Borderline Personality
Disorder
Are you supporting family members or friends with Borderline Personality Disorder?
This can be a stressful, overwhelming and isolating experience. The following information may help you understand what your loved one is going through and how you can look after yourself.
What is Borderline Personality Disorder?
Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a severe mental health condition that causes an individual to experience problems controlling emotions and impulses and it often creates difficulty in maintaining balanced long-term relationships with family, friends and loved ones.
People with BPD fear abandonment, experience mood swings and often act impulsively, causing conflict in their relationships. They lack a clear sense of identity and seem to frequently change ‘direction’, either in their thinking or in their behaviours.
People with BPD show heightened activity in the limbic system, an area of the brain that controls fear, anger and aggression. It is estimated that around 6.5% of the Australian population experience symptoms of BPD these types of problems at any given point in time.
Symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder
Many who experience Borderline Personality Disorder first show signs and symptoms during adolescence or early adulthood. When this mental health condition is not detected and treated as soon as possible, the risk factors for children and teens to carry this condition into adulthood, increase.
Emotional instability
- Extreme emotions/mood swings, from intense love to intense hate
- Chronic feelings of emptiness and isolation
- Explosive anger
- Difficulty expressing feelings
- Suicidal thoughts
Issues with the sense of self and identity
- Dysfunctional, distorted self-image
- Self-criticism and possible engagement in self-harm
- Impulsive, self-destructive behaviours such as unsafe sex, impulse shopping, shoplifting, drug and alcohol abuse, reckless driving, uncontrollable eating or binge eating
Issues with the sense of self and identity
- Dysfunctional, distorted self-image
- Self-criticism and possible engagement in self-harm
- Impulsive, self-destructive behaviours such as practicing unsafe sex, impulse shopping, shoplifting, drug and alcohol abuse, reckless driving, uncontrollable eating or binge eating
What causes Borderline Personality Disorder?
- Biological or genetic factors; people with BPD show heightened activity in the limbic system, an area of the brain that controls fear, anger and aggression
- Relationships with caregivers and significant others in early childhood that were particularly problematic
- Traumatic early life experiences such as abuse, neglect, death of parents
- Stressful social circumstances; financial, work, relationship or family
- Difficulty in learning how to deal with emotions because of their experiences with other people, often during early childhood
Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder
Psychotherapy is the best treatment for Borderline Personality Disorder, with Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) being the most recommended therapy. In the DBT program, the focus is on developing healthy behaviours in an emotional crisis when the person tends to default to unhelpful long-term behaviours such as suicidal behaviours or self-harm.
The therapy works with concepts such as mindfulness or being in the present moment, which helps the individual to be aware of negative emotions and behaviours. It also teaches skills in how to tolerate negative emotions and how to communicate effectively with others, thus dealing with distress more effectively.
Medication can be part of the treatment plan described by the psychiatrist. If depression, anxiety or extreme distorted thinking are prevalent as part of the condition, anti-depressant or anti-psychotic medication may be prescribed.
Please note, HelpingMinds® does not offer DBT therapy. If you have BPD and require DBT therapy, you will require a referral from your GP. If you have someone close to you who is living with BPD, we can offer you support.
People with Borderline Personality Disorder are overly dramatic, manipulative and attention-seeking.
Not true.
People with BPD do not enjoy their condition as it creates chaos and disruption in their life. They do not behave the way they do because they like it or because they have a hidden agenda to act that way. When someone with BPD behaves in a manipulative or attention-seeking manner it is because they lack healthy coping skills and they are desperate to feel well and avoid separation or rejection.
Suicide threats by people with Borderline Personality Disorder aren’t serious.
All suicide threats should be taken seriously.
When someone talks about suicide or indicates they are thinking about suicide, they are at risk, and support from a professional should be sought. Visit the 24/7 crisis helpline page on our website for contact details.
Borderline Personality Disorder isn’t treatable.
False.
BPD is a complex and challenging condition, but effective treatment exists, and support should always be sought. Please encourage your loved one to seek help as soon as possible.
How to help your loved one
Often, we have a strong desire to ‘fix’ or ‘solve’ someone else’s problem, however, this is not your role and should be left to a medical and mental health professional. The best thing you can do is to help them find an appropriate service through a GP, a mental health phone line or by searching for mental health services and support groups online.
At HelpingMinds, we can help you help your loved one by providing information about available treatments for borderline personality disorder as well as support groups in Perth for people living with a borderline personality disorder. To help you, we also conduct support groups for carers of people with borderline personality disorder.
How to help yourself
Having someone close to you who lives with mental health challenges can be exhausting, frustrating, confusing and isolating. But you don’t have to go through it alone. There are several support groups and programs for carers of people with lived experience of mental health challenges.
HelpingMinds® offers free and confidential support to people who are caring for someone living with mental health challenges. We offer free counselling, support groups, rest and revive activities, school holiday programs, family programs, youth programs and advocacy to people living in WA.
Get Support from HelpingMinds®
Would you like to know more about free and confidential mental health carer services and how we can support you? Please feel free to contact HelpingMinds® via the form below or on (08) 9427 7100. For one of our team to get back to you, we will require your email address and/or phone number. Please know all information provided will be treated completely confidential and in line with our privacy policy.