Last Updated on March 12, 2024 by admin
Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a different mental illness that is often mistaken for bipolar disorder. BPD is a multifaceted condition that makes the person feel insecure about themselves and others. The whole kit and caboodle feel unstable to them; their relationships, thoughts, moods, behavior, and even their identity!
BPD has been described by many who suffer from it as the sensation of having an exposed nerve ending, allowing them to be triggered by minor events. They may experience episodes of depression, anger, and anxiety that can last a few hours to days. Let us understand how Borderline Personality Disorder affects people’s lives.
Table of Contents
In-depth Understanding of BPD Patients’ Life
This condition makes the patient feel uncomfortable under their skin. This impacts the person’s self-image, likes, dislikes, and goals. When agitated, many people with BPD act impulsively, have strong emotions, and experience dissociation and paranoia. This emotional instability can strain relationships. The inability to self-soothe can lead to risky actions.
Due to their high anger and distress levels, BPD patients are usually on the verge of feeling offended. Their struggle with beliefs and thoughts about themselves and others can cause misery in many areas of their lives. They often live with intense fear and abandonment issues, which makes them live alone.
Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a mind-body condition. The symptoms show up during adolescence to early adulthood, but the early stages of symptoms can start from childhood.
Symptoms of BPD
Uncertainty in Relationships:
Short-term and intense relationships are normal for people with BPD. It is unusual for someone with this illness to have strong, unstable forces join forces to create severe and fast-changing emotions.
A person with BPD may fall in love and believe that the other person will make them happy. This leaves the individual feeling hurt and disappointed, and it can worsen the emotional swings.
Self-Harming Nature:
People suffering from BPD often engage in self-harming activities such as thinking about suicide and making suicidal threats. They engage in dangerous sensation-seeking behavior, especially when they are furious.
Self-harming activities include:
- Taking drugs regularly
- Engaging in dangerous and unhealthy binge drinking
- Going on a shopping spree
- Cutting or self-injury
Extreme-Level Mood Swings:
BPD can make a person experience an unstable level of moods and emotions. They can feel delighted one minute and then extremely depressed or disappointed the next. Their emotions are also quite powerful and change. They can persist from a few minutes to several hours or more.
Persistent feelings of emptiness or unimportance:
Many people with the disorder experience feelings of hollowness or worthlessness. People with BPD express feelings as though there is an emptiness inside them or that they are unimportant. As a result, people seek satisfaction through drugs or food.
Feeling Suspicious About Reality:
Many people with BPD are skeptical of their surroundings. They battle with anxiety and distrust about the intentions of those around them. They may lose contact with reality and become disassociated when they are anxious. Disassociation makes you feel disoriented, hazy, or as if you are not in your own body.
Volatile Feelings of being Anger:
Many people with BPD struggle with an intense level of temper. It makes it difficult for them to feel in control of their emotions once they feel provoking emotions. It will turn into a rage, which can even result in self-harm. Instead of being with others, the person may become angry at themselves.
What is the treatment for a borderline personality disorder?
To maintain a better emotional balance, treatment requires breaking down the dysfunctional patterns of the brain’s thinking, emotions, and behavior that produce misery. As part of a Borderline Personality Disorder treatment strategy, healthcare practitioners may recommend medication.
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy:
Mindfulness, interpersonal effectiveness, emotion control, and distress tolerance are the four skill sets emphasized in DBT. It teaches patients how to manage their robust emotions and break damaging habits.
Mentalization-Based Treatment:
MBT attempts to assist patients by enhancing interpersonal and relationship skills while lowering self-destructive behaviors. Mentalizing is concerned with your ability to distinguish and concentrate on your emotional state of mind. It differentiates your ideas and feelings from those of others.
Transference-Focused Psychotherapy:
By focusing on the patient’s sense of identity, TFP tries to build more stable and realistic experiences of self and others. One’s sense of self may be contradicted if they have BPD. TFP focuses on problems with interpersonal relationships, self-esteem, and mood due to their identity.
There are many borderline personality disorder treatment centers, which offer many therapies. It is advisable to talk to your therapist about your needs. They can guide you as per your requirements.
Parting Thoughts
Genetics, brain abnormalities, and environmental factors can all contribute to BPD. It is difficult to predict who will have it due to all possible risk factors. BPD does not occur alone; it includes depression, anxiety disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse disorders, etc. I hope you have clarity about borderline personality disorder and its treatments.
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