AAPEL – BPD and somatoform disorder

AAPEL – BPD and somatoform disorder

A very interesting article below.

In one of the cases I have been able to become very familiar with, she would feign epileptic episodes in which she would feel an epileptic fit coming one and would be able to fend it off by walking. This is not traditional for epilepsy. She feigned these attacks for some time, and then the appeal began to wear off, the the false epileptic episodes stopped as rapidly as they had started. In researching Borderline personality disorder I learned that Tegretol, a medication prescribed for Epilepsy, was also sometimes used in the treatment of Borderline Personality disorder. She is bulimic, and I learned that Bulimia also causes seizures under certain conditions. The tegretol may have warded off those seizures. As a “cover story” to keep the fact that she has BPD from public view and thereby avoid the stigma, Epilepsy is a very convenient one. One implication of feigning Epilepsy is that the Medical Insurance will pay for the medication if the patient has epilepsy, and in that country the process to inform the Medical Insurance company does not require a certificate of confirmation of diagnosis since the insurance company is not concerned with the patient’s health but rather the risk introduced by any pre-existing conditions. For her this is just one more in a long list of fraudulent behaviors. My suspicion is that her primary motivation for feigning Epilepsy is that she is able to hide her BPD diagnosis from public view, and possibly more saliently from the view of those who become close to her. Feigned Epiliepsy allow her to illicit sympathy, which allows her to manipulate situation whenever it is convenient, allows her to risk getting caught and allows her narcissistic supply through a feeling of power over the insurance company and those she may manipulate in those convenient times. Frequently it exposes a disregard for others, or a lack of empathy.

Below is a very interesting article about BPD and the correlation with Munchausen’s syndrome.

Source: AAPEL – BPD and somatoform disorder

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