Controlling BPD Meltdowns and Acting Out

hi i'm dr fox licensed psychologist in state of texas and in this video we're going to talk about how to purge the urge now one of the greatest challenges to having bpd is identifying triggers urges and controlling them now urges often lead to engaging in maladaptive patterns and one of this channel's paramount's objective is to help you identify these urges and manage them effectively not an easy task but also not impossible though it may feel that way sometimes now let's get started we're going to talk about how you can purge that urge i hope you enjoy the video like share and subscribe check out some of the other videos i got that would be great and let's get into it we all have urges but what are they well an urge is simply a strong desire or impulse to do something right now these can be activated by many different things such as external and internal triggers common triggers for those with bpd leading to intense urges include like negative affect and poor self-control and an unstable self-image let's explore these briefly right so what is negative affect so according to the bpd criteria from the alternative model for personality disorders this includes emotional ability anxiousness separation insecurity and depressivity now my latest book explores bpd using this model if you want to learn more about it now as i go through each of these i want you to get a piece of paper or something that you can mark a rating on and i want you to rate each of the following on a scale from zero to five zero being unrelated to and five being absolutely an urge you feel intensely and very often okay so here we go emotional ability emotional ability this is unstable emotional experiences and frequent mood changes emotions that are easily aroused easily kicked off activated and they are intense and or out of proportion to the events and circumstances that really kind of got you going now there's also anxiousness so what is anxiousness right it's an intense feeling of nervousness tenseness or panic often in reaction interpersonal stresses which could be like relationships mom dad brother sister cousin boyfriend significant other someone you'd like whoever it may be co-worker right and you worry about the negative effects of past unpleasant experiences and future negative possibilities so it's all this worry right all this worry of the what ifs what if what if what if and you have this feeling of fear apprehension or threaten you feel threatened by uncertainty it's the fears of falling apart or losing control that's anxiousness so rate it next we have separation insecurity and this is fears of rejection by and or separation from significant others we know that could be mom dad brother sister cousin significant other whomever you deemed to be important or a caregiver at that time caregivers not always someone who raised you caregiver can just be someone who you feel you get care from they don't necessarily take care of your daily needs but it's someone who maybe caring is attention maybe caring is tenderness caring can be a whole lot of things as to how each of us define it okay so this is that separation in security now when we talk about separation security we're also talking about associated fears of excessive dependency and complete loss of autonomy so that means that you are sacrificing your sense of self and what you feel is right and important for you to be with this person so this person will like you okay that you'll fit in with this person's objectives and you kind of reject your own that's separation insecurity so rate it now depressivity depressivity is frequent feelings of being down miserable and or hopeless you have difficulty recovering from these moods if a lot of pessimism about the future right depending on where you rate it zero to five it's a pervasive sense of shame it's feelings of inferior self-worth thoughts of suicide and suicidal behavior may also be accompanied by experiences of depressivity now what i do want to mention here and i've done other videos on depression and bpd is that there's a difference between depressive episodes and major depressive episodes and it's important to be aware of that because folks even though they are taking medication maybe they're working on their depression a lot of individuals with bpd and and my clients experience a lot they may be moving along even though they're on medication and their depression major depressive episodes seem controlled that they're still going to have kind of those those depressive downward spirals are they going to be as severe as a major depressive episode typically not but in bpd these folks have kind of these depressive episodes not major depressive episodes but depressive episodes even when major depressive disorder is under control so i've got a few videos on bpd and depression so you're welcome to go and check that out to learn more about it and i think that if you know someone with bpd or if you have bpd i think it's really important to get as much information about this that you can okay let's keep on rolling here we go now that you have your ratings look over your ratings were some of them higher than others or were all of them fours and fives now your ratings are your ratings don't use them to self-attack you for this insight that that you just developed because insight encourages growth and that's exactly what this channel is all about that's exactly what i want you to do okay so think about it do the ones you rated higher produce stronger urges hmm right it is likely that they do now we need to be on the lookout for those urges that are activated or rated higher that when they are activated and identify what or who activates them hey what are those circumstances are there particular individuals mom dad brother sister cousin lover girlfriend co-worker whoever who activates these particular ones don't lump them together because we want to tease them out because when we tease them out we're better able to control them as opposed to this giant component of emotions that's not what we want to do we want to tease it apart identify those urges that come out of the activation episodes from things in your environment sometimes they're internal too right sometimes you may wake up and you may get an instance of depressivity and something kicked it off take a moment try to figure out what that was sometimes it could be fear of what's going to happen today could be fear of someone you're going to come in contact with is it paired with anxiousness so we want to tease that out as best we can build that insight building that insight is going to encourage growth now we gotta also look at poor self-concept and unstable self-image now this includes distinctly impoverished poorly developed or unstable self-image often associated with excessive self-criticism chronic feelings of emptiness and dissociative states when under stress use the same rating scale so i'm going to go back through rating scale 0 to 5 distinctly impoverished sense of self that means that you don't really know who you are you don't have a great conceptualization of your beliefs your values and they tend to be kind of nebulous they tend to just fit in with whomever you're around and then we have excessive criticism how intense is that how much of an urge is that do you really engage in a lot of self-attack are you really likely to do that under what instances sometimes those could be paired with depressivity with anxiousness right separation insecurity so we want to look at that as well what about chronic feelings of emptiness this is something that's very common in folks with vpd that they have this sense of this hole inside them and no matter how much they try to fill it with different things different experiences it still remains empty it doesn't matter how many people are in the room right maybe you're in a club you know you're kind of dancing right but you feel empty inside okay and dissociative states when under stress now what happens here is that and how intense of an urge is this when you're under a high degree of stress usually anxiousness is kicked off right all those things that we talked about just a moment ago all those things are kicked off your stress has gone up and you feel the sense of detachment now it's not the same as a sense of detachment you become another person okay that's different what we're talking about is this sense of separation from where you are and your emotions and feelings so you feel like you're outside yourself in many ways and that's a dissociative state so we want to rate that right that from 0 to 5 as well now we want to use the same rating scale for your poor self-concept and unstable self-image and broken down like we just did which will help you get a better understanding again and teasing it apart instead of looking at it just well it's poor self-concept and unstable self-images now we want want to try to tease out the components that that i just talked about now the factors that i just talked about can create intensive urges to fall back into those old maladaptive patterns that are self-destructive to you and your relationships now there's a strategy that you can use right which is called acting opposite now acting opposite is pretty great and it comes out of dbt and what happens is is when this becomes activated when you become activated and these components kind of push you to act on the urge because the action is a response to try to lessen that discomfort right to lessen that sense of emotional ability right that sense of of kind of like all this intensive emotion and you first you're really angry then you're really sad and then you're really nervous and then so that's that emotional ability right that it comes out of that what we want to do is we want to use acting opposite and it's a really great technique because what we want to do first is we want to look at that urge now is that urge justified under some circumstances sometimes you know our emotions aren't going to be justified bpd or not right something is going to happen maybe someone treated you inappropriately maybe someone talked down to you they talk dirty to you right you know not dirty dirty you know like greasy you know they kind of talk greasy to you i hope you know what that means what i'm trying to get across right so so they talk to you in that way and then it's i think it's okay for you to be assertive and kind of assert yourself and be like hey you know i deserve to be spoken to like that you know i think that and do it appropriately problem is your bpd pushes right it urges you to act in a maladaptive pattern that creates problems right do you physically attack the person do you chew them out things like that i think that the more we can maintain our composure the more power we have over the circumstance and over ourselves and acting opposite can do that and as you go through the components of acting opposite you see that there are emotions right that those urges and then dbt asks you to assess that is it justified is it not then it gives you components as to how to respond in what way right can you manage it and usually out of like let's say shame okay so instead of engaging in in sort of self-attack and having the shame spiral downward which then of course could increase the urge for self-harm increase the urge of consumption of alcohol or drugs increase the urge of promiscuity whatever it may be then what you're going to do is you're going to act opposite you're going to do things that make you feel good about yourself that make you feel proud of who you are if you do crafts engage in a craft if you like to exercise go exercise if there's something that you can do to do the opposite of shame which is build yourself concept right something we just talked about that we know is very prominent in those with bpd so then you're going to act opposite to build this sense of self appreciation over this sense of shame so that you are acting opposite and giving yourself a greater sense of control now try this as much as you can just kind of look you can look it up there's all kinds of stuff out there you can also seek out a dbt counselor uh they're all over the world stuff like that and i think it's really good this is a good exercise to build in to your routine of response so you can purge the urge okay so the more you do this the better you get at it remember and i've said this a lot is that you know building healthy and adaptive strategies is like ice skating right the more you do it the better you get at it okay and remember that doing these skills don't just try it when activated and contending with intense urges but try it when minor things kick off too right what are the little things that kind of frustrate you right what's acting opposite identify the emotion or the urge then is it justified or not then acting in whether it is to say you know what this is justified hey because and you have to be objective when you assess it then i say okay so then you're going to work through it you're going to explore it hey or you're going to act opposite if it is unjustified and not give into it which then feeds those maladaptive patterns so it can be assertiveness right when it's appropriate right when you have that activation like hey i got to stick up for myself that's not every instance sometimes bpd that bpd lens gets in there right that's something i talk about in my workbook i've talked about in other videos as well fbpd lens is going to create this distortion that's why we gotta chill and we have to assess the situation right how we're going to respond assertiveness act opposite okay you're going to work through it okay but remember this is like ice skating the more you do it the better you get at it the greater sense of self-control you have the more control and power you have over your bpd now please leave comments on successes that you have with us also i do want to say check out the community that i have you know little community tab one of the things i posted recently is i asked folks who subscribed to my channel to write the successful instances that they've had in managing their bpd and i'll tell you people wrote amazing amazing things it is such this big misunderstanding that people with bpd are these you know terrible destructive manipulative people and they they attach it to this disorder this personality disorder bpd which is so you know harmful and that's what this channel is about also to bring some reality to it because my clients that i have that have bpd are kind caring compassionate artistic creative brilliant i mean i could just i go on and on and but that's their real sense of self it's this bpd that kind of blocks their true sense of self and that's part of what therapy is about as well and i hope you know please check that out that community see the wonderful things that people wrote how they have overcome and managed their bpd it's it's amazing it's wonderful so please check it out hope you enjoyed the video please like share and subscribe and thank you very much bye

Channel: Dr. Daniel Fox

Views: 147,814

Keywords: BPD and Controlling Meltdowns and Acting Out, BPD and Impulse Control, BPD control freak, Bpd impulsivity, Controlling BPD Meltdowns and Acting Out, How to respond to BPD anger, borderline, borderline personality disorder, bpd, bpd emotional dysregulation, bpd emotional regulation, bpd explained, bpd relationships, bpd triggers, daniel fox, dr fox, dr fox personality, eupd, how bpd feels, impulse control, impulse control disorder, what is a BPD episode, why is bpd so painful

Id: qXgJ9b231OI

Length: 15min 59sec (959 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 28 2021