Borderline Personality Disorder, Self-Harm & Eating Disorders video with Kati Morton

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

and I want to make sure

if you like this topic and you want more.

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.