Borderline personality disorder affects approximately two percent of adults. It can manifest as mood instability, difficulty with interpersonal relationships, and high rates of self-injury and suicidal behavior.
What is Borderline Personality Disorder?
People with BPD, originally thought to be at the “border” of psychosis and neurosis, suffer from difficulties with emotion regulation. People with BPD exhibit high rates of self-injurious behavior, such as cutting and, in severe cases, significant rates of suicide attempts and completed suicide.
As with other mental disorders, the causes of borderline personality disorder aren’t fully understood. In addition to environmental factors — such as a history of child abuse or neglect — borderline personality disorder may be linked to:
- Genetics. Some studies of twins and families suggest that personality disorders may be inherited or strongly associated with other mental disorders among family members.
- Brain abnormalities. Some research has shown changes in certain areas of the brain involved in emotion regulation, impulsive and aggression. In addition, certain brain chemicals that help regulate mood, such as serotonin, may not function properly.
Some factors related to personality development can increase the risk of developing borderline personality disorder. These include:
- Hereditary predisposition. You may be at a higher risk if a close relative has the same or a similar disorder.
- Stressful childhood. Many people with the disorder report being sexually or physically abused or neglected during childhood. Others have been exposed to hostile conflict and unstable family relationships.
- Personality. Personality traits that include impulsiveness and aggression may play a role in the development of borderline personality disorder.
- Depression
- Alcohol or other substance misuse
- Anxiety disorders
- Eating disorders
- Bipolar disorder
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
- Other personality disorders
Signs of Borderline Personality Disorder?
People with borderline personality disorder may experience mood swings and display uncertainty about how they see themselves and their role in the world. As a result, their interests and values can change quickly. These shifting feelings can lead to intense and unstable relationships. Other signs or symptoms may include:
- Efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment, such as rapidly initiating intimate (physical or emotional) relationships or cutting off communication with someone in anticipation of being abandoned
- A pattern of intense and unstable relationships with family, friends, and loved ones, often swinging from extreme closeness and love (idealization) to extreme dislike or anger (devaluation)
- Impulsive and often dangerous behaviors, such as spending sprees, unsafe sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, and binge eating. Please note: If these behaviors occur primarily during a period of elevated mood or energy, they may be signs of a mood disorder—not borderline personality disorder
- Constant self doubt
- Self-harming behavior, such as cutting
- Recurring thoughts of suicidal behaviors or threats
- Intense and highly changeable moods, with each episode lasting from a few hours to a few days
- Chronic feelings of emptiness
- Inappropriate, intense anger or problems controlling anger
- Difficulty trusting, which is sometimes accompanied by irrational fear of other people’s intentions
- Feelings of dissociation, such as feeling cut off from oneself, seeing oneself from outside one’s body, or feelings of unreality
- Distorted and unstable self-image or sense of self
- See everything as either good or bad
Scientific Backing of Borderline Personality Disorder
A referral to some signs and symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder.
Two factors that create emotional turmoil in borderline personality disorder.
Understanding and analyzing living with borderline personality disorder.
Key Benefits of Treatment at Exult
Treatment helps many people—even those with the most severe forms of BPD—gain better control of their mood swings and other BPD symptoms. Here are some other benefits of Exult Healthcare:
- Medications – Mood stabilizers, atypical anti-psychotics, and antidepressants
- Therapy
- Group therapy
- Access to on-site psychiatrist
- Providers working together
- Tailored programs to fit your needs
- Afternoon and weekend hours
- Yoga and Mindfulness
When you have difficulty maintaining relationships, increased feelings of emptiness, and increased self-harming behaviors.
Dialectical therapy, which deals with impulse control, trigger inhibition, and identifying negative emotions.
We do take multiple insurances such as United, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna, and Medicare but we suggest you discuss any major medical decisions with your insurance provider.
We offer medication management but we try to keep an open discussion between the client, therapist, and psychiatrist as to the needs of the client.
Let us help you empower yourself!