What is BPD, and how do we control it?

Please note that I am not a doctor and this is only my interpretation of the disorder itself. I am in no way qualified to diagnose anyone or tell anyone that they have Borderline Personality Disorder. If you think you have BPD, please consult a doctor for diagnosis. This is purely for informational purposes. I am also in no way sponsored by anyone or any product mentioned here.

Borderline Personality Disorder, or BPD, was once to be thought on the borderline between psychosis and neurosis. Doctors no longer use these terms and combined the term into what we know it as today. It can also be described as Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder, or EUPD. In this article, we're going to take an in-depth look into how you can control your Borderline Personality Disorder, or how you can help a loved one through what they go through.

This is often confused with Bipolar Disorder. I do have both of them, so I know how to separate them. Bipolar moods last a week to a year, depending on the person, and they are to such an extreme that it's hard to control. Mania is a state of absolute euphoria, at least for me, and the depressive moods can be so bad that I want to die.

Two years ago, I didn't know I had Borderline. I was out of control, drinking, spending money that I didn't have and getting further into debt. A big contributing factor was the people in my life. My romantic relationship wasn't supportive, and they didn't really understand how to be. My family was lost on how to help me out, and my friends were at the end of their rope helping me out of debt and trying to control my habits. More on that later.

I was diagnosed with Bipolar disorder before I knew I had Borderline Personality Disorder. Both of these things made my life more difficult than it should have been and they clashed quite a bit. When I was manic, I was incredibly impulsive and would take out loans. At one point I even went to a car dealership and tried to purchase a car. My credit was so shot from my poor decision making I thankfully wasn't approved. When I was depressed, I was suicidal to the point where I tried to take my own life. I was on Lithium for the bipolar disorder and was immediately taken off of the medication after my attempt.

Not knowing I had Borderline made my life absolute hell. I couldn't understand why I was so erratic and so different from everyone else. Everyone else seemed to have everything put together in neat little boxes, with their finances and their jobs and their families. I knew it was ruining my life, and I had to do something about it - so I decided to do some research on my own.

I'll get into coping mechanisms once I share my experiences with each trait of Borderline. I want you to be able to visualize exactly what each trait is and what it means before I dive into how to control each one. There are nine traits to Borderline Personality Disorder, and I used to have all nine. You need to have five out of the nine to be diagnosed, and after a year and a half of hard work, I'm down to the minimum number.

The first is the fear of abandonment. I remember all throughout my life I was broken every time someone would walk out of my life. I thought it was because of me, and partially it was. Best friends, people that I considered my Favorite Person, would back away and leave me to pick up my own mess because they just couldn't anymore and I don't blame anyone but myself at that point.

Unstable relationships is the next trait. Rocky roads to friends leaving is always the hardest part. The disorders affected my memory and when friends would tell me I'd done something I would fight tooth and nail to tell them they were wrong instead of just accepting that they may be right. This caused a lot of hurt and I'm still trying to make it right through the people I've hurt after all this time. It affected romantic relationships as well as friendships.

Now comes shifting and/or unclear self image. This one is a big one in my life. I've changed my name due to this trait, discovered I was genderfluid, and every day my opinion on myself changes into something different. Some days I would see myself as this superhero that could handle everything and other days I could barely make it out of bed. It affected my jobs, from calling off often to overestimating myself. It got me into a ton of trouble and makes it hard to find new jobs because of previous history with employers.

After your self image comes impulsive and self destructive behaviors. Drinking, drugs, sex, reckless driving and spending money can be linked to this trait. I know I still struggle to this day with alcoholism due to my disorder, and I tend to drive pretty recklessly when I'm having an off day. This has led to countless speeding tickets, and I'm dealing with my license getting revoked if I get another one, so this is a trait I am working hard to control. I'm also in quite a bit of debt to friends and lenders due to my impulsive spending habits.

Self harm is another trait. I was into cutting for a little bit in the middle of trying to sort out how to deal with my disorders. I would cut my legs where nobody would see. Thankfully, there are no scars to show from it, but I was getting to an incredibly dangerous place where I could have seriously injured myself or worse.

Extreme mood swings is one of those traits that gets confused with Bipolar quite a bit. This one is a bit self explanatory These mood swings can happen as many times as 20 times per day. I know when I first started tracking my moods I got up to one time being 23 mood shifts in a day, and I was absolutely drained that day because the moods are so intense you can go from crying to laughing within ten minutes.

Chronic feelings of emptiness can cause suicidal thoughts and self harm. I know at the beginning I felt so empty and alone and felt like I was nothing. This one is kind of hard to explain in terms of experience, so I'll go ahead and move onto the next one and we'll circle back to this when I let you know how I learned to control it.

Feeling suspicious or out of touch with reality can be a really difficult trait to deal with. You can begin to dissociate, or feel quite foggy. It's like the world isn't real and you aren't all there at times. This is perfectly normal when you have BPD, and nothing to be concerned about.

Explosive anger is one of the more dangerous traits of BPD. This one is also kind of obvious, but can get a little confusing when talking about Quiet Borderline. Regular borderline that you see has large outbursts, slamming doors, and throwing items. It can also lead to abusive relationships. Quiet Borderline, on the other hand, is internalized. We often blame ourselves for everything that happens rather than blaming the world, which can exacerbate your shifting self image and self harm as well as fear of abandonment. All of these traits work together in tandem, so in order to treat one, you have to treat them all at once.

I want to begin with, I am medicated. I am not saying that medication is the end-all-be-all to controlling this disorder but I personally cannot function properly without the correct medication. I haven't been back into the hospital for inpatient care in a year because of the medication I am on, which I will not disclose here. Let's go ahead and get into controlling your disorder and what you can do to help yourself.

The first thing I did was get Dr. Daniel Fox's The Borderline Personality Disorder Workbook. This book will go over more than I can explain here. It runs you through the diagnosis process, worksheets you can do to pinpoint which traits you have, where they come from, and how to cope. This has been an essential part of my healing process.

The second thing was breaking down exactly what each trait meant. I had the definitions of them, but I didn't know exactly how to understand them. I've taken care of that step for you above, so we can go ahead and move forward.

The third was dissecting my behavior. I went back in my memory bank and sorted out what I'd done, who I'd hurt, where I went wrong and what I needed to do to fix those things. This part is probably the hardest part of the process, because sometimes you don't know where you went wrong. Sometimes it's a mystery to you, and that's okay. That's why it's a process and not so simple. In order to do this, you need to seriously evaluate yourself and your actions. Take a moment and write down events that caused friends to leave, where your own faults are, and go from there.

Next is taking those things and forming them into a line. Sort each trait you have, or believe that you have, into categories. Break down the best possible solution for each of these traits, and go from there. Below is how I personally dealt with each trait.

For my fear of abandonment, I wore a rubber band around my wrist. When I started to panic because I was afraid of something happening, I would snap the rubber band to remind myself that I'm probably overreacting to what it is that's happening. I calmly reminded myself that it's only my disorder, and explained to the person what's happening and what I'm trying to do to control it to see if they can give you some kind of reaffirmation.

Unstable relationships can be a tricky one. It's really about finding a group of people that understand that mental health isn't all sunshine and rainbows. There are people out there that absolutely understand, or at least try to understand, what's happening. A simple fact is that not everyone is going to understand, and that's okay. I personally dropped a lot of people out of my life, including family members, that weren't helping my disorder or that were making it worse.

For my shifting self image, the best thing I've learned to do is just embrace it. I wear the clothes I want. I call myself whatever I want to. For the most part, I reminded myself that people are going to judge me regardless of what I'm doing. You are your own person with your own flaws and your own beauty, and until you show those to the world you won't be able to get past this one. Remember, again, not everyone is going to understand, and that's okay.

Impulsive and self destructive behavior is one that I have yet to master. I'm working with friends to take my debit card and hold onto it, removing it from my online accounts and paying everything in cash. It's easier to not buy something if you have to hand over physical bills because you'll feel more guilty seeing all of the money straight out in front of you. As far as alcohol and drugs, go to support groups and meetings. I know it sounds cliche, but it really does help to talk to other people about what's going on in your life.

Self harm doesn't always have to be cutting. It can be drinking and drugs as well, which I covered above. Keep your sharp objects and items with a friend. Only ask for them when you really need them. Have an explanation ready as to why you need them and use supervision. Remember that you are relearning yourself and retraining your brain, so you're going to feel like someone is babysitting you, but this is in your best interest.

Extreme mood swings are controlled, for me personally, by medication. I have a mood stabilizer, which has been a wonderful and beneficial tool. If you do not want to go the medicated route, you can begin to go to a Dialect Behavioral Therapy group. There, they will walk you through mindfulness and controlling your moods as well as your outbursts with extreme explosive anger. That is not a trait I have to deal with. Even though I do deal with extreme anger at times, it's all internalized.

The way I dealt with my chronic feelings of emptiness was to ground myself. Close my eyes and take a huge breath and imagine those feelings floating away on a cloud. It would bring me back to center and help with feeling like I was worth more than nothing at all. I would also message friends for positive reinforcement.

As for feeling out of touch with reality, there's nothing you can really do about that other than meditation. It can help bring you back, but also talking to people and getting back into your environment helps as well. This one, like I stated before, is nothing to be concerned about because a lot of people with other disorders dissociate as well. If it bothers you, you can always talk to your doctor about the best options for you.

I hope this article was informative for you, and helped you gain a better insight into BPD. If there is anything you feel I need to add or change, please be sure to let me know.