If you have been diagnosed with a borderline personality, there is a high likelihood that you also engage in substance abuse. This self-medication will be an attempt to ease your inner-discomfort and sense of isolation. The problem is that falling into addiction is like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. It is vital that you overcome your substance abuse problem, so you can manage your borderline personality symptoms.
What is Borderline Personality Disorder?
Borderline personality disorder is a relatively new diagnosis (although there is growing support for renaming it ‘emotion regulation disorder’). It is not that this condition has suddenly appeared out of nowhere but that people with these symptoms used to end up with diagnoses such as emotionally unstable, pseudo-schizophrenic, or pseudo-neurotic. The word ‘borderline’ refers to the fact that the symptoms share similarities to other mental health conditions.
People who have been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder have problems regulating their emotions and dealing with interpersonal relationships. Common symptoms would include:
- A history of acting impulsively and making bad decisions
- Difficulty sustaining long-term relationships ( a pattern of best friends becoming ex-friends)
- Highly insecure in romantic relationships
- A history of self-harm
- A history of substance abuse
- Poor emotion control
- Negative self-image
- Fear of abandonment
