Borderline Personality Disorders & Addiction
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a serious mental illness. It
is more common than schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, but is not as
well-known. It causes great instability in your moods, affects all of
your relationships, and may even involve hurting yourself.
If you are experiencing the symptoms of BPD, along with drug and
alcohol addiction, you have a very difficult and complicated problem
that requires specialized treatment.
Symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder:
-
Bouts of anger, anxiety and depression that are intense and sudden
- Impulsive episodes of aggression
- Feeling that you are a bad person or unworthy
- Being very “black and white” in your thinking or reactions
- Relationships are chaotic due to the sudden changes in emotions
- Feeling very attached to someone one minute, and the next feeling you
hate them or that they are the root of your problems and frustrations
With schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, the symptoms go on for months
and years. However, one of the distinguishing characteristics of BPD,
is that the symptoms seem to burst out of nowhere and last only a few
hours, or perhaps an entire day. This volatility leads to stormy
relationships both at home and at work.
According to the National Institutes of Mental Health, more than 20% of
all psychiatric hospitalizations are due to borderline personality
disorder. This is significant.
If you are a family member, you know that it is difficult for your
loved one to seem to care about and need you one minute, and push you
away angrily the next. It is important to remember that patients with
BPD deeply need to be loved, and these angry and unstable bouts of
emotion cause them to feel even more unworthy about themselves.
Co-occurring problems (those that are happening at the same time),
require dual diagnosis treatment. We are specialists in the treatment
of drug and alcohol addiction coupled with the additional problem of
borderline personality disorder.
Call us. We can help.
Common Disorders Co-occurring with Addiction
Other Resources on Co-occurring & Dual Diagnosed Disorders