder Wand. He got it because he was a belligerent man who demanded the most powerful wand in existence. Classic eldest-brother move: greed for power, not wisdom.

Here’s where it gets interesting: Dumbledore himself doesn’t buy the “Death literally made this wand” story. He speculated instead that wands absorb the character of the wizards who wield them, and more tellingly, he thought the Hallows were more likely invented by a gifted wizard with equally gifted siblings than gifts from Death. So the “creator” of the wand-myth theory basically comes from Dumbledore’s own mouth.

Antioch = eldest brother, power-hungry, dies violently after boasting about the wand (he drunkenly bragged about the wand’s power after killing a rival, and was murdered for it that same night).
Dumbledore = obsessed with power and “the greater good” in his youth alongside Grindelwald, chasing the \*same\* wand, and won it from Gellert Grindelwald as an adult, in the 1940s. it nearly destroyed everything he loved

Both men are defined by the same arc: **eldest-brother energy, wand-lust, a fall from grace, and only real wisdom arriving after tragedy.** Dumbledore spends the rest of his life essentially trying to become the *youngest* brother instead, the humble one who hides from Death rather than courts it. He even tells Harry the truly wise man doesn’t seek the wand at all.

So the theory isn’t that Dumbledore is literally Antioch reincarnated, obviously centuries separate them and canon never states this. It’s that Dumbledore’s entire character arc is a lived reenactment of “The Tale of the Three Brothers,” starting as the eldest and ending as the youngest. JKR basically wrote him as a one-man morality play using his own bedtime story.

Does that track for anyone else, or am I reading too much fairy-tale structure into a 600-page death-symbolism arc?

I was constantly bullied for being quiet, for my good grades and for being the “good girl.” One bully in particular once invited me to a “party” outside school. She gathered a group of kids, surrounded me in circle and forced me to sing, speak, or repeat “I am such a good girl” a hundred times before they’d let me go. They were all laughing at me crying and cheering and acting like a party.

To this day, it never really leaves my mind. I can still feel the shakiness, the panic, the hopelessness I felt in that moment.

What’s your story? Let’s let it out together, let’s burn through the past together in the comments and support each other.

**Update on my recent post:**

So I finally got up the nerve and asked my T if he has countertransference toward me.

His answer, delivered as carefully and kindly as possible, was basically: he doesn't have countertransference toward me, but I'm important to him and he cares about me, both as a person and as his client. I asked if he's ever had countertransference with other clients, and he said whenever he noticed it starting, he worked through it and resolved it himself, because leaving it unresolved wouldn't actually help the work. Then we ended up talking about MY transference instead.

Logically, I know he handled it about as well as a therapist could. My brain fully understands and agrees with everything he said.

But I still felt hurt. And what messes with me is that I can't logically justify the hurt. I know his answer was reasonable, I know it was the "right" clinical response, so why do I still feel this way? Why did some part of me actually want him to say yes, he does have countertransference toward me? Even well knowing that it’s not useful. And, on the same time, not wanting to be more than a client to him, not even for a second.

I've been crying since I got home, trying to think my way into fixing this before next session.

A few things I want to actually understand:

- Does countertransference just mean the therapist feels more warmth or emotional investment toward a specific client than usual, or is it different than that?
- He said countertransference "isn't about the client," but I've read it can be a reaction TO the client's transference. So which is it, or can it be both?
- Is wanting your therapist to have countertransference toward you a normal thing clients feel, or is that its own kind of transference I should be looking at?

Would really appreciate any details on this, if anyone can relate, or any good sources/reading I could look into before my next session.

I'm a huge cryer in therapy, like embarrassingly so, and on top of being sensitive and neurodivergent I've got some pretty severe trauma, but i'm generally avoidant, I don't talk much in therapy and outside, I just suppress. But the second a tear slips out I lose all control over it and it just keeps going.

I feel embarrassed about it every single time in the moment, because it has become a usual thing, it's been years like this, but after each time I feel relieved, lighter, kind of energetic even, like I actually managed to get something out of my body for once.

Then maybe once every couple months I have a session where I don't cry at all (like yesterday), and i feel awful afterwards, I just dissociate through the whole session rather than actually being there, and those sessions wreck me a little because I leave feeling like nothing happened, like it was a waste and then I spend the next few days just waiting for the next one so I can finally feel okay again.

I don't really get the mechanism behind it, like is it some coping thing, or has it just turned into a reflex at this point because it's not intentional at all, or is there some kind of loop where I'm chasing the relief itself now. idk

Because I actually think talking more and discussing stuff would move my progress forward more, but every time I try to talk I end up crying instead, and then until the end the minutes are just spent grounding me back down.

ok so this is gonna sound weird but hear me out.
logically i KNOW my anxiety is just my own internal mess and it’s not actually contagious. but being around people, i get so quiet and awkward and weird that i start to feel like i’m literally making everyone else uncomfortable too. like i can feel the awkwardness in the room and i’m 100% sure i caused it.

so then i get hyper vigilant. i’m trying so hard to say the right word in the right tone, to sound normal, to not be judged, to not “mess up” the vibe more than i already have. and the more i try to control it the more awkward i feel ON THE INSIDE, and the more responsible i feel for everyone else’s comfort too.
and then my brain just spirals into every possible scenario:

1. maybe they’re not used to silence and it’s making THEM anxious

2. maybe they’ve picked up on the fact that i’m quiet and they don’t wanna “bother” me even though they’d actually love to chat

3. maybe they’re scared that if they start a conversation i’ll get visibly anxious, so they just… don’t

4. or maybe, worst case, my quietness is making them think i don’t even like them???

5. etc

like i’m sitting there assuming i’ve become this walking source of social discomfort for everyone around me, when realistically they’re probably just living their life and not thinking about me that hard. but in the moment it feels SO real.

does anyone else feel this way? feel like your anxiety is somehow leaking out and infecting the room?

I've been in therapy for OCD for a while now, and my therapist is the person I trust most in my life. But when my OCD gets bad, I also deal with a lot of rejection sensitivity like when something shifts and I go into this mode where I'm just.. scanning him (not intentionally). I’m being super emotional and hyper vigilant. Every word, every pause, every thing he doesn't say. My brain treats it all like evidence. Is he annoyed with me. Did that sound cold. Am I too much for him.

And then it fixates and I can't let it go, and I end up needing him to tell me "no, I'm not mad" or "that's not what I meant." I don't ask anything, and he doesn't reassure me. I know exactly what's happening while it's happening, which is almost worse becasue i feel also super ashamed and way more anxious, I can see the OCD doing its thing in real time, but knowing that doesn't turn it off. Some part of me just wants him to see how much I'm struggling and reassure me anyway, and another part of me is terrified I'm wearing him out, I care about him too and i don't want to be too much to deal with.

Part of me wonders if even writing this post is another version of the same thing. But I think what I actually want here is trying to understand the pattern itself, and what it's like from the other chair.

So i'm curious what's it actually like when you can tell a client is in that scanning/reassurance-seeking place? Does it feel heavy, or draining, or do you just kind of expect it as part of the work? And can other clients relate to me with this? What helps to fight the loop?

I've been in therapy for OCD for a while now, and my therapist is the person I trust most in my life. But when my OCD gets bad, I also deal with a lot of rejection sensitivity like when something shifts and I go into this mode where I'm just.. scanning him (not intentionally). I’m being super emotional and hyper vigilant. Every word, every pause, every thing he doesn't say. My brain treats it all like evidence. Is he annoyed with me. Did that sound cold. Am I too much for him.

And then it fixates and I can't let it go, and I end up needing him to tell me "no, I'm not mad" or "that's not what I meant." I don't ask anything, and he doesn't reassure me. I know exactly what's happening while it's happening, which is almost worse becasue i feel also super ashamed and way more anxious, I can see the OCD doing its thing in real time, but knowing that doesn't turn it off. Some part of me just wants him to see how much I'm struggling and reassure me anyway, and another part of me is terrified I'm wearing him out, I care about him too and i don't want to be too much to deal with.

Part of me wonders if even writing this post is another version of the same thing. But I think what I actually want here is trying to understand the pattern itself, and what it's like from the other chair.

So i'm curious what's it actually like when you can tell a client is in that scanning/reassurance-seeking place? Does it feel heavy, or draining, or do you just kind of expect it as part of the work? And can other clients relate to me with this? What helps to fight the loop?

I've been in therapy for OCD for a while now, and my therapist is the person I trust most in my life. But when my OCD gets bad, I also deal with a lot of rejection sensitivity like when something shifts and I go into this mode where I'm just.. scanning him (not intentionally). I’m being super emotional and hyper vigilant. Every word, every pause, every thing he doesn't say. My brain treats it all like evidence. Is he annoyed with me. Did that sound cold. Am I too much for him.

And then it fixates and I can't let it go, and I end up needing him to tell me "no, I'm not mad" or "that's not what I meant." I don't ask anything, and he doesn't reassure me. I know exactly what's happening while it's happening, which is almost worse becasue i feel also super ashamed and way more anxious, I can see the OCD doing its thing in real time, but knowing that doesn't turn it off. Some part of me just wants him to see how much I'm struggling and reassure me anyway, and another part of me is terrified I'm wearing him out, I care about him too and i don't want to be too much to deal with.

Part of me wonders if even writing this post is another version of the same thing. But I think what I actually want here is trying to understand the pattern itself, and what it's like from the other chair.

So i'm curious what's it actually like when you can tell a client is in that scanning/reassurance-seeking place? Does it feel heavy, or draining, or do you just kind of expect it as part of the work?