BPD Severity - What is It and How Does it Affect You?

hi it's dr fox licensed psychologist in state of texas and in this video i'm going to help you identify the severity of your bpd and this this can be really tricky right and of course you know this is just the video this is just for you to build insight whereas you could talk to your therapist about it or may even encourage you to go see a mental health provider they can do testing or they can help clarify some of the stuff that we're going to go over today so what we're going to do is we're going to go through these nine dsm criteria and i'm going to put up a scale from absent to mild moderate or severe and i'm going to ask you right on a piece of paper to note that number one that you may say is severe for me right or number two right when we go through number two then write oh is this moderate for me and what we wanna do is we wanna build your insight into this and at the end we'll talk about what all this means and putting it all together okay to kind of help you have that insight because insight empowers you with choice when you're empowered with choice then you can use that to develop adaptive strategies to do your life differently to create the life that you want and not feel like bpd is constantly interfering with your goals and the things that you want to attain in your life to do it different so let's get into it here we go let's start with number one and don't forget right that you have your piece of paper okay and we're going to go from absent mild moderate severe here we go so number one now number one is an intense fear of abandonment even going to extreme measures to avoid real or imagined separation or rejection and now when we go through this criteria of course right we know you're going to rate it you're going to write it out is it absent mild moderate or severe for yourself but abandonment can be one of those classic core content areas for a lot of individuals with bpd abandonment rejection fears these are things that a lot of my clients feel in their gut right in their soul this is such an intense fear for them and a lot of times it's that core content that central component that activates other behaviors now think about that okay when i feel abandoned or rejected what am i driven to do what are my coping behaviors what are your maladaptive beliefs behaviors and patterns you may attack yourself right you may then become aggressive with someone else you may then send like hate text or whatever it is so how intense is this absent mild moderate or severe now let's go to number two this is a pattern of unstable intense relationships this is where you kind of idealize someone but then something happens right then they get devalued then you see them as less than or terrible or the devil so how often does this happen how intense is this experience how intense are these unstable intense relationships are they absent do they not occur and say no all my relationships are stable and cool are they mild yeah you know they happen a little bit they're not that intense we resolve it no problem is it moderate was like yeah sometimes it's pretty rough and other times you know we kind of manage it or is it severe meaning that they're all intense you have a lot of intense arguments where you're throwing stuff cursing each at each other all this other stuff so is it absent mild moderate or severe number three this is rapid changes in self-identity or self-image that include shifting your goals and values and you see yourself as bad or as if you don't exist at all and this goes to that unstable self-image right that uncertainty of who you are what your goals are what you believe in and this also attaches to another component that a lot of my clients experience whereas if they feel like well if i'm not in a relationship or if i'm not being heard or if i'm not being recognized then i don't exist then i'm invisible and that can create a lot of fear intense fear that sense of unstable self-image if you don't know who you are how do you know you're here and how do you know if you're being listened to so it all factors into this one criteria this one component so how intense is that for you absent mild moderate or severe number four this is periods of stress related paranoia and loss of contact with reality this can last from a few minutes to a few hours so what happens is is that your stress gets kicked off right how high does your stress need to be and it's different for everybody some folks hit a 10 real easy some folks only have two numbers zero meaning just two and ten i'm just losing it so but there are numbers in between right there are numbers you may just feel the 0 and the 10 but there are numbers in between okay so when we talk about that stress level you want to think okay at what stress level do i feel like people are going to leave me do i feel like that people are going to hurt me people are taking advantage of me or that that stress becomes so intense that you kind of feel like you're distant from yourself like you're distant from reality it's the sense of separation it's disassociating essentially and if you're not sure what this is i do have a video on disassociation that you might be interested in checking out if you want to learn a little more about it okay so again for this one so those periods of stress related paranoia and loss of contact with reality how intense is that you could even say how frequently does this occur and how disruptive in my life is it is it not disruptive at all absent is it mildly disruptive is it moderately disruptive i know you know the next one is it severely disrupted okay so now let's talk about five and five is impulsive and risky behaviors this could be gambling reckless driving unsafe sex spending sprees binge eating or drug abuse or sabotaging success by suddenly quitting a job or ending a positive relationship and these are all sort of impulsive and risky behaviors but what's interesting about this is that it keeps your bpd in place in many cases and many of my clients what happens is is that they feel like they're going on a good trajectory right things are going well they're helping themselves or utilizing some adaptive strategies they're trying out new new coping strategies branching out changing their interpersonal circle and then they get this sense or this family in the head kind of grabs in and starts saying these things makes them feel less than and pushes them back to that bpd comfort zone and by comfort zone i mean it's a good thing right it's just where some folks are used to being right so it doesn't and that impulsive and risky behavior can be can be fed by that family in the head where it's destructive enough that you go back to that bpd comfort zone right we don't want you there that's why we're building insight okay so how impulsive and risky behavior how often does this happen and how destructive is it in your life absent mild moderate or severe so the next one is suicidal threats or behavior or self-injury this is often in response to fear of separation or rejection now of course if you're thinking about hurting yourself you're thinking about ending your life it's so important to reach out and get help and that is critical first and foremost we have to know that okay you have to reach out to good resources i will put a link in the comment section that will provide contact resources as my videos which is very nice are seen all over the world i put an international suicide prevention contact in the comments section right that you can click on that link and it'll send you there to take care of yourself all right now back to us building insight in into this criteria now how intense and how frequent are these suicidal threats or behavior or self-injury and it's really important to get an idea as to how reactive this is now remember right that actually suicidal thoughts and engaging in self-harm these are actually what are called surface content issues which is that a lot of times you may have the sense of abandonment the sense of rejection the sense of of being invisible of not being recognized where you have that that feeling and immediately almost as if by default you have this thought well then i shouldn't be here i shouldn't exist well i should just send my leg well i'm going to hurt myself or something like that and sometimes it becomes this default response a habit in some cases that you have developed over time and we want to change that that's part of what this is about so when we mark this one of course talk about the intensity and also the driving force behind it is it absent if it doesn't exist that's great because not everyone with bpd self-harms or has suicidal threats or behavior okay so and some of these criteria you're not going to have right so you may not have this one that's okay so then you'd mark it as absent is it mild moderate or severely destructive in your life now the next one is wild mood swings lasting from a few hours to a few days now this can include intense happiness irritability shame or anxiety now this is that criteria that relates to those depressive spirals is that even though individuals with bpd that don't have major depressive disorder as part of their complex bpd if you want to learn more about complex bpd i have a book out you can check that out but going back to the issue at hand is that so those depressive spirals that's different than a major depressive episode it's certainly you know it's this sense of dysphoria the sense of sadness this prince of negative outlook but it also is this sense of feeling sad and hopeless now you can also spiral up right and that would be anxiety right is that something is triggered something happened and you have these spirals up now because of these shifts in mood swings right and sometimes you know it is intense happiness irritability shame or anxiety that bpd can often be confused with bipolar disorder and we don't want to do it and this is that criteria that relates to that okay now it is possible for you to have both certainly a little over a quarter of individuals with bpd also meet the criteria for bipolar disorder as well and that's what makes up their complex bpd as well okay so again if you want to learn more you can check out that book but for this video right we're talking about ratings right so we're going to rate it so your mood swings okay now we're rating certainly the intensity of those mood swings but also how impactful they are in your life are they absent right do you not have mood swings or are they mild moderate or severe and also how impactful they are in your life as well number eight this is ongoing feelings of emptiness now a lot of my clients kind of describe it that they feel like they have this void inside of them this hole inside of them that no matter what they do they can't fill it and as they struggle with it they and they as they try to define it they say well it's not a perfect circle it's more in this odd ever changing shape right and if you can't really you know get the shape down how do you understand what it is and how would you feel it right and i think for a lot of folks who experience this emptiness probably know what what i'm talking about so as we're talking about your emptiness we want you to rate is it absent do you not have that feeling of emptiness and some individuals with bpd do not or is it mild moderate or severe and then for the last one number nine this is inappropriate intense anger such as like frequent losing your temper being sarcastic or bitter or having physical fights so how intense is your anger maybe you're not an angry person you know not not everybody with with bpd explodes and has this intense anger sometimes there's inner anger we want to count that too because sometimes it can be directed internally at yourself you could say really negative things to yourself you could you know sometimes self-harm out of feeling degraded or feeling a low sense of self-worth or things like that and that we can count that here that that can be part of that intense anger that you have and also outward anger outward anger would be right you yell and scream at others maybe you throw stuff things like that so it's important to consider that as well so is this absent mild moderate or severe okay so now that we've gone through these nine criteria what i want you to do is i want you to put them all right take a look at them which ones are severe which ones are moderate and which ones are mild and then what i want you to do is think about okay what core content is associated with my severe right criteria my moderate criteria my mild criteria and that will give you insight and say hey you know what when i feel abandoned my severe or you could say severe and mild right it's not going to be nice and mutually exclusive there's going to be some overlap and if there is overlap right so some core content some of your core content areas when they get triggered they may impact several criteria but in some cases they're mild some cases they're moderate some cases are severe what are those differences and that's sometimes it's the person sometimes it's a situation right you know you need to feed feed yourself you know you need food right so you don't act out at work and you know maybe you just kind of hold it in and hold it in you know and stuff like that so it's important right then to look at where where this is occurring so i hope that this video has provided you good insight and i hope that it helps you move forward in building your insight giving you choices so that you can develop adaptive strategies to manage these criteria that impact your life so negatively and that will give you greater control over your bpd and that empowers you knowledge is empowerment absolutely thank you and have a good day bye

Channel: Dr. Daniel Fox

Views: 101,464

Keywords: how to deal with my bpd, my experience with borderline personality disorder, what to do if you have bpd, how is bpd diagnosed, borderline personality disorder, bpd, mental health, dr fox bpd, dr fox borderline personality disorder, dr fox narcissism, dr fox effects, dr fox splitting, dr fox bpd relationship, dr fox bpd favorite person, dr fox bpd psychology today, dr daniel fox bpd symptoms, bpd female, bpd criteria, bpd misconceptions, how bpd affects relationships

Id: k7tICsQMdDI

Length: 14min 46sec (886 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 20 2022