Answering Your Questions about Understanding Emotional Dysregulation in BPD - What You Need to Know

hi it's Dr Fox licensed psychologist in the state of Texas and I thought in this video I do something a little different and I thought that we would do like a mailbag video because I get emails from folks from different parts of the world they have a variety of different questions about BPD about how to manage BPD and about relationships and different aspects and I thought well let's try doing a mailbag video of two emails that I received recently now both people have been contacted and they both said that they were okay with me doing a video based upon their emails so the first one is Miss K and Miss K wrote good day sir sounds very nice I have a couple of questions for you about BPD and C BPD which is complex BPD do we switch personalities is it normal to feel like you're in a shell and disconnected from everything and everyone I feel crazy sometimes because I'm missing pieces of my memory also what about using marijuana for mood swings and episode control there is a lot I would like to ask you if you have the time thank you very much well thank you Miss K I think that that's great I think that these are really good questions and let's unpack that first do individuals switch personalities and I think it's important to realize that a lot of times individuals that have an unstable self-image which a lot of individuals along the BPD Spectrum do have is that when they're uncertain about how they feel about themselves or understand themselves they Define themselves Moment by moment and it's this very fluid sense of identity and with that fluid sense you end up trying to fit in or Define Yourself by what's going on externally so if you have friends that are goth or a few friends that are very financially focused or a particular political view you may actually try to conform to those views to those values dress similar to them behave and act the way they do but in changing those personalities those different emotions is that you're constantly defining yourself so not only are you trying to fit into these external environments and social patterns and groups but you're also trying to understand where you are and defining Yourself by the emotions that you feel at every moment so there isn't that stability of self-image and understanding that how you feel about yourself and in how you recognize what's important to you where your values are what your goals are that you have to define those yourself and I know that can be really hard for a lot of folks who are along the BPD spectrum is that self-definition is really difficult because a lot of times folks grow up in environments where anything that they believe is wrong anything that they feel is wrong so so how do you develop a stable self-image if you were brought up in an environment where everything you think and feel and say is wrong so what happens as adults or as we get older we have to start defining ourselves realizing what we like and what you like is what you like what you're comfortable with as long as not hurting anybody else is okay and defining that and recognizing that and holding true to it that's part of developing that self-image also another part of the email was is it normal to feel like you're in a shell and disconnected from everything and everyone now Miss K could be hinting at experiences of dissociation where you feel that when your anxiety gets really high and you develop a lot of fear that you start to separate from your environment you can feel like a shell Sometimes some of my clients will describe it as though they're behind Plexiglas right so when you go to a movie theater and there's the ticket box and you have that thick clear partition between you in the ticket seller that sometimes they feel like that they feel that sense of Disconnect that sense of distance that is certainly something very common for a lot of folks that are along the BPD Spectrum so they get that sense of Disconnect that sense of sort of a distance as though they're not close to anyone or what's going on around them but they feel this sense of Disconnect this dissociation they have disassociated from what's going on around them and who they're with also she mentioned about issues of memory now I do have a video coming out on this it's probably already been released so I'll put the link right here on memory and in a nutshell what happens is is that when we have all of this tummel all of these anxieties and issues and fears and inconsistencies and these Great Waves of emotion it's hard for us to remember things and that can be older memories or to develop new memories as well so really our emotions can adversely impact our ability to recall information as well as to take in information so we see that a lot with individuals with BPD that their emotional swings right those mood swings do adversely impact their ability to recall memories as well as develop new ones but I go into more depth in the video so if if this intrigued you check out that video that would be great and then also what about using marijuana for mood swings and episode control I think that we have to be really careful in regards to using any substance in order to maintain our sense of self-control now you may be saying oh yeah what about you know this medication this medication this medication this medication I understand that I think that we need to be careful I'm going to broaden out that concept of just you know marijuana and if we broaden it out I think we need to be careful I try to work with with my clients about building this sense of self-efficacy building this sense of self-control that I think when we're dependent on anything to help us manage our sense of self to manage our behaviors and our perspective I think that we get overly focused fixated or overly attached to that substance whatever it is now of course I'm not telling you that you know you should quit your medication or that you know you don't do this or don't do that that's that that's not for me to judge what I'm trying to do is encourage you to not be dependent on an external force in order to control yourself now some some people need that and absolutely and I completely understand that and depending on where you live in the world and legal issues and all that I'm not going to promote or anything like that one one thing over another I think we have to be really careful but I think we do have to be careful because the clients that I have encountered who do use marijuana attention to use it in great amounts and it can often create a sense of Disconnect a sense of numbness to the world around them and I think you have to be really careful because it's hard to be in treatment when we're doing exploration and you're numb and I think that in many ways as hard as it is I think part of the process maybe the part of why you subscribe to my Channel or you watch my my videos is to try to get a sense and a connection to have greater control over your life and I think that marijuana and other issues certainly can get in the way of that and let's check out the next email so my next email comes from Miss f and Miss F says I wish I could be more positive about my life right now more than you could imagine saw another psychiatrist at Community Mental Health today and she told me that not only I have got BPD depression anxiety and psychotic symptoms but she says that I have dependent personality disorder which apparently they have thought for some time this was a huge shock to me it only recently that I seemed to have gotten more and more dependent on other people than I used to be I know my mental health is deteriorated over the last few years I rewatched your video on BPD codependency and dependency is it truly possible to overcome all of this so miss F what I want to say is I genuinely believe yes it is possible I think that there are several components I would never critique another mental health provider but I think that a lot of my clients are aware of what diagnoses are present what issues are at work here and I think that even though I may not remain an overly focus on the labels which is you know say borderline personality disorders narcissistic personalities disorder dependent personality disorder we don't overly focus on those things what we do is we focus on those maladaptive patterns that are associated with those things because I discourage my clients from defining themselves by the adverse issues that we have I I think that there is way too much pathologizing of our clients of each other even outside of a therapeutic environment I think we need to focus on what do we bring to the table in a positive regard what can we do to positively influence ourselves and one another so that being said I do believe that these issues at hand that she can and you can watching this video manage all of those issues I think that first and foremost what I would do is not try to manage all of them in one fail swoop I think you're going to get overwhelmed and you're going to be pushed back to those old maladaptive patterns this is why I talk about core content and surface content because what it does is instead of having 25 different symptoms to manage that we talk about core content what are those driving factors to those maladaptive patterns those surface so surface structure that surface content and that I think helps not only to sort of clarify but also Target what we're moving towards now my books are specifically designed to talk about core content and surface content I think that's really important for folks to do that it's not enough just to say okay well I'm going to work on you know borderline personality disorder and and I think that's great to have that as a goal but the reality is is that if you just look at your house and you say okay well I'm gonna fix my house what are you gonna do first I mean you're just going to try to fix your house all in one fail swoop I mean if you're Harry Potter that's cool and you can just you know whip the wand around but we're not right and we can't do that and I recognize that Miss f is saying that over time she's noticed and this is important that she's noticed that she's become more dependent over time and I think you're seeing some good insight there and if I was her therapist I would grab on to that insight and I would say okay what other facets of your life do you see yourself moving in what is your trajectory and what are those maladaptive patterns and what's driving her along that trajectory that can help her build Insight we use insight to develop adaptive strategies when you use those adaptive strategies you lessen your dependency on maladaptive patterns and you can do things differently even if you have BPD depression anxiety psychotic symptoms and dependent personality disorder you can it's getting to that core content not getting overwhelmed having a therapist or mental health provider who can help guide you through that so that you can be successful and it's not going to be one fail swoop it's something that that takes time and effort and hopefully she has as well as you watching this video hopefully you have someone that can help you along the way too to build those skills build that Insight recognize that core content and manage that surface content those maladaptive patterns that fall into depression anxiety traits and symptoms of BPD and dependent personality disorder or whatever disorder you're contending with so I hope you enjoyed this video please let me know if if you like the mailbag episode I always wanted to do a video mailbag where people could send in videos you can talk about in their own words about what's going on and then I would respond to to those videos I think that would be really neat we'd have to be careful you know and things like that it's just general idea let me know what you what you think about that but uh mainly certainly the the mailbag uh video and that would be really great and I hope that you got a lot out of it and please like share and subscribe and comment too I love the comments please keep them in there I know people read them and they get a lot of benefit so thanks a lot and please take care bye bye

Channel: Dr. Daniel Fox

Views: 21,894

Keywords: bpd mood swings, bpd episode, bpd emotional dysregulation, emotional dysregulation disorder, emotional dysregulation trauma, emotional dysregulation symptoms, emotional dysregulation bpd, emotional dysregulation ptsd, emotional dysregulation, dr fox borderline personality disorder, dr fox bpd, dr fox narcissism, dr fox narcissistic parents, dr fox effects, dr fox favorite person, dr fox bpd relationship, mental illness, medcircle, bpd symptoms, mental health awareness

Id: nTtK7BPWncA

Length: 13min 10sec (790 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 11 2023