Expert care to overcome your Borderline Personality Disorder

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What is Borderline Personality Disorder?

An individual who experiences Borderline Personality Disorder will often describe their lives as unstable. Their moods, behavior, relationship, thinking patterns, and even their identity.

Being on a rollercoaster can often be a great way to explain BPD to individuals who are unable to understand; it is not only because your emotions, feeling, and thinking is unstable, but your sense of who you are as a person seems to vary depending on a variety of factors. Individuals diagnosed with BPD often find it challenging to understand their self-image, foods, or environments that they liked a little while ago they may now dislike; their goals are commonly constantly changing. It can be highly confusing, unclear, and a little scary to continually be in this wavering mindset.

Treatment here at Park Mental Health San Diego aims to reduce the severe impact of your disorder on your overall well-being of life. Our expert practitioners can offer customized treatment programs with your recovery goals and personal situations in mind.

Common Co-Occurring Disorders for Borderline Personality Disorder

Borderline Personality Disorder is a highly complex psychiatric condition that is unfortunately rarely diagnosed independently. Other mental health disorders, substance abuse, eating disorders, and addiction can intensify while subsequently worsening the already severe symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder.

Below we have listed the most commonly associated disorders that can be diagnosed alongside borderline personality disorder. These can include but are not limited to:

The signs and symptoms of BPD

Borderline Personality Disorder has a variety of ways of manifesting itself into an individual. At the same time, some common behaviors and thoughts can broadly apply to many personality disorder types. Any specific symptoms that an individual may experience will ultimately vary depending on the diagnosis you have been given.

You can often find that your symptoms may fit into criteria for various personality disorders. Below we have listed a range of general signs and symptoms that we have witnessed within our customers:

Mental signs and symptoms to look out for:

Rage

Terror

Emptiness

Loneliness

Panic

Upsetting thoughts

Hallucinations

Distressing beliefs

Self harm thoughts

Physical signs and symptoms to look out for

Binge drinking

Drug misuse

Irresponsible activities

Reckless

Self harm

Harm to others

Making threats

Causes of Borderline Personality Disorder

There has been a lot of research and tests going into this specific mental health illness; however, we are yet to determine one general cause that initially triggers BPD. Furthermore, it is thought that various factors can cause an individual to start displaying signs and symptoms of borderline personality disorder.

The unique nature of all our personalities and the complexity involved when forming what makes us who we are is the main reason why there are so many personality disorders out there. Due to our personality being developing mainly during our childhood ages which includes the way we relate to others and observe the world around us, the following experiences as a young child may be a trigger for a personality disorder:

Brain chemicals:

There has been evidence suggesting that individuals diagnosed with BPD have something odd with their neurotransmitters that the rest of the population do not experience, particularly the brain chemical serotonin. There is research to suggest that the imbalance of serotonin level correlates an individual developing BPD.

Genetics:

The genetics that you inherit from your parents can make you vulnerable to specific mental health disorders and diseases. If a blood-related close family member(s) has been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, there is a chance that you may be diagnosed.

Brain development:

Studies have found that many individuals who have been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder have more active and smaller parts of their brain. These affected parts of the brain would have been damaged during the early years of your childhood. Having experienced a traumatic upbringing can negatively impact your behavior, thinking patterns, emotions, and self-control.

Environmental factor:

It has become common to see specific environmental factors be linked to an individual developing borderline personality disorder. These environments can include but are not limited to: Experiencing long term fear and distress as a child | Experiencing abuse | As a child being neglected by either one or both of your parents or caregivers as a child | Growing up in a situation where a close family member has a severe mental health illness such as bipolar or substance addiction.

Take the first step to feel like you again

Individuals diagnosed with borderline personality disorder often live an uneasy, confusing life where they are entirely unsure of who they are. If you find that you or a loved one has begun exhibiting borderline personality disorder symptoms, we advise you to speak to them calmly and communicate that you believe they need to see a medical professional.

Overcoming borderline personality disorder can be a complicated process, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. With the correct treatment for your specific symptoms, experience, severity, and lifestyle, you can learn to manage your symptoms and live life the way you would like.

Treatment for borderline personality disorder will wholly depend on the severity of your symptoms and the underlying cause. Your psychiatrist may recommend medication, therapy, or a combination of the two.

Seeking help is the first and most challenging step. The psychiatrist here at Park Mental Health San Diego will run you through a complete analysis so they can understand the severity of your symptoms, duration, content, and the impact it is having on your life currently. We need to know further if you are taking any medication, your medical history, and your family.

If you have found yourself or a loved one experiencing any of the signs or symptoms of anxiety, please do get in contact with a member of our team to receive the care and help you need.

Selfcare tips for Borderline Personality Disorder

Practicing daily healthy habits that eventually become part of a typical pattern will lead to more effective outcomes regarding your mental health disorder. Creating a healthy routine that you know eases your symptoms when they get bad will help avoid any severe consequences. Below, we have recommended a few activities that immensely helped our past clients recover from BPD. It is essential to understand that while you may always have to live with your mental illness, you do not have to let it control your life.

Engage in some form of exercise, running, dancing, yoga. You can choose to either do this alone or with a trusted family member or friend
Distract yourself with something enjoyable, listen to your favorite artist, watch a film on tv, ring a family member or friend. Try and distract your mind
Learn to meditate, research, or what tutorial for stress-reducing techniques. This can be highly beneficial if you feel yourself being triggered
Educate yourself about your specific diagnosis; this means learning about your symptoms so you can in the future recognize and place a plan in action if you believe your symptoms are worsening
Reach out to a trusted friend or a loving family member about how you feel and think. Often individuals will attempt to suppress their emotions; however, this will not make them disappear. Chose a person on two who support you to lean on them when your emotions start to become overwhelming

Therapy Treatment for Borderline Personality Disorder

Individuals diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder will often be treated using psychotherapy. Personality Disorders will tend to be long-term mental health disorders that require constant ongoing management. However, personality disorders are considered highly treatable to the extent in which you can significantly reduce the severe impacts of the disorder symptoms to allow the individual to live a fulfilling life.

Park Mental Health San Diego has a long-standing history of effectively treating individuals with a personality disorder, allowing us to continually offer you the highest quality of service and treatment. General treatment for BPD will involve one to two sessions a week with a qualified mental health therapist. For therapy to be as effective as possible, the individual and the medical professional must feel comfortable and trust each other with what may be said.

Depending on several factors regarding your borderline personality disorder, you will be offered various evidence-based therapy treatments, with Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) being one of the most effective treatment options. Further therapy treatment options can take form as:

Mentalization-based therapy: A type of talk therapy that can help individuals identify their feelings and thoughts at any given moment will allow them to create an alternate perspective on the situation
Dialectical behavior therapy: Individual or group therapy has been designed to treat individuals suffering from BPD. This therapy uses a skills-based approach to teach individuals to tolerate distress, manage their intense emotions, and improve relationships
Schema-focused therapy: Another therapy that can be completed either in a group or individually. The skill sets help individuals identify unmet needs that have led them to negative life patterns. SFT focuses on getting your needs met in a health approach, promoting positive life patterns
System training for emotional predictability and problem solving
Good psychiatric management
Transference focused psychotherapy

Medication Treatment for Borderline Personality Disorder

There is currently no medication used to treat borderline personality disorders; however, specifically, medication can treat any co-existing mental health disorder such as depression and anxiety, which can reduce the number of symptoms associated with a borderline personality disorder.

Anti-psychotic and specific mood stabilizers can be beneficial during treatment if the individual has been diagnosed with a pre-existing mental health disorder.

While there is currently no medication that the FDA has approved to treat borderline personality disorder, some medication is beneficial in some cases.

Medication can be particularly effective for borderline personality disorder when used with therapy treatment or counseling. Mood stabilizers or specific antipsychotics can help alleviate mood swings, psychotic symptoms and reduce a range of impulsive behaviors.

Types of medication available for Borderline Personality Disorder

Medication can often be prescribed as the first line of treatment for anxiety. Mediation is an effective way to deal with your symptoms, whereas therapy treatment will delve into your mind to understand your root cause of the mental health disorder.

For quick relief of anxiety symptoms, we would typically advise starting medication before our expertly trained therapists dive into it to understand the complex reasons they may be suffering. Below we have a list of medications we often prescribe to our customers who have been suffering from a type of anxiety disorder:

Antidepressants

Antipsychotics

Mood stabilizers

Nardil (phenelzine)

Prozac (fluoxetine)

Zoloft (sertraline)

Effexor (venlafaxine)

Lithobid

Depakote (valproate)

Tegretol or Carbatrol (carbamazepine)

Lamictal (lamotrigine)

Xanax (alprazolam)

Valium (diazepam)

Buspar (buspirone)

Ativan (lorazepam)

Getting started has never been so simple.

Together we will help you feel like yourself again. By following the below three steps, we can get you on the road to recovery. We are looking forwards to meeting you and working on understanding how we can effectively benefit your life.

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Every diagnosis is different. That is why we provide a personal consultation with our clinical team to carefully build a treatment plan tailored to you.

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