Borderline Personality Disorder: Symptoms, Causes And Treatment

The symptoms of borderline personality disorder vary in each case but it is a disorder that tends to be more common in women. Common symptoms are:

• Feelings of loneliness, boredom or emptiness
• Difficulty empathizing with others
• Very unstable relationships that can change abruptly
• Fear of being abandoned or rejected, including extreme emotional reactions to real or perceived abandonment
• Risky, self-destructive, impulsive behaviors, including reckless driving, drugs or alcohol
• Hostility
• Unstable goals and aspirations
• Unstable, distorted or dysfunctional self-image

Many people may experience one or two of the above symptoms, but a person with borderline personality disorder you will experience many of the symptoms throughout his life.

A characteristic of this disorder is that a person with this disorder craves closeness, but their intense and unstable emotional responses cause others to withdraw in the long term. If you identify with these symptoms, you can take the borderline personality disorder test.

In this other article we will show you how to help someone with borderline personality disorder so that you know how to act in the event that a family member of yours suffers from this condition.

There is no single cause why some people have borderline personality disorder. Researchers talk about a combination of factors:

Traumatic events

People diagnosed with this disorder usually having suffered traumatic experiences in your life, for example:

• Frequent feelings of fear, disappointment, feeling invalidated or unsupported
• Family difficulties or instability, such as living with a parent who has an addiction
• Sexual, physical, or emotional abuse (or neglect)
• Losing a father

A person who has suffered experiences of this type may develop coping strategies or beliefs about themselves and other people that are inadequate.

It must be remembered that borderline personality disorder can occur in a person who does not have a traumatic life history or who has had other types of difficulties in their life.

Genetic factors

There is some evidence that supports that borderline personality disorder has a genetic origin; a person is more predisposed to having the disorder if someone in their close family also has it. But, It is very difficult to know exactly if borderline disorder is inherited or it is caused by other factors, such as the environment in which you grow up or the ways of thinking, strategies and behaviors you learn from the people around you.

A combination of factors may be the cause. The genetic factor can make the person more vulnerable to developing borderline disorder, but this vulnerability can be triggered and become a problem by a series of traumatic or stressful events.

Let’s now address which is the best treatment for borderline personality disorder and so you can know how to deal with this situation:

Psychological treatment

Clinical guidelines recommend psychological therapy to treat this disorder. Some of the most recommended psychological therapies are:

• Dialectical therapy: It can occur either individually or in groups. The main objective is to learn appropriate skills or strategies to cope with emotions. This therapy has also been especially recommended in cases where the person exhibits self-harming behaviors.
• Therapy based on mentalization: The goal is to recognize and understand one’s own and other people’s mental states, as well as examine one’s thoughts toward oneself and others.
• Cognitive behavioral therapy: The goal is to help the person understand how their thoughts and beliefs can affect their feelings and behaviors.

Pharmacotherapy

Psychotropic drugs are not recommended to treat the specific symptoms of borderline personality disorder, as there are no medications known to be effective. But, psychotropic drugs can be prescribed for other conditions that the person presents, such as tranquilizers, anxiolytics…

Approximately 80% of people diagnosed People with borderline personality disorder present behaviors related to suicide, including suicide attempts, cutting, burning, and other types of self-harming behaviors. People with borderline disorder are at higher risk for suicide than other personality disorders.

There are some factors that make suicide common in people with borderline disorder:

• Borderline disorder is associated with negative experiences very emotionally intense. These experiences are very harmful to the person and they may seek ways to reduce emotional pain, such as substance abuse and suicide.
• Besides, It is a chronic disorder. Chronic conditions are often more related to suicide, since the person does not get better without treatment. The condition, although stable, is present over the years.
• borderline disorder may co-occur with other disorders such as bipolar, depression, substance abuse… In these cases, the risk of suicide increases.
• As we said before, bipolar disorder is associated with impulsivity or with a certain tendency to act quickly without thinking about the consequences. This may be one reason why suicide is common in borderline disorder. People with borderline disorder may commit suicidal behaviors in an emotionally intense moment.

This article is merely informative, at PsychologyFor we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

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