Personality Disorders and Impulsive Affect Dysregulation

hi it's Dr Fox licensed psychologist in the state of Texas in this video we're going to talk about fight flight fear or freak out response and we're going to talk about how individuals with personality disorders personality disorder traits can be particularly influenced or overcome with these emotional responses so stay with me let's check this stuff out and please like share and subscribe and comment that would be great so let's get into it now individuals with personality disorders have a significant difficulty in establishing and maintaining relationships that require good affect regulation now they seem to withdraw from and sometimes alienate others and or engage in confusing and disorganized types of relationships now this characteristic is observed in personality disorders as it relates to dependency inside these relationships and many of these relationships have been cultivated or developed particularly these patterns or beliefs behaviors and patterns that the individual develops as they have developed from childhood into adulthood and these relationships can include work relationships family relationships romantic relationships and friendships and individuals with personality disorders what they tend to experience as a disparity in power and vulnerability and when individuals that are long a personality disorder Spectrum such as BPD borderline personality disorder NPD narcissistic personality disorder and other Personnel disorders dependent personality disorder obsessive component we could go through the whole list but I think you get it and what happens is that this disparity in power and vulnerability it gives rise to this sense of threat and fear and that's where the individual tends to experience and you may experience this as well and as this fight flight freeze or freak out response and the reason why that I add this fourth one this freak out component is because I think that many individuals with personality disorders do experiences it's this buildup of ongoing stress pressure fear and threat but what happens is that even though there may be an identified trigger in some instances many individuals along the personality disorder Spectrum experience a Perpetual sense of threat and fear due to their perceived lack of power and which comes with that this sense of vulnerability so it's a sense of hyper vigilance and due to this heightened sense of hyper vigilance due to a lack of power and the sense of vulnerability then they're always on the lookout and when you're always on the lookout then you have this emotional response right so when it gets triggered do you fight do you go at others do you freeze are you frozen in place are you petrified do you flight do you take off maybe end relationships quit a job just walk out stomp out or do you freak out and when we talk about freak out even though obviously that's a colloquial term and we're talking about clinical issues here that freak out could be attacking yourself could be isolating yourself could be withdrawing could be self-harm could be some of those default thoughts and a lot of individuals with personality disorders they're default thoughts are to harm themselves so and it becomes this this reactive this almost instinctual immediate reaction and there is a way to control it and that is what I particularly want you to hear today in this video is that you can control it but it's important to realize that not only are you primed and when I say Prime that means that we are preparing our mind our body is preparing for some type of response hence fight flight freeze or freak out response so what we want to do is we want to build our awareness into this priming so when you get primed how do you feel what is not only your thoughts but also your emotions but also what's happening in your stomach and in your chest does it get tight does your heart rate increase do your palms get sweaty is it almost like a mild panic attack but that priming because individual personality disorders that these issues tend to be more chronic they're not as acute and isolative to specific instances so when they are across multiple contexts you're priming is cumulative so it starts to build right it's like one Lego on top of another on top of another and this priming can become very very intense and very very um thought driving fear driving sense of vulnerability driving which pushes you to do that so first ask yourself what are my identifiers that I've been primed now even this video may be priming you a little bit what's going on in your chest and in your stomach what's going on in your head what kind of things do you think about what are your default thoughts is it that I'm not good enough is it that I'm a failure is it that I'll never succeed is it that I'll always be alone and these are just some common chronic thoughts that a lot of individuals that I work with tend to experience and that they're always contending with and what about when you imagine that when you have that picture in your mind and those thoughts are driving those things and the instance hasn't even happened yet because we're still in that priming phase so when you have that in your mind what pictures or images are going through your mind what is that aloneness look like what does that loneliness look like well does that rejection look like what was that isolation look like and it's important to recognize that these are all priming instances so during our priming phase what I want you to do is I want you to challenge those images that are in your mind if you see yourself as alone see yourself then as perhaps with someone else doesn't have to be a group of people doesn't have to be a party or anything like that but with others how can you be around others and it doesn't have to be a social engagement it can be at a coffee shop it can be walking around like a mall or somewhere that is populated just to be around others and recognize that you are in control of your own power you in many ways can determine that sense of vulnerability particularly as an adult when we're younger and a lot of my clients experience different types of assaults when they were younger and they didn't have the same power and influence that they do as an adult but if you are an adult or even a teen or or um a little older than teens recognize that you have more power and control this you don't have the same level of vulnerability that you did when you were younger and we're still in that priming phase these are these things that keep you perpetually primed so when you are perpetually primed it's harder for you to reason responses it's harder for you to think okay so if he or she doesn't text me back if he or she doesn't show up on time if he or she this that this that we're operating on a lot of what-ifs not what is what ifs tend to be the root of a lot of anxiety what is are factual information that we can face our response on and that's how you can control it controlling the priming recognizing that there is a chronicity to your priming particularly if you're a long uh personality disorder Spectrum or even if you have a preponderance of traits recognizing that priming reframing a lot of those thoughts and images that you have and then pushing back against it just like we talked about a moment ago with that aloneness then what we want you to do is I want you to help manage that behavior control that behavior and how do you do that you build that sense of awareness and understanding that you control your life that you have more power than you did when you were younger perhaps during instances of abuse or neglect and now you control that sense of direction in your life that sense of positivity in your life it is not and does not need to be based on external validation and I have a video on external validation I'll put the link here because remember that that internal sense of power of loss of power and vulnerability is often based on things we learned when we didn't have a lot of power and control of our life and now hopefully you're in a situation where you do and you can influence your life and that sense of threat and fear you can handle it if it comes up because that's how we're managing the prime so if instances of threat and fear do arise you you can handle it and if you need someone to help you this we're a mental health provider it can be really really helpful and to help guide you in a particular direction build that sense of self-efficacy and control because individuals that are a long personality disorder Spectrum often experience this just as I talked about this sense of being withdrawn from and the sense of alienation and this affect regulation that actually disrupts relationships that tends to make it difficult to have the relationships you want to create the stability that you're seeking so I hope you found this video helpful please like share subscribe and comment that would be great check out my other videos that would be wonderful too and I wish you all the best and please take care thank you bye bye

Channel: Dr. Daniel Fox

Views: 19,478

Keywords: fight flight freeze response, personality disorders and affective dysregulation, impulse control and personality disorders, impulse control, freak out, impulse control disorder, mental health, fight flight freeze response to stress, fight or flight, fight flight freeze, dr fox bpd, dr fox borderline personality disorder, dr fox narcissism, dr fox favorite person, dr fox bpd splitting, dr fox splitting, Impulsive Affect Dysregulation, fight flight or freeze, anxiety, bpd, npd

Id: pJki1xIbQYQ

Length: 10min 30sec (630 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 25 2022