You've Been Diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder - Now What?

Posted by Lisa C. DeLuca Nov 8, 2009

Question: A reader wrote: "I have been diagnosed with the [Borderline Personality] Disorder, and am constantly reading the symptoms, attempting to find some way they don't apply to me. I always fall short. I don't want the medication. it's a blanket for the problem, not a cure. Is there any other possibility that these symptoms are found in everyone, or that they could be caused by hormonal imbalances rather than a mental disorder?"

Answer: When people are diagnosed with a mental disorder they often feel somehow defective, or less-than everyone else. This is a side-effect of what happens when we label people. Labels can be useful because they help organize our thoughts about, and give a name to a cluster of symptoms in order to better understand and help the person experiencing them. But a drawback is that people feel boxed in and defective.

Listen, everyone has something. I know that all these things are called mental disorders and that is a scary term, but I think it's helpful to just look at it as a condition that affects your happiness and the way you think about things, thus the term "mental." Think of all the people with depression, people who worry too much, people who have random panic attacks or phobias of some sort - these things are so common and are also classified as mental disorders.

Another important thing is that many "borderline" traits make you the lovely individual that you are. It's when some of these traits are applied too much, or go a little out of control, that they may interfere with your happiness. This can be said of any individual and any personality trait, not just "borderline."

Borderline traits can be found in many people. But it becomes a disorder when these traits cause serious upset for the individual or interfere with his or her goals. Medication does not cure Borderline Personality Disorder, but is sometimes given to help stabilize mood and manage symptoms.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy has proven to be very successful in helping people with Borderline Personality Disorder take control of their emotions and step off the roller coaster. It is a non-medicinal way to learn to love who you are just as you are, while recognizing and taking control over the things that you feel stand in the way of your happiness and cause you pain. Look for a treatment center that specializes in Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Borderline Personality Disorder. This could change your life.

Regarding a hormonal cause, it's important to distinguish Borderline Personality Disorder from Bipolar Disorder. Bipolar Disorder sometimes looks similar to Borderline and it has a chemical/biological component to it, but it is no picnic and can cause more severe problems. I think that when you wish for a more chemical/hormonal disease, you are simply looking to not be blamed, you want to feel like the cause is outside of your control, just like, say heart disease.

I can understand why you would feel that way, but try thinking about it like this. First of all, things in your childhood could have caused and contributed to your Borderline diagnosis. These things were out of your control and not your fault. You don't have a personality defect, you simply learned to cope with some negative things that were not in your control in a way that made sense and was healthy for you at the time. Now you can let some of these things go because they are no longer working. This is what Dialectical Behavior Therapy can teach you to do.

When there is no chemical/biological cause this actually frees you up and implies that you have some control. Control implies that you have the ability to overcome whatever problems or unhappiness that you are facing. Forget blame, we are all to blame to some degree for many of our problems and pain. If you want to look at how you got here from the past and see that today you may play a role in some of your current pain ok, that's fine, but please don't get stuck there. We can either beat ourselves up about it forever or just move forward to where we want to be.

This diagnosis can be an opportunity for you to find the right kind of help to live the life you want to have. I wish you all the best as you continue on this worthwhile journey.