What causes personality disorders?

Research suggests that genetics, abuse, and, other factors contribute to the development of obsessive-compulsive, narcissistic, or other personality disorders. In the past, some believed that people with personality disorders were just lazy or even evil.

Borderline personality disorder.

What are the symptoms of borderline personality disorder?

  • Fear of abandonment. People with BPD are often terrified of being abandoned or left alone.
  • Unstable relationships.
  • Unclear or shifting self-image.
  • Impulsive, self-destructive behaviors.
  • Self-harm.
  • Extreme emotional swings.
  • Chronic feelings of emptiness.
  • Explosive anger.

What causes borderline personality disorder?

Being a victim of emotional, physical, or sexual abuse. Being exposed to long-term fear or distress as a child. being neglected by 1 or both parents. growing up with another family member with a serious mental health condition, such as bipolar disorder or a drink or drug misuse problem.

Parents are all too often blamed for all kinds of problems in their children, but there is absolutely no evidence that bad parenting causes BPD. They are likely individual cases in which parents have aggravated their child’s underlying vulnerability.

Is Borderline personality a serious illness?

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a serious, long-lasting, and complex mental health problem. People with BPD have difficulty regulating or handling their emotions or controlling their impulses.

According to the DSM-5, BPD can be diagnosed as early as 12 years old if symptoms persist for at least one year. However, most diagnoses are made during late adolescence or early adulthood.

People with BPD also have a tendency to think in extremes, a phenomenon called “dichotomous” or “black-or-white” thinking. People with BPD often struggle to see the complexity in people and situations and are unable to recognize that things are often neither perfect nor horrible, but are something in between.

People who suffer from BPD show erratic mood swings and find it difficult to trust and understand the motives of others. As a result, they suffer from fraught personal relationships with friends, colleagues, and partners. Experts argue that the symptoms of BPD develop as a way of coping with the impacts of trauma. After a trauma, some people have strong negative emotions and difficulty trusting others. It may be that for people with BPD, impulsive behaviors or self-harm develops in order to cope with these difficult experiences and intense emotions.

Borderline personality disorder usually begins in early adulthood. The condition seems to be worse in young adulthood and may gradually get better with age.

Research estimates around 1% of the general adult community live with BPD.  Approximately 18 milj.(or nearly 6 %) People in United States have been diagnosed with BPD, (2008). In other parts of the world, it’s around 5,9 % of the general population has been diagnosed.

Women are more likely to be diagnosed with BPD, but men experience BPD at a similar rate. 

To receive a diagnosis of BPD, five of these nine symptoms need to be present: 

  • Feeling empty, or having low self-esteem. 
  • Paranoia or emotional detachment. 
  • Anxiety about relationships, making efforts to avoid being abandoned. 
  • Impulsive, risky behavior. 
  • Self-harm, threatening, or attempting suicide. 
  • Anger, moodiness, irritability, or difficulty controlling anger. 
  • A pattern of intense and challenging interpersonal relationships. 
  • Difficulties with self-image, identity, or sense of self. 

BPD is a very diverse condition. For example, not all people with BPD experience self-harm, though many do.  There is an overlap between BPD and complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (Complex PTSD). Some advocates and clinicians argue that BPD should be renamed complex PTSD. There is no doubt that many people experience both.  

Some people with BPD may engage in behavior that seems manipulative or attention-seeking to others. This behavior results from the symptoms of BPD, not from being a bad person or spoiled.  

Self-help and therapy.

If you suffer from borderline personality disorder, here are some ways to help cope with the symptoms that can lead to or trigger an episode:

  1. Take a warm shower or bath.
  2. Play music that relaxes you.
  3. Engage in physical activity.
  4. Do brain teasers or problem-solving activities.
  5. Talk to a sympathetic loved one.

9 strategies can help you support a person with BPD:

  1. Learn about BPD.
  2. Show confidence and respect.
  3. Be trustworthy.
  4. Manage conflict with attachment.
  5. Encourage Professional Help.
  6. Identify strengths.
  7. Have fun together.
  8. Take suicide seriously.

People with BPD find these things can be helpful: 

  • establishing good routines  
  • tracking moods and emotions to understand their patterns 
  • looking after physical health through healthy eating, exercise, and sleeping well 
  • learning about emotion regulation and distress-tolerance skills  
  • accessing peer support 
  • developing a personalized safety plan.

Listening to your loved ones and acknowledging their feelings is one of the best ways to help someone with BPD calm down. When you appreciate how a borderline person hears you and adjust how you communicate with them, you can help diffuse the attacks and rages and build a stronger, closer relationship.

Psychotherapy. Psychotherapy — also called talk therapy — is a fundamental treatment approach for borderline personality disorder. Talk therapy can help people learn to better understand and manage their feelings, and how they respond to people and situations. Treatment for PTSD can also be part of the support for BPD, if relevant. Traditional one-on-one therapy sessions.