BPD Therapy
Has BPD Created Problems In Your Relationships?
Do you suffer from intense mood swings and struggle to regulate your emotions?
Have your emotional challenges started to cause conflict with your loved ones?
Does fear of abandonment hold you back from feeling secure in your relationships?
When you’re dealing with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), it’s normal to suffer from a deep fear of losing people. Maybe you get overly attached to others and constantly go out of your way to please them. Perhaps you move too quickly in new relationships and idealize friends and romantic partners, which can lead to disappointment. The intensity of your relationships makes it hard for you to relax. As a result, you may be considering therapy for BPD.
You Might Turn To Unhealthy Habits To Cope With Your Emotional Pain
Another sign of BPD is engaging in risky behaviours. To cope with feelings of insecurity, you may binge eat, self-harm, or use drugs and alcohol. Although these habits may temporarily make you feel better, they can’t erase underlying challenges.
To get to the root of your pain and experience long-lasting healing, sometimes you need the help of a compassionate professional. Here at West Wellness Counselling & Psychotherapy, our therapists are knowledgeable about treating BPD. With our unconditional support, we’re confident that you can learn to regulate your emotions, develop a firmer sense of self, and enjoy healthier relationships with others.
BPD Often Goes Hand In Hand With A History Of Trauma
Roughly 1.6 percent of the US population suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder.* There are many different factors that can increase the likelihood of developing BPD. Sometimes it’s connected to a family history of BPD, changes in brain chemistry, and experiences of trauma or abandonment.
Most people with BPD have experienced some level of instability in past relationships. Oftentimes, they grew up with inconsistent or neglectful caregivers. Their parents may have struggled with alcoholism, gambling, or other forms of addiction. There may have also been domestic violence in the home. All of these experiences leave children vulnerable and teach them that they can’t rely on the people they love, creating a very real fear of abandonment.
Many People With BPD Don’t Get The Mental Health Support They Need
When you feel intensely positive emotions, you probably think you’re doing okay and can manage BPD on your own. Yet when you feel intensely negative emotions, you may feel too hopeless and unmotivated to reach out for help. In this way, the mood swings of BPD can make it hard to get the support you need.
What’s more, since BPD makes you overly preoccupied with the needs of others, you may not pay attention to your own. Your low self-esteem could drive you to believe that you’re not worthy of support. In counseling, you have a chance to set aside your desire to please others and focus on yourself. You will learn to show yourself the same compassionate care that you show other people.
Therapy Can Help You Manage BPD And Build Healthier Relationships
In order to improve your relationships with others, the first thing you need to do is improve your relationship with yourself. Here at West Wellness Counseling & Psychotherapy, our goal is to help you develop a stronger sense of self and learn to love who you are on a deeper level. When that happens, you will generally find that your confidence increases, and your fear of abandonment dwindles.
We know that living with BPD is challenging, confusing, and overwhelming, but we also know that there is hope. We’ve helped so many people learn to navigate the ups and downs of BPD and we are confident that we can do the same for you!
What To Expect In BPD Counselling Sessions
In sessions together, we’ll teach you new coping strategies for regulating painful emotions and improving your ability to tolerate distress. We’ll help you build new ways to engage with others, empowering you to communicate your needs more effectively and set healthier boundaries. You’ll learn to assert yourself in your relationships and prioritize your needs instead of always giving in to the needs of others.
On a deeper level, you and your therapist can look into where your fear of abandonment comes from. Together, you might explore painful past relationships and work on processing any trauma that’s contributing to you BPD.
Additionally, we would be more than happy to connect you with new resources for managing BPD, such as a physician for support with medication, a peer support group, or anything else to supplement your time in therapy.
Tailoring Your BPD Treatment Plan
One of the main therapeutic approaches that we use is called Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT), which was specifically created for people with personality disorders. DBT focuses on improving your distress tolerance, regulating your emotions, increasing your mindful awareness, and building interpersonal skills. It gives you mindfulness and self-soothing strategies that you can use to manage your BPD symptoms and stay grounded when you feel stressed.
What’s more, DBT can help you recognize your emotions through techniques like emotional recordkeeping. For instance, say that someone doesn’t text you back right away. You’re tempted to send the person a passive-aggressive text to let them know you’re upset, but then you stop and realize that this stems from your fear of abandonment. In this way, DBT makes it easier to press pause when your emotions overwhelm you.
By giving you the skills to identify, understand, and navigate the emotional difficulties of BPD, we believe that we can help you reduce your fear of abandonment and move towards a life of happiness.
You May Have Some Concerns About Therapy For Borderline Personality Disorder…
How long will it take for me to notice changes in myself?
As much as we wish that change could happen overnight, that isn’t exactly realistic. Change may not come about as quickly as you want, but it can happen as long as you’re patient with yourself and committed to learning new skills. Over time, you can start to see positive changes in the way you navigate your emotions and behaviours and build off these changes to continue healing and growing.
I’m afraid of taking space from someone who needs counselling more than me.
Everyone is worthy and deserving of support. When you have BPD, it’s normal to feel like other people’s needs are more important than your own—that’s part of BPD. The truth is that you are not taking space from anyone and you are worth just as much as everyone else seeking therapy. Even if you think that someone out there has it worse than you, it’s still good to get support when your mental health is struggling.
I’m afraid of what others will think of me if they find out I’m in therapy.
The good news is that our sessions are 100 percent confidential—no one else has to know that you’re in therapy unless you want them to. That said, we understand that there is still a stigma around many mental health issues. On the bright side, that stigma has grown less powerful in recent years, as therapy becomes more normalized and more people are seeking mental health support.
You Deserve To Feel Safe And Secure In Your Relationships
At West Wellness Counselling & Psychotherapy, we want to help you get control of your BPD symptoms so that you can work toward the relationships that you’ve always wanted. To begin the healing process, you can use the e contact form to book a consultation.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK430883/
