Debunking The Myths & Misunderstandings of Borderline Personality Disorder

[Music] hi my name is dr. Daniel Fox and I'm licensed psychologist in the state of Texas and an expert in the area of personality disorders and today I wanted to make a video on the myths and misunderstandings of borderline personality disorder and the reason I want to I wanted to do this video is because a lot of folks have been writing me and saying well how can I explain to loved ones and family members what borderline personality disorder is and what they're experiencing and I thought that a video on clarifying this would would really help another incidents that occurred was just the other day is that a client of mine that she has Bell's palsy and what happened was is that she started to have sort of facial droops and and things like that and and her family was very supportive of the Bell's palsy and the in the facial droops and and think things like that but when it came to the personality disorder aspect they were a little dismissive and I think a lot of it is that we're trying to educate the family on what is what is going on what is borderline personality disorder because just as the client has difficulty controlling the Bell's palsy there's also a difficulty controlling the borderline personality disorder so I think that support for both avenues is really really important okay and the particular client was aware I said oh this would be a really good example for a video and she said that's fine go ahead you know if you want to talk about the Bell's palsy and borderline personality disorder so so she was okay with me mentioning I would never mention anything about even though I don't identify the client I would never want to mention an issue with one of my clients without them give me the okay first that's important to do so let's talk about what is the criteria what makes up borderline personality order I'm not going to go through the the dsm-5 so if you're a family member a loved one or perhaps you're wondering if you have borderline personality disorder this video will help you to to sort of identify say yeah that kind of fits and then and then we'll go through ten facts related to personnel shorter and to borderline person on her and then at the end I'm going to tell you about a really amazing research study that should give folks a lot of hope okay so let's kind of start out what is borderline personality disorder and we're gonna pull this criteria from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual so the DSM and what we're gonna do that we're not going to go through the list of all nine what I did is instead I broke them up into four different categories okay so this first category is called interpersonal dysregulation and what that means is that it's difficulty kind of interacting with others right difficulty in relationships and so individuals with borderline personality disorder they have a lot of abandonment fears it's a fear of losing the ones that they love and care about and you may think well even in short term like if you meet somebody if someone would borderline personality sort of meet somebody and they think that they're neat or they they really like them or they click individuals of borderline personality sort are really quick to jump in to to relationships to connect very quickly and as they connect even though they're quick to do that there's also that fear of abandonment of losing that connection so they have these abandonment fears now there's also which is very common is these unstable relationships now if you've been in a relationship or perhaps your loved one brother sister cousin spouse has borderline personality disorder then you know what I mean by unstable relationships and a lot of times in these relationships we go from an idealization to a devaluation right so you kind of go to those or you experience those those extremes at that individual that has borderline personality disorder sees you as a hero but then you're quickly a zero and sometimes it's that you didn't do anything it's just that or seemingly you didn't do anything or it wasn't purposeful but it's it's their perception and it's dealing with these perceptions which can change because there's more than one thing going on right think about our lives how often do we have just thing going on we never do so all of these factors and when you have borderline personality disorder it's it's hard to interpret we're going to talk about those things self distress in just a little bit so it's difficulty to interpret in that that impairment and interpretation really negatively impacts these relationships okay so it's important to recognize that these folks have unstable relationships and then individuals with borderline personality disorder they experience a lot of emptiness Hey so even though they can be in a crowded room and even though if you're a significant other you care a lot about this individual they still have this sense of emptiness so it's a whole that is that it's hard to fill or that isn't filled obviously because it's empty and this emptiness as much as the individuals borderline personality order tries to fill it sometimes with material goods with sex gambling drugs other types of issues self-harm that it doesn't fill that emptiness because of that difficulty of self distress affective and emotional dysregulation so these other components and all of these things are going on at the same time right so when all of these things are going on at the same time it's very chaotic and it's hard for them to develop this sense of self and feel a sense of fullness with their emotions and their connection with others and their loved ones so they have a sense of emptiness and so the next section we're going to talk about is affective emotion dysregulation so affective an emotional dysregulation and here we're talking an emotional instability affective instability and you see that there's erratic mood swings a lot of times difficulty controlling their mood it seems like that and from the outside as a family member I think a lot of times you're like well everything sets him or her off everything gets them going everything gets some angry everything gets them upset everything gets them crying everything gets them wanting to hurt themselves or drug binges or sex binges or whatever it may be and you know that's part of that borderline personality sort of issue is that affective instability those emotions those emotions are out of control now imagine that you have emotions that are out of control paired with the sense of emptiness right so you don't feel full you're also afraid of losing the ones whom you care about and that impacts the relationships that are so important to keep you connected where maybe it gives you a sense of connection or fullness but not enough to fill the emptiness and if this is confusing this is how a lot of folks with borderline pursuing us orders see the world okay another effective and emotional or experience the world rather than just see it an effective emotional dysregulation another component is inappropriate intense anger right so a lot of times they get set off really quick and you may think well I didn't do anything I didn't say anything I didn't you know I responded to the text I was stuck in traffic or my my phone died and I wasn't able to you know call him or her back and now they're angry in there screaming at me or you know they've locked me in a house throwing all my clothes on to the onto the lawn and stuff like that and and you know so this intense and appropriate anger is part of that borderline personality sort none of these things we're saying is excusing behaviors all we're doing is identifying behaviors and identifying the issues because I think just as we want to understand like an issue such as Bell's palsy we want to understand borderline personality disorder too so we just want to build that understanding okay we're not saying well it's there so you have to accept it but what we want to do is if if your loved one had Bell's palsy you would probably want to help that person if your person if this individual has borderline personality sorter you know you want to help them to write and you want to help them as much as you can and you're able to but you also want to help your borderline personality order as much as you're able to okay and well I'll talk briefly about boundaries in just a second especially with loved ones and things like that Hey so the next section we're going to talk about is behavioral dysregulation now behavioral dysregulation is really common and this is individuals with borderline personality short-course have recurrent suicidality threats self-harm things like that and a lot of times so they're triggered and what happens is is that the sense of being overwhelmed no there's a lot of reasons why folks self-harm and we're not going to go into that today or have a you know individual borderline personality sorter are at a higher risk than those in the general population people who don't have borderline personalities order to complete suicide so it's something we have to take very seriously even if you have someone who makes a lot of suicidal threats those things that are important and that we we take those seriously Hey and then also with borderline personality sorter we have impulsivity and this impulsivity you see it in in sex with promiscuity you see with driving some of the driving intoxicated driving drugged sometimes binging binge eating binging behaviors things like that so this behavioral dysregulation is a big component as well in those that have borderline personality disorder and then this last component we're going to talk about is called self dysregulation okay now these are unstable and distorted self-image and imagine if if you went into like those Hall of Mirrors if you've ever been in one of those like a funhouse you know all those mirrors and you try to see where you are and sometimes they're distorted right they have the little cracks in them and it's hard to see everything but imagine if you're not in a funhouse but it's your life and sometimes that's what it's like for folks with borderline personality disorder is that they're in this shattered mirrored existence and it's hard for them to identify where they are who they are their vocational aspects or aspirations and their their love interests and what they want out of life and their goals and things and they tend to be very variable and you know so it's very very confusing so a lot of times they're there confused about themselves and who they are and it changes a lot so a lot of family members sometimes get frustrated they get frustrated because these individuals they may change jobs a lot they may change interests a lot and the family gets frustrated because this can of course cause you know poor economics they have difficulty paying their bills you know other types of issues and the family gets frustrated say I'm tired of paying your bills because you're always switching jobs or losing jobs because of the temperament remember each of these components don't occur in a vacuum that they all occur together now different ones not everybody with borderline personality disorder has all nine of these criteria right but if if this individual qualifies for borderline personality disorder they have many of them five or more occurring at the same time so there's a lot going on at any given time for these individuals and they're trying to manage it trying to balance it and it's really really hard and we know for loved ones and people who care about them that it's hard to watch them go through this and that's certainly understandable and you know that's why mental health providers are so important but we're digressing a little bit I want to go back to that last self dysregulation component which is the sense of depersonalization paranoid ideation under stress so we're talking about depersonalization that's just losing your sense of who you are like dissociating to a degree and if you want to learn more if your loved one who said well I think that my partner or loved one or child or someone you know goes through this I made a video about dissociation that might help you and so you can learn a little bit about it as well and there's paranoid ideation under stress of stress increases right now me a whole host of reason because we know individuals with borderline personality are easily triggered in many cases so this paranoid ideation so the stress increases and it causes this paranoid ideation okay now let's say okay let me give you an example so let's say that stress increases now maybe it's a relational stress but this individual already holds the idea that their loved one is going to leave them they have the sense of emptiness they need their loved one in order to feel full but their stress is increasing because they think because they didn't get responded to in a text inappropriate time or they didn't get a call when they were supposed to or the individual didn't come home when they were supposed to or a whole host of things so the stress increases this individual the individual borderline personality order thinks that the person that they're in love with little kid that they care about is going to leave them so then they have that abandonment fear but they hold this sense of emptiness so that abandonment will kick off the the emptiness as well so that causes that unstable relationship and that unstable relationship is further unstable because of the affective and emotion dysregulation okay and that affective instability so the individual borderline personality disorder already under Dan increased stress paranoia is kicked up paranoia they're going to lose their loved one trying to fill that emptiness of course that abandonment is directly attached to that emptiness okay but the affective instability of their emotions they can't get under control so what do they do they engage in behavioral dysregulation which is self-harm hurting themselves acting out promiscuity gambling things like this now for individuals that have borderline personality disorder for me to tell that story about what I just said they're like yeah I know what that's like when I tell family members loved one significant others they're like what the heck did you just say what I couldn't follow you you're all over the place that's right because it's hard it's hard to understand it because there is so much going on at the same time and that's why therapy is so important because it fara P can provide that groundwork that foundation for understanding what's going on with your loved one your child you know your significant other or whatever it may be what I want to do is now that we kind of painted this picture of what borderline personality disorder is let me give you some facts about it because often people really misunderstand what borderline personality disorder is and they carry all these myths Society has a lot of myths about what borderline personality disorder is okay so let's go over those now so the first fact that I want to give you is that borderline personality disorder is environment induced and what does that mean that means that there's something in the environment some trigger that tends to set them off right that occurs now the example that I just gave just a moment ago was that in the individual in the example was that they were waiting for a text or the expectation of attacks they didn't get on time or the person didn't come home on time or you know they can get a call that they expected whatever it was so there's something in the environment that sets them off now a lot of times individuals of borderline personality or two have trouble identifying their triggers identifying those things they're emotional buttons and those triggers and I also did a video on emotional buttons as well if you're interested in that you can learn more about that and so that it is environmentally induced there's something that kicks it off okay now it could be something very minor because it depends upon where they are not everyone with borderline personality disorder it's the same all right not everyone borderline personality server has the extremes of emotion severity of emotions the moderates of emotions just what Bell's palsy it's very different for my client based upon where she is on that spectrum and the borderline personality saw our individual and were they on in that spectrum so it's it's it's two very very different things so the first fact I want to remind you again is that that borderline personality sorter is environmentally induced that there's something out there that kicks it off now number two that we're going to talk about is that borderline personality sorter is not a choice is that a lot of times you know I have family member saying well he or she is choosing to act that way it's really not not a choice now that doesn't mean that their behavior should be lack of a better word not necessarily accepted I don't like that word accepted but is that I think it needs to be understood I don't think that that we have to say okay you know then that's okay you can treat me this way I think everybody should be treated with respect and we should treat ourselves with respect but that that's hard for individuals of borderline personality disorder and it's important that we understand that that these are folks that are struggling that's why treatment is so important continual treatment is so important and that there are some things to feel good about we're going to talk more about those as well okay so that second fact is that individuals do not choose to have borderline persona not a choice it's not like oh well she's choosing he or she's choosing to be this way hey an important component and this relates to the research I'm going to talk about at the end is that recovery is possible and likely okay there's been a lot of research done on borderline personality disorder has been a lot of effective treatment on borderline personalities or we understand so much more about it than we did in the 80s and the 80s is when this myth of the Glenn Close fatal attraction character that that's what borderline personality sorter is that's so far from the truth Hollywood is not a good place to get mental health data a lot of folks do that they believe all it's a good movie so it must be factual that's absolutely not true especially in the case of borderline personality disorder borderline personality disorder is not a source of entertainment and I think that Hollywood of course wants use everything is source of attained but real life is very different and now that that's what I meant by that comment hey you know number three now the number three was a recovery is very possible and it's also likely again we'll talk about the research too now number four the fact is that after two years more than 50% of individuals of BPD recover fifty percent okay so what that means is that these individuals they develop positive psychosocial behaviors right that they develop strategies that they can learn to manage their emotions identify their triggers and function effectively nice that's fifty percent of individuals with borderline personality sorter right do recover the next is after ten years more than eighty percent of individuals with borderline personality disorder recover 80% okay now that is amazing that is really good but what happens is so many people they get focused on this idea well they don't recover or for the ones that do they say see well that was a phase for him or her or something like that and they discount well that probably wasn't borderline personality disorder and when we say recovery we mean is that we it's a lot like alcoholism that we build these strategies so that we can avoid the trouble that we experience with borderline personality disorder I've been very fortunate working with a number of individuals that have really experienced a lot with with borderline personality disorder and struggles and issues and fortunately were able to work together for a very very long time about three years and after those three years if you were to meet these individuals you wouldn't know they borderline personality disorder and I've never asked any of them they have since gone on and and are out living their lives but I wonder if they would still say yes I have borderline personality sorters just under control a lot like like alcoholics a lot of alcoholics a woman alcoholic do I have to be aware of the issues that I'm contending with and remember that I said that they have borderline personalities not that they are borderline that's two totally different things having it and being in or two different things because I don't think people are borderline person I think that they have it and if you have it then you can manage it and you can we can get you into recovery and 88 percent remain in recovery that means that they're still engaging in treatment they're still taking care of themselves they're still doing things that they need to do they're building those strategies using those strategies and managing those strategies and it takes time it takes time to do it hey now the next the sixth back they don't want to tell you about is that 40% of individuals of borderline personality disorder were previously diagnosed with bipolar disorder and 25% of individuals have both now recently done a video on bipolar disorder so and there is a lot of confusion even in the experts in the field that in experts with borderline personality disorder bipolar disorder and there is a lot of confusion about the two and especially when they overlap so if you think that you may have both your loved one may have both it's important you can check out that video maybe that'll help clarify some things as well it's very very confusing these two disorders okay now the next fact is that borderline personality is under diagnosed misunderstood and over stigmatized okay now everything I'm telling you today is out from from the research this is what the experts in the field so I pull all of this data together and the experts know that it is under diagnosed so we're not accurately identifying it okay we still over diagnosed it in females under diagnosed it in males because when males tend to show borderline personality disorder features we misdiagnosed them with antisocial behaviors when when females tend to show antisocial behaviors we misdiagnosed them with borderline personality disorder Hey and that could be a video all all on its own God knows okay but we're going to keep going we're going to stay with the point of what we're talking about here now number nine is that the diagnosis a borderline personality disorder is often withheld from patients and Families this is something that I I don't I'm not a big diagnosis person and you might be like what well and the reason why I'm not is that I worry about carrying badges of diagnosis and so with with my clients someone will say well what you diagnosed me with and a lot of them come to me obviously you know my Harry's person Alex order so and now with Wikipedia and you know all the internet and all this other stuff is that people can look it up and they can get a pretty good idea well I think I have this I think I did it and then they come in and they say hey I need you know confirmation or any clarity or I think I have this or whatever but the the concern is and I tell my clients this is that my concern is is that when you start to define yourself by the diagnosis that goes back to what I said a moment ago that I am borderline I never want to hear a client say that because that's that that makes it part of who you are and I know it feels that way but by saying that you have borderline personality disorder it means that it's a it's a part that can be treated right it's a component that can be treated something that you're experiencing but we can treat it lessen it right minimize its impact that is possible to do then we know that we just talked about about the data 88% okay are in recovering that's great okay but so I think sometimes it's withheld I think that a lot of mental health providers psychiatrists general practitioners whoever maybe that a lot I'm like well I don't want to tell that they're borderline they'll freak out I think now with the internet I don't think a lot of people are surprised but I don't think that diagnosis is the end-all be-all I think treatment the purpose of diagnosis is so that other professionals can communicate and identify a course of treatment that's that's really the point of it it's not to identify or carry a badge and said you know we'll see it's borderline wasn't me it was my it was my borderline and so I think that that's why a lot of folks are reluctant and that the diagnosis is withheld I think that that happens a lot too but again I I do have this discussion with my clients so once you really really want to know so that is number nine and the last one is that borderline personality disorder is actually considered a good prognosis diagnosis okay use the experts in the field and they're saying that this is a disorder once identified we can get these folks in treatment and they will have remissions which is when we hit remissions is that you are not symptomatic at that time okay and that you're going along just fine now that doesn't mean that it won't experience a stressor or a trauma or something and then you may revert back to the old default negative beliefs behaviors and patterns which is borderline personality disorder and then maybe you go back five steps four steps but if you're 15 steps ahead you're not going back to the start but it might feel that way but you're not because you can kick in those helpful strategies and you kick up those helpful strategies that helps you keep going and you can do it it is possible to do it I assure you of that okay what does all this mean that means treatment is important staying in treatment identifying treatment okay finding the strategies that work for you and if you can do that that it is possible if you have borderline personality disorder borderline personality sort of traits and that these these issues become expressed that you are not doomed to experience this forever is that treatment is important having the volition to engage in treatment and do things differently is important and you can do it and the data is there that says it is possible to do it that is as possible to decrease attenuate borderline personality sort of symptoms all the stuff that I talked about in the beginning this is a good prognosis diagnosis this is something that can be managed with proper treatment okay it is possible to do that right I hope that that you have found this helpful if you're a loved one please understand that encouraging folks to get helping and having a lot of patience I know sometimes the important for you to have moments where you can you know revitalize yourself and and be able to take care of yourself you can't take care of anyone else if you can't take care of yourself and it's it's important to take care of yourself to us and so but remember that this is a disorder that that can be managed and and it I think it should be seen as a good prognosis diagnosis okay I hope that this was helpful for you thank you very much any comments please feel to leave any comments below if you like this please check out my other videos and if you like those you're welcome to subscribe and thank you very much for your time I certainly appreciate it and please be well thank you bye bye you

Channel: Dr. Daniel Fox

Views: 81,280

Keywords: Debunking The Myths & Misunderstandings of Borderline Personality Disorder, bpd and stress, bpd symptoms, bpd treatment, daniel fox personality disorders, dr fox, dr fox personality, living with borderline personality disorder, quiet borderline, self destructive, the cause of borderline personality, treatment for bpd, borderline personality episode, borderline personality disorder relationships, borderline personality disorder treatment, borderline personality disorder symptoms

Id: YdQpvYuB7g0

Length: 27min 15sec (1635 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 03 2018