Hey, everyone! This week's video
is coming by popular demand.
Borderline Personality Disorder,
eating disorders and self-harm,
how do they relate? So stay tuned
towards the end of the video
'cause I'm gonna give you
the dirty little secret about therapy.
^(soft piano music plays)
So I know a lot of you have asked me
about Borderline Personality Disorder
or otherwise known as BPD, which is easier
for me to say, to be honest, 'cause
Borderline Personality Disorder's like
(mumbles)
I'll probably mess it up. So BPD is
something that a lot of us struggle with.
We may have been told
by one person that we're diagnosed with it
or we have BPD-like symptoms.
And a lot of us just wonder:
"What the heck does that mean?
"And if I do have it,
"why does everybody act
"like it's such a bad thing?" Right?
Now, just to give you a little background
on what Borderline Pers. Disorder is,
it's really, in my opinion,
it's our mind's way of coping with things.
And I'm going to read to you
a little bit of the DSM, so that you know,
when someone says you may have BPD-like
symptoms or you actually have BPD,
what they're really talking about. Okay?
And I'll try to make this very clear
and concise 'cause a lot of times
people throw words around
that don't really pertain to us.
And I want to make sure you understand
what BPD really is. So the DSM states
that we have to have 5 or more
of the following. And this the older DSM
'cause the new one isn't quite out yet.
So when the new one comes out, I'll get it
and then we'll see
if there's any changes,
but I don't think there is to this.
So the first one
and the one I've talked about before
in another one of my videos
^is frantic efforts to avoid real
^or imagined abandonment.
^This was in my Fear of Abandonment video.
^And this one is probably the most common
that I see in borderline patients.
But like I said,
you have to have 5 or more.
That's only 1.
^The second: A pattern of unstable
^or intense interpersonal relationships
^characterized by alternating between
^extremes of idealization and devaluation.
Now, in the therapy world we talk about
people putting us on a pedestal
or throwing us under the bus.
So you either love me
or you just hate my guts
and you wish I go away. Right?
It's that extreme up and down.
That's usually...
What people will notice first is that
because they're in relationships with you.
So if you're hating them and loving them
in 2 days, they're like: "Oh!" You know?
And that can be really hard.
Now, the third one is identity disturbance
^markedly and persistently unstable
^self-image or sense of self.
Now we're all like: "Wow. Well,
"that applies to a lot of people".
And that's why you have to have at least
5 of these. But I think that one point
is why it's so linked to eating disorders.
Okay? Because
we don't think very highly of ourselves.
We have a very distorted vision
of who we are and what we're about.
That can lead to a lot of other things
Like eating disorders, right?
^And the next one is impulsivity
^and at least to 2 areas
^that are potentially self-damaging.
This can be anything from spending habits,
like we'll go on spending sprees
or it could be sex where we have sex
with a bunch of different strangers
and it's not really,
we're not safe about it
and we just act impulsively. Right?
It can be any kind of thing like that.
I think in here they say...
Yes, substance abuse,
reckless driving, binge eating.
So again, connected to eating disorders.
Right? Then the next one, the fifth one
^is recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures
^or threats, or self-mutilating behavior.
Now, this was my frustration
with the new DSM 'cause self-mutilating
behavior or self-harm doesn't just occur
when we have Borderline Pers. Disorder
but the DSM only puts it in here.
So we'll work on that. Right?
But a lot of us struggle with suicide
and I find with my Borderline patients,
many of them use suicide
and suicidal ideation as a way
to work on that abandonment
because they're afraid
someone's gonna run away, so then
we act out and we say:
"Well, I'm gonna commit suicide
or I'm gonna hurt myself".
And that gets people back in our lives.
Right? And that makes sense.
I can see the connection. Can't you?
So that's kind of how that's used.
^The sixth thing is effective instability
^due to a marked reactivity of mood.
^So this is like,
^you're intensely irritable or anxiety.
It usually lasts a couple of hours,
so our mood is just unstable.
It's all over the place.
I might be really happy one minute
and then really mad and sad the next.
It's like: "Aaah!" It's all over
and it feels really crazy.
So that, but it doesn't usually last more
than a couple of hours, at the most a day.
If it lasts longer than that,
then it might be Bipolar,
which I'll talk about in another video.
Let's not get distracted. Okay?
On to the next one!
^So #7 is chronic feelings of emptiness.
And I know we're all thinking:
"Well shit, Kati. I feel like that.
"That's me. Ugh!"
But remember we have to have 5 of these.
You may feel like a lot of these
pertain to you.
"Oh, I can really connect with that".
And that's why you may have heard:
"Oh, you have Borderline tendencies
or Borderline-like symptoms". Right?
'Cause we don't meet all the criteria.
So that was the seventh.
There's 2 more. I'm almost done.
^Now the eighth is inappropriate intense
^anger or difficulty controlling anger.
Now this is, I feel like a lot of these
kind of go hand in hand
with the eating disorders and self-harm.
You know how I just talked about
in my PTSD video how we're anger out
or we're anger in? Well, this is saying
that we have inappropriate intense anger.
So we really don't have a place to put it
and we don't really know why it's there,
but we feel it and it's bad and, you know?
So that's another way it relates.
^The last one is transient stress-related
^paranoia or paranoid ideation
^or severe dissociative symptoms.
Now, that also kind of goes in line
with my PTSD video,
because remember how I talked about
the ways that we kind of deal
with a situation
and some of us can actually dissociate.
I'm trying to think of what I'd even talk-
My binge! When I talked about binging
and Bulimia when you're kind of in
an out-of-body experience, like:
"I can't handle this. I'm stepping out!"
And you, like watch yourself doing stuff.
That's kind of what dissociation is
because we're too intense.
Everything is too intense
that we can't even be present,
like fully present in the moment.
Okay? So
that's what Borderline Pers. Disorder is
and you can see how it ties into
our self-harm behaviors
and our eating disorders.
But remember we have to meet 5
of those criteria to be properly diagnosed
and we may go in and out. We may meet some
sometimes and some not the other times,
but that gives you an idea of what it is.
Now the dirty little secret of therapy
and kind of something that I think
is really important for you to know.
I feel like many therapists might be like:
"Oh, thank God! Somebody's finally
"telling people this" because
I know a lot of you tell me all the time:
"Yeah! I keep getting passed around".
And people will say:
"I don't really deal with that".
And we don't know what to do! We're like:
"Holy moly! I've been looking
"for therapy forever
"and I finally get to see somebody
"and then you're like 'I don't see you'
"Great! Thanks for nothing!"
Right? And it's really frustrating.
That can happen a lot.
And that even perpetuates our struggle
with abandonment if we are Borderline.
Right? We're like: "Holy moly!"
So why does that happen? Why?
Why do we feel like we're so
like the black sheep?
And that's really because even in school
as a therapist they tell us
how difficult it is to treat someone
with Borderline Personality Disorder.
I almost feel like, yeah,
they should let us know.
But instead of saying that
and just making it like: "You don't want
"a lot of Borderline patients!
"They're really hard to deal with!"
And yeah, because you're volatile.
Your mood's all over the place.
You feel completely out of control.
You're afraid people are gonna hurt you
and you want to hurt yourself.
I mean, it makes sense. Right?
But as a therapist I'm not afraid
of Borderline patients.
It's really not that hard to deal with
and that's why, to be honest,
why I tell you all get a DBT workbook.
Join a DBT group.
DBT which stands for
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy
is the best thing. It's the saving grace
for people who struggle with Borderline
because it helps us get in control
of our emotions a little bit more
instead of feeling like they control us.
So that extreme fear of abandonment,
the mood volatility, the suicidal ideation
and all of those characteristics,
that intense anger, can all be calmed.
We recognize it coming in.
We can feel it. We use our Mindfulness.
There's a lot of techniques that they use
and it can kind of bring us back down.
So that's why people avoid Borderline
and people get a bad stigma,
and it's really not so bad.
We just have to work together.
We need to get our DBT workbook.
We need to start working on it.
I know it's hard and it's intense.
You feel it and ah! Right?
But then we're calmer. We feel better.
And therapists will be more willing
to work with you.
I just hate that it's given such a bad rep
but people don't talk about it.
They don't let us know.
They don't tell you other than:
"We won't see you anymore"
or "I need to refer you out".
That just makes us feel like shit. Right?
So that's kind of a little insight
into why that happens.
So I hope that makes sense
and I hope that that kind of clarifies
what BPD is, why it's given a bad rep,
how we're diagnosed with it
and how we can work on it.
So hop online! There's a great workbook
for Dialectical Behavioral Therapy
by Marsha Linehan. She's the one
who did all of the research on DBT.
She's actually the one who I think
even coined the phrase "DBT Therapy".
Check it out! Take time!
Look into it. Look into DB... (mumbles)
See? (mumbles) DBT groups in your area.
We can get a hold of this.
We can work together.
And then we can get the help that we need.
Right?
So stay tuned for my next videos.
Don't forget to subscribe.
Give us a thumbs up if you like it.
I plan on covering this topic more
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You give me a thumbs up and let me know
'cause I will take that into consideration
when I'm putting together my next video,
as we work towards
a Healthy Mind and a Healthy Body.