Counseling Persons With Communication Disorders and Their Families Pdf

personality disorders

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)

If y'all have BPD, everything feels unstable: your relationships, moods, thinking, behavior—even your identity. But there is promise and this guide to symptoms, treatment, and recovery can aid.

What is borderline personality disorder (BPD)?

If you have borderline personality disorder (BPD), you lot probably experience like you're on a rollercoaster—and not simply considering of your unstable emotions or relationships, but likewise the wavering sense of who yous are. Your self-image, goals, and even your likes and dislikes may alter frequently in ways that feel disruptive and unclear.

People with BPD tend to exist extremely sensitive. Some describe information technology as like having an exposed nerve ending. Pocket-size things can trigger intense reactions. And once upset, you accept trouble calming downward. It'south like shooting fish in a barrel to understand how this emotional volatility and inability to self-soothe leads to relationship turmoil and impulsive—even reckless—beliefs.

When you're in the throes of overwhelming emotions, yous're unable to remember straight or stay grounded. You may say hurtful things or act out in dangerous or inappropriate ways that brand y'all feel guilty or ashamed afterwards. Information technology's a painful bike that tin can feel impossible to escape. Only it'south not. There are effective BPD treatments and coping skills that tin assist you feel better and dorsum in command of your thoughts, feelings, and deportment.

BPD is treatable

In the past, many mental wellness professionals found it difficult to treat deadline personality disorder (BPD), and then they came to the determination that in that location was fiddling to be done. But we now know that BPD is treatable. In fact, the long-term prognosis for BPD is improve than those for depression and bipolar disorder. Nevertheless, it requires a specialized approach. The lesser line is that most people with BPD can and exercise get better—and they do and then fairly apace with the correct treatments and support.

[Read: Helping Someone with Borderline Personality Disorder]

Healing is a matter of breaking the dysfunctional patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that are causing you lot distress. It's not easy to modify lifelong habits. Choosing to pause, reflect, and then deed in new means will experience unnatural and uncomfortable at showtime. Simply with fourth dimension you'll form new habits that help y'all maintain your emotional residue and stay in command.

Recognizing deadline personality disorder

Exercise you identify with the post-obit statements?

I ofttimes feel "empty."
My emotions shift very quickly, and I often experience extreme sadness, anger, and anxiety.
I'm constantly afraid that the people I intendance well-nigh will carelessness me or leave me.
I would describe most of my romantic relationships as intense, but unstable.
The style I feel about the people in my life tin dramatically change from one moment to the next—and I don't e'er understand why.
I oftentimes exercise things that I know are dangerous or unhealthy, such as driving recklessly, having unsafe sex, binge drinking, using drugs, or going on spending sprees.
I've attempted to injure myself, engaged in cocky-impairment behaviors such equally cutting, or threatened suicide.
When I'm feeling insecure in a human relationship, I tend to lash out or make impulsive gestures to keep the other person shut.

If you lot identify with several of the statements, you may suffer from deadline personality disorder. Of grade, you need a mental health professional to make an official diagnosis, as BPD can be hands confused with other bug. But fifty-fifty without a diagnosis, you lot may notice the self-help tips in this commodity helpful for calming your inner emotional storm and learning to control self-dissentious impulses.

Signs and symptoms

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) manifests in many different means, but for the purposes of diagnosis, mental health professionals grouping the symptoms into nine major categories. In club to be diagnosed with BPD, you must bear witness signs of at least five of these symptoms. Furthermore, the symptoms must be long-standing (usually starting time in adolescence) and touch many areas of your life.

The 9 symptoms of BPD

Fear of abandonment. People with BPD are often terrified of existence abandoned or left alone. Even something equally innocuous equally a loved one arriving home late from piece of work or going away for the weekend may trigger intense fear. This tin prompt frantic efforts to proceed the other person shut. You lot may beg, cling, commencement fights, rail your loved one's movements, or even physically cake the person from leaving. Unfortunately, this behavior tends to have the contrary event—driving others away.
Unstable relationships. People with BPD tend to have relationships that are intense and short-lived. You lot may fall in love chop-chop, believing that each new person is the one who volition make you feel whole, merely to be apace disappointed. Your relationships either seem perfect or horrible, without any middle ground. Your lovers, friends, or family members may feel like they have emotional whiplash as a upshot of your rapid swings from idealization to devaluation, acrimony, and hate.
Unclear or shifting self-image. When you have BPD, your sense of self is typically unstable. Sometimes yous may feel good about yourself, but other times you hate yourself, or even view yourself equally evil. You probably don't have a articulate idea of who you are or what you desire in life. Equally a event, you may frequently change jobs, friends, lovers, faith, values, goals, or even sexual identity.
Impulsive, self-destructive behaviors. If you accept BPD, you may appoint in harmful, sensation-seeking behaviors, particularly when you lot're upset. You may impulsively spend coin yous tin't afford, binge eat, drive recklessly, shoplift, engage in risky sex, or overdo it with drugs or booze. These risky behaviors may help you feel better in the moment, but they injure you and those around you over the long-term.
Self-harm. Suicidal behavior and deliberate self-damage is common in people with BPD. Suicidal behavior includes thinking about suicide, making suicidal gestures or threats, or really carrying out a suicide try. Self-harm encompasses all other attempts to injure yourself without suicidal intent. Common forms of self-harm include cutting and burning.
Farthermost emotional swings. Unstable emotions and moods are common with BPD. Ane moment, you may experience happy, and the side by side, despondent. Little things that other people castor off can send you into an emotional tailspin. These mood swings are intense, but they tend to laissez passer fairly quickly (unlike the emotional swings of low or bipolar disorder), unremarkably lasting just a few minutes or hours.
Chronic feelings of emptiness. People with BPD often talk nearly feeling empty, as if there'south a hole or a void within them. At the extreme, you may feel as if y'all're "nothing" or "nobody." This feeling is uncomfortable, so you may effort to fill the void with things like drugs, food, or sex. But nothing feels truly satisfying.
Explosive anger. If y'all accept BPD, y'all may struggle with intense acrimony and a brusque temper. Yous may also accept trouble decision-making yourself once the fuse is lit—yelling, throwing things, or becoming completely consumed past rage. It'southward important to annotation that this anger isn't always directed outwards. You may spend a lot of time feeling angry at yourself.
Feeling suspicious or out of touch with reality. People with BPD often struggle with paranoia or suspicious thoughts about others' motives. When nether stress, you may even lose impact with reality—an experience known as dissociation. You may feel foggy, spaced out, or as if you're exterior your own torso.

Common co-occurring disorders

Borderline personality disorder is rarely diagnosed on its ain. Common co-occurring disorders include:

depression or bipolar disorder
substance abuse
eating disorders
anxiety disorders

When BPD is successfully treated, the other disorders oftentimes go improve, too. But the opposite isn't always truthful. For example, yous may successfully treat symptoms of low and still struggle with BPD.

Causes—and promise

Virtually mental health professionals believe that borderline personality disorder (BPD) is caused by a combination of inherited or internal biological factors and external ecology factors, such equally traumatic experiences in childhood.

Encephalon differences

In that location are many complex things happening in the BPD encephalon, and researchers are however untangling what information technology all means. But in essence, if you lot have BPD, your brain is on high warning. Things feel more scary and stressful to you than they do to other people. Your fight-or-flying switch is easily tripped, and one time it's on, it hijacks your rational brain, triggering primitive survival instincts that aren't ever appropriate to the situation at hand.

This may make it sound as if at that place'south cypher you tin can do. After all, what can you exercise if your brain is different? Only the truth is that yous can change your encephalon. Every time yous practice a new coping response or self-soothing technique you are creating new neural pathways. Some treatments, such every bit mindfulness meditation, can even grow your brain matter. And the more you lot practice, the stronger and more automatic these pathways will become. So don't give up! With fourth dimension and dedication, you can change the way yous call back, feel, and human action.

Personality disorders and stigma

When psychologists talk well-nigh "personality," they're referring to the patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that brand each of us unique. No one acts exactly the aforementioned all the time, but we do tend to interact and appoint with the world in fairly consistent ways. This is why people are oft described as "shy," "outgoing," "meticulous," "fun-loving," and then on. These are elements of personality.

Because personality is so intrinsically continued to identity, the term "personality disorder" might leave yous feeling similar at that place's something fundamentally wrong with who you are. But a personality disorder is not a grapheme judgment. In clinical terms, "personality disorder" means that your pattern of relating to the globe is significantly different from the norm. (In other words, you don't act in ways that most people look). This causes consistent issues for you lot in many areas of your life, such as your relationships, career, and your feelings about yourself and others. But most importantly, these patterns can be inverse!

Self-help tips: 3 keys to coping with BPD

Calm the emotional storm
Learn to control impulsivity and tolerate distress
Better your interpersonal skills

Self-help tip i: At-home the emotional storm

As someone with BPD, you lot've probably spent a lot of fourth dimension fighting your impulses and emotions, so credence can be a tough matter to wrap your mind around. Just accepting your emotions doesn't mean approving of them or resigning yourself to suffering. All information technology means is that you lot stop trying to fight, avoid, suppress, or deny what you're feeling. Giving yourself permission to have these feelings can have away a lot of their power.

Effort to simply experience your feelings without judgment or criticism. Permit go of the by and the time to come and focus exclusively on the present moment. Mindfulness techniques can be very effective in this regard.

Start by observing your emotions, every bit if from the outside.
Watch as they come and go (it may assist to think of them as waves).
Focus on the physical sensations that accompany your emotions.
Tell yourself that you accept what you're feeling right now.
Remind yourself that just because y'all're feeling something doesn't hateful it's reality.

[Heed: Eye of the Tempest Meditation]

Do something that stimulates one or more of your senses

Engaging your sense is one of the quickest and easiest ways to quickly self-soothe. You will need to experiment to observe out which sensory-based stimulation works best for you. You'll too need different strategies for different moods. What may help when you're angry or agitated is very different from what may aid when y'all're numb or depressed. Here are some ideas to get started:

Bear upon. If you lot're not feeling plenty, try running common cold or hot (but not scalding hot) water over your easily; hold a slice of ice; or grip an object or the edge of a piece of article of furniture equally tightly as yous can. If you lot're feeling too much, and need to at-home down, try taking a hot bath or shower; snuggling under the bed covers, or cuddling with a pet.

Taste. If you're feeling empty and numb, try sucking on strong-flavored mints or candies, or slowly eat something with an intense flavor, such as salt-and-vinegar fries. If you lot desire to calm down, effort something soothing such every bit hot tea or soup.

Odor. Light a candle, smell the flowers, try aromatherapy, spritz your favorite perfume, or whip up something in the kitchen that smells expert. You lot may notice that you respond all-time to stiff smells, such equally citrus, spices, and incense.

Sight. Focus on an image that captures your attending. This can be something in your immediate surroundings (a great view, a beautiful bloom arrangement, a favorite painting or photo) or something in your imagination that you visualize.

Sound. Try listening to loud music, ringing a buzzer, or blowing a whistle when y'all demand a jolt. To calm down, turn on soothing music or listen to the soothing sounds of nature, such as wind, birds, or the ocean. A audio motorcar works well if you lot can't hear the real thing.

Reduce your emotional vulnerability

You're more than probable to experience negative emotions when y'all're run down and nether stress. That's why information technology's very important to take care of your physical and mental well-being.

Take care of yourself by:

Avoid mood-altering drugs
Eating a balanced, nutritious diet
Getting enough of quality sleep
Exercising regularly
Minimizing stress
Practicing relaxation techniques

Tip 2: Learn to control impulsivity and tolerate distress

The calming techniques discussed above can help yous relax when you're starting to get batty by stress. But what practise you lot do when you lot're feeling overwhelmed past hard feelings? This is where the impulsivity of borderline personality disorder (BPD) comes in. In the estrus of the moment, you're so desperate for relief that you'll do anything, including things you know you shouldn't—such as cutting, reckless sex, dangerous driving, and binge drinking. It may even feel like yous don't have a pick.

Moving from being out of control of your behavior to being in command

It's important to recognize that these impulsive behaviors serve a purpose. They're coping mechanisms for dealing with distress. They make y'all experience improve, even if only for a cursory moment. But the long-term costs are extremely loftier.

Regaining control of your behavior starts with learning to tolerate distress. It's the key to irresolute the destructive patterns of BPD. The ability to tolerate distress will help you press pause when you accept the urge to act out. Instead of reacting to difficult emotions with self-subversive behaviors, you lot will learn to ride them out while remaining in command of the feel.

For a stride-past-pace, self-guided program that will teach y'all how to ride the "wild horse" of overwhelming feelings, check out our free Emotional Intelligence Toolkit. The toolkit teaches you how to:

get in touch with your emotions
live with emotional intensity
manage unpleasant or threatening feelings
stay calm and focused even in upsetting situations

The toolkit will teach you lot how to tolerate distress, just it doesn't stop in that location. It will also teach you how to move from existence emotionally close down to experiencing your emotions fully. This allows you to feel the full range of positive emotions such as joy, peace, and fulfillment that are also cutting off when you attempt to avoid negative feelings.

A grounding practice to help y'all interruption and regain control

One time the fight-or-flight response is triggered, there is no way to "call back yourself" calm. Instead of focusing on your thoughts, focus on what you're feeling in your torso. The following grounding exercise is a uncomplicated, quick way to put the brakes on impulsivity, calm down, and regain control. Information technology tin can make a large deviation in just a few brusk minutes.

Observe a quiet spot and sit down in a comfy position.

Focus on what you're experiencing in your body. Feel the surface you're sitting on. Experience your feet on the floor. Feel your hands in your lap.

Concentrate on your breathing, taking ho-hum, deep breaths. Exhale in slowly. Intermission for a count of three. And then slowly breathe out, again pausing for a count of 3. Continue to exercise this for several minutes.

In instance of emergency, distract yourself

If your attempts to at-home downwardly aren't working and you're starting to experience overwhelmed by destructive urges, distracting yourself may help. All you lot need is something to capture your focus long enough for the negative impulse to go abroad. Anything that draws your attention can work, merely distraction is most effective when the activity is also soothing. In add-on to the sensory-based strategies mentioned previously, hither are some things you might endeavor:

Spotter TV. Choose something that'due south the reverse of what you're feeling: a comedy, if you're feeling sad, or something relaxing if you're angry or agitated.

Do something you enjoy that keeps you busy. This could be anything: gardening, painting, playing an musical instrument, knitting, reading a book, playing a computer game, or doing a Sudoku or word puzzle.

Throw yourself into work. You tin also distract yourself with chores and errands: cleaning your house, doing g piece of work, going grocery shopping, preparation your pet, or doing the laundry.

Get active. Vigorous exercise is a healthy way to get your adrenaline pumping and let off steam. If you're feeling stressed, y'all may desire to try more relaxing activities such as yoga or a walk around your neighborhood.

Call a friend. Talking to someone you trust can be a quick and highly effective way to distract yourself, experience ameliorate, and proceeds some perspective.

Tip 3: Improve your interpersonal skills

If yous take borderline personality disorder, y'all've probably struggled with maintaining stable, satisfying relationships with lovers, co-workers, and friends. This is considering y'all have trouble stepping dorsum and seeing things from other people's perspective. You lot tend to misread the thoughts and feelings of others, misunderstand how others encounter yous, and overlook how they're affected past your behavior. Information technology's non that y'all don't intendance, but when it comes to other people, you take a big bullheaded spot. Recognizing your interpersonal blind spot is the get-go stride. When yous finish blaming others, y'all tin can kickoff taking steps to improve your relationships and your social skills.

Cheque your assumptions

When you lot're derailed by stress and negativity, as people with BPD often are, it's easy to misread the intentions of others. If you're aware of this tendency, check your assumptions. Remember, you're non a mind reader! Instead of jumping to (usually negative) conclusions, consider alternative motivations. As an case, let's say that your partner was precipitous with you on the telephone and now yous're feeling insecure and afraid they've lost interest in you. Before you lot human action on those feelings:

Cease to consider the different possibilities. Maybe your partner is under force per unit area at piece of work. Perchance he's having a stressful twenty-four hour period. Peradventure he hasn't had his coffee yet. There are many alternative explanations for his behavior.

Ask the person to analyze their intentions. One of the simplest ways to check your assumptions is to ask the other person what they're thinking or feeling. Double check what they meant past their words or actions. Instead of asking in an accusatory manner, try a softer arroyo: "I could be wrong, but it feels like…" or "Maybe I'thousand existence overly sensitive, but I go the sense that…"

Put a stop to projection

Do y'all take a trend to take your negative feelings and projection them on to other people? Do yous lash out at others when you're feeling bad most yourself? Does feedback or constructive criticism feel like a personal attack? If so, you may have a problem with projection.

To fight projection, you'll need to learn to use the brakes—only like you did to adjourn your impulsive behaviors. Tune in to your emotions and the concrete sensations in your body. Take note of signs of stress, such as rapid heart charge per unit, musculus tension, sweating, nausea, or light-headedness. When y'all're feeling this way, you're probable to go on the attack and say something yous'll regret later. Pause and take a few irksome deep breaths. And then inquire yourself the following three questions:

Am I upset with myself?
Am I feeling ashamed or afraid?
Am I worried near being abandoned?

If the answer is aye, have a conversation break. Tell the other person that yous're feeling emotional and would like some time to think before discussing things further.

Take responsibility for your part

Finally, information technology'south important to have responsibility for the role yous play in your relationships. Ask yourself how your actions might contribute to problems. How do your words and behaviors make your loved ones feel? Are you falling into the trap of seeing the other person every bit either all good or all bad? Equally you brand an effort to put yourself in other people's shoes, give them the benefit of the incertitude, and reduce your defensiveness, yous'll outset to notice a divergence in the quality of your relationships.

Diagnosis and handling

It'southward of import to remember that you lot tin't diagnose borderline personality disorder on your own. So if you recall that you or a loved one may be suffering from BPD, it's all-time to seek professional person assistance. BPD is often confused or overlaps with other conditions, and then you lot demand a mental wellness professional to evaluate you and make an accurate diagnosis. Try to find someone with experience diagnosing and treating BPD.

The importance of finding the right therapist

The support and guidance of a qualified therapist tin can make a huge divergence in BPD handling and recovery. Therapy may serve as a safe infinite where yous can start working through your human relationship and trust issues and "try on" new coping techniques.

An experienced professional will be familiar with BPD therapies such as dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) and schema-focused therapy. But while these therapies have proven to exist helpful, it's not always necessary to follow a specific treatment approach. Many experts believe that weekly therapy involving education about the disorder, family support, and social and emotional skills training tin can treat near BPD cases.

It's of import to take the fourth dimension to observe a therapist you experience condom with—someone who seems to get you and makes y'all feel accepted and understood. Take your time finding the correct person. But one time you do, make a commitment to therapy. You may starting time out thinking that your therapist is going to be your savior, only to get disillusioned and feel like they take nil to offer. Remember that these swings from idealization to demonization are a symptom of BPD. Try to stick it out with your therapist and let the relationship to grow. And continue in mind that change, by its very nature, is uncomfortable. If you don't ever feel uncomfortable in therapy, yous're probably not progressing.

Don't count on a medication cure

Although many people with BPD accept medication, the fact is that there is very little research showing that information technology is helpful. What's more, in the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not canonical any medications for the treatment of BPD. This doesn't hateful that medication is never helpful—especially if you endure from co-occurring problems such every bit depression or anxiety—but information technology is not a cure for BPD itself.

When it comes to BPD, therapy is much more than constructive. You just accept to requite it time. Even so, your doctor may consider medication if:

You lot accept been diagnosed with both BPD and depression or bipolar disorder.
You suffer from panic attacks or astringent anxiety.
You begin hallucinating or having baroque, paranoid thoughts.
You are feeling suicidal or at gamble of hurting yourself or others.

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Source: https://www.helpguide.org/articles/mental-disorders/borderline-personality-disorder.htm