I thought it was time to take a look at Borderline Personality Disorder, or as it is also called Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder. Having being diagnose with the condition myself the ‘Diagnostic names’ don’t sound to promising. Infect, they sound extremely intimidating. This is one of the reasons diagnosis of this condition is not taken lightly. I have heard that other people have found that mental health services did not want to engage with them because of the diagnosis. Luckily this has not happened to me so far. My therapist and psychiatrist are very understanding. I found I was discriminated against more without a diagnosis. So enough about me! Let’s look at the ‘personality’ and personality disorders in general first.
What is a personality disorder[i]?
The term ‘personality’ refers to patterns of thoughts, feeling and behaviour, which is individual to all of us. We don’t always think, feel and behave in the same way, it depends on the situation we are in, the people we are around and many others. However we tend to behave in particular patterns. From these behaviour patterns we can be described as shy, selfish, lively etc. These make up our personality.
As we grow are personality changes and matures, as we go thought difficulty times in life and our circumstances change. Our thinking, feeling and behaviour changes, to cope with life more efficiently with life.
Those with a personality disorder find this more difficult. Patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving are more difficult to change. Also, people with a personality disorder have a more limited range of emotions, attitudes and behaviours, making it more difficult to cope with everyday life, making things difficult for the person with the personality disorder and those around them.
People with Personality Disorders often have different beliefs and attitudes from most people. This can make it difficult to spend time with people as your behaviour can be unexpected and unusual, which can lead you insecure and lonely.
The different types of personality disorder[ii]
In all there are 10 different types of personality disorder and these are grouped into three categories
To find out more about theses personality disorders take a look at Mind.org.uk
Borderline personality Disorder
Those with Borderline Personality Disorder generally have five or more of the following symptoms[iii]:
- Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment
- A pattern of unstable and intense relationships characterised by alternating between idealisation and devaluation.
- Identity disturbance – unstable sense of self-image or sense of self
- Impulsive behaviours that are potentially self-damaging(not including suicidal or self-harming behaviours)
- Recurrent suicidal or self-harming behaviours
- Insatiability due to reactivity of mood – e.g intense episodic dysphonia, irritability or anxiety lasting a few hours, really more than a few days.
- Chronic feeling of emptiness
- Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger
- Stress related paranoia ideation or sever dissociative symptoms
Each person’s experience of Borderline Personality disorder is different and should be treated as such.
For me I find it difficult to regulate my emotions or find a middle between the intense feeling. These feelings can be overwhelming and difficult to deal with. I dealt with this by engaging in self- harming behaviours, eating disorders, and if things got too much, attempting suicide. The feeling of emptiness makes it difficult to be on my own, or ‘be with myself’. I attach onto others, behave as that do to feel the ‘gap’. I feel that I don’t know who I am, which is the scariest thought, that I might be really nothing. I experience dissociative symptoms which can skew my perception, sometimes the world doesn’t feel real or that I am not real. Sometime I feel as if I am floating watching myself carry out everyday tasks. I have a difficulty to make and maintain friends, mainly because my reaction to small event can be extreme and un called for. I push people away if I feel like they will leave me, sometimes I cling on to them for dear life. Basically it is a very crippling disorder and effects my life and those around me. BUT!!! There is HOPE!!!
Recovery
‘Recovery’ is possible. To get to a point where the behaviours, thoughts and feeling don’t impact you as much.
That statistics say that those diagnose with the condition improve in the long term(10-15 years), with 50 to 75 per cent no longer showing enough symptoms to meet the criteria for the diagnosis.
There are a variety of treatments available some you may wish to look at in more detail[iv]:
- Dialect Behavioural Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
- Problem-Solving Therapy
- Manual-Assisted Cognitive Therapy
- Interpersonal Psychotherapy
- Cognitive Analytic Therapy
- Psychodynamic Psychotherapy adapted for Borderline Personality Disorder
- Metallisation- based Therapy
Take a look at mind for more information on these therapies.
Although Borderline Personality Disorder is considered lifelong with the right treatment and therapy you can recover. Never give up! There is always hope!
Each person’s recovery is a journey, it may not be strait forward, there may be bumps in to road. Recovery is more about learning about yourself and reducing the impact it has on you, rather than eliminating the condition all together.
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance
[i] Mind booklet – Understanding Personality Disorders
[ii] Mind booklet – Understanding Personality Disorders
[iii] Understanding personality disorders, an introduction. Duane L. Dobbert -Page 65
[iv] http://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/borderline-personality-disorder-bpd/bpd-treatments-and-recovery/#.Vi4FONLhBko
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