Hi bg,
I am new to this forum and i keep getting lost looking for something I've already replied to or posted, but I bumped onto a few of your strands and wanted to respond. Listening to your story is painful and frightening. You are obviously suffering so much. I am glad at least you have a gift for articulating what is going on with you within this forum. I have to tell you that I feel very similarly to you in terms of my experiences with the mental "health" system.
I don't even know where to start with that.
Maybe I'll just try to address the support issues. I was wondering how much you have read about "bipolar disorder" and how you feel about the diagnosis? What about it seems to be an issue for you? I have known a few people with bipolar disorder and racing thoughts, or cyclical thinking seem to be a part of it. When I pointed this out to a friend of mine, he continued to continue to go on (handing someone their problem on a platter doesn't fix it), which I was actually thankful for, because after awhile, I realized that he was stuck emotionally in a certain place, and this place just kept coming up for him in various forms. I can't presume that this is an issue for you, but it seems from some of your posts that the same wounds keep getting reopened and you often feel like the walls are moving in on you. And so it continues to get worse and worse. Then in desparation you do the pretend thing.
I've done that too. But the serious problems are still there and keep resurfacing.
I think alot of people haven't had to deal with the really heavy stuff you have, and so they just don't understand it. If they see someone hurting themself it must be frightening. But then think about how frightening it must be for you too.
You said that the car is a place of SH between traffic lights and so on. I was wondering if maybe you could examine your triggers there. Maybe sitting in your car or riding, your mind wandering, replaying things, suble agitation from the traffic, bordom from waiting, those could all be possible triggers. Those are just my thoughts. But it is very important for you to take a look at what is happening to YOU. Only you can define that. Also, you might ask yourself what times of the day do these thoughts and feelings come on or if that is what's really happening. For instance I SH in the car too, less frequently in the morning and more often when I drive home. I am wondering if you could have a special notebook in your car that you could grab instead of the periphenalia, and just start writing down all of your thoughts and feelings. You have a place here to share them and work on them.
By all means you have a right to let your therapists know what helps you and what does not. The SI seems to be perpetuated by your inability to have a voice in your treatment. You do deserve to get treatment and to have your issues taken seriously. If they cannot listen to you, it
is your choice to seek treatment elswhere. If you are worried about being abandonded by your therapist perhaps the thought of leaving on your own is difficult to say the least. Someone else here, brought up countertransference for the therapist, but it can happen either way for the client too. This is when the therapist starts to remind you of the parent or someone else whom you might have had issues with, so unintentionally the old wounds are not being healed but replayed. Again you find yourself in this position of silence where you don't feel anybody cares and nobody understands. That is the perpetuating problem with trauma, the invalidation.
You have obviously got so many gifts to share
and you do NOT deserve the self imposed torture. Maybe there is a gentle voice that you can remember or some words that are reassuring that you could put up in your car. Something to be kind to yourself. Maybe there is music you can play that would be soothing, if you have a CD player. Your arms and your hands are a blessing. Sometimes we tend to hurt the most precious parts of ourselves.
I am sorry you are going through an illness with your father. I know that having a parent who is ill whom you haven't come to terms with anyway, is a double wammy. You must have so many thoughts and feelings over this. Even if they are the I don't care variety.
I wonder if maybe some of your siblings are preoccupied with some of their own serous issues, even your father being ill, and maybe just don't know how to talk right now because they don't want to bother you when you have so many problems of your own.
You have discussed the difficulties, the conundrum of those difficulties, of sharing important parts of yourself with people whom you are close to.
Finding the balance of keeping somethings to yourself and yet sharing the essentials of what you really need to is so difficult. Disclosure, sharing, is such a learning process for me. I know it has taken me a long time to try and find ways of communicating what is going on with me to people I live with in a way that they understand and don't feel threatened. But it's a two way process. In the beginning nobody even wanted to stop speaking over me, they really never even noticed when I opened my mouth. Maybe there are things that are that way for you too. People have learned to be a certain way with me. When I told my step father that I really didn't want to live anymore, he started rambling on and on about at least five other things. I thought, do you really think I have room for even one more thought in my brain right now? One thing that helps me to forgive him, is that I know distraction was his survival during his frightening childhood. I actually helped him to learn that as an adult its more functional to learn to address people. Over time I have noticed there is more of a give and take between us. I usually allow him to ramble, but several times having pointed out, " is the phone connection going off because every time I speak...", I've noticed that sometimes he will actually stop and wait for me to finish.
The therapists are setting boundaries. But you have a right to set boundaries too. If people expect you to listen to them and you
do listen to them, then you have every concientious right to ask them to listen to you, for yourself and the relationship. That is really only fair.
I know this is a long winded response. I hope that there is something here you can use. And I hope I haven't said something accidentally that could be a trigger for you.
Take good care of yourself,
Alexa
I've managed to hide them from everyone, even my spouse for months. My DBT wanted me to commit to staying safe in May, but I refused. I don't tell them about SH anymore, just tell them I stayed safe now. 
Bill. I can't imagine what life is like for you. I could see where it would be very, very difficult to be a male with BPD. We had a male in our DBT group... but he was able to handle that. He gave the rest of us some very good perspective. Where most BPD women have been abused by men... it's good for them to see a man in a non-threatening manner. I bet you would still have a hard road to go through insisting that your motives were honorable in what you said or did. 
Please try to take care of yourself.
