Borderline Personality Disorder, also known as BPD, results in mood intensity and unpredictable behaviors which can feel uncontrollable. These overwhelming emotions can make relationships difficult to navigate and increase self-harm or suicidal behaviors which means it takes intense work just to make it through everyday life.
Often a result of childhood trauma, possibly genetics, environment, and physiological disposition, too, having BPD cause a person to feel intense anger, to act out in extreme and reckless ways, to quickly value and devalue others, and to fear abandonment and yet be fragile in close relationships. This can all seem like a real challenge, and it can be, but there is a lot of good that can result from having BPD, too, and counseling can help.
Living a Healthy Life
Through the use of coping skills, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), and a supportive therapeutic relationship, you can learn to embrace the strengths that the disorder has enabled you to develop.
For instance, you are very in tune with your emotions. This is hard for many people, but you know how to put words to what makes you feel powerful and powerless. You know how to identify if something is working for you or if it isn’t, and you aren’t afraid to show how you feel in the heat of the moment.
You also are likely to be persistent, too. After all, it takes a lot of energy to manage the ups and downs of rapidly fluctuating emotions, and you work very hard to try to do this over the course of time. The difficulty in having such strengths to manage your BPD symptoms is that it causes you to suffer emotionally within yourself and externally in your relationships with the ways of the world and with others. This is where counseling can help.
Determine Your Goals and Motivations
You are a unique individual and so much more than a diagnosis. You have many gifts, skills, and talents, and a diagnosis cannot ever overshadow that. You are so much more than the BPD symptoms, and together we will work to help you identify your unique personality traits, to identify what motivates you, and to help you to set personal goals for how you take care of yourself and choose to show up in the world.
You may have struggles with your mood, but you were also created with a purpose. BPD does not have to overshadow that purpose. In fact, BPD does not have the right to overshadow that purpose. You have a lot to give to the right people, and you deserve to have a life that works for you, too. You can learn effective ways to manage your stressors while also enhancing your strengths, and I can help. BPD is able to be treated through the use of Dialectical Behavior Therapy.
Treatment
Rest assured that help is available for BPD, but if you need help with symptoms, I specialize in this work. I take the counseling approach to help you adopt effective strategies for symptom management, emotional regulation, and life coping skills in general. Dialectical Behavior Therapy, also known as DBT, is an effective way to treat Borderline Personality Disorder. Using DBT, you can gain strength to fight the emotional battles that rock your world by learning to regulate your body, your thoughts, and your environment to optimize your ability to function well for yourself and in relationship with others.
Click here for more about how I can help you in the management of Borderline Personality Disorder.