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Bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder have crossover traits and so a person with bipolar disorder can often mistakenly be diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. In fact, some feel that diagnosis with both disorders is inappropriate unless the patient’s bipolar disorder is in remission.
But some people do meet the diagnostic criteria for bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder. I would have put this number much lower than it actually is thought to be. From the research I’ve done, it appears that borderline personality disorder is comorbid to bipolar in around 40% of cases. This is particularly surprising as it was once thought that personality disorders were only comorbid to bipolar in 12% of cases or less.
But what is borderline personality disorder and what does it mean if you’re diagnosed with both bipolar and borderline personality disorder?
My son owns a tee shirt that says,
"When life hands you lemons, keep them. Because, you know, free lemons!"
I like to keep life light. But sometimes crises happen and they can set our anxiety on overdrive. Once panic sets it, it takes all of our energy. Energy that we need to handle the situation!
On the other hand, if we used that energy to handle the situation. It would make our anxiety go down! Really! Read on for Five Things To Do When You are In A Crisis:
Learn how to get rid of guilt and worries in order to build self-esteem.
No matter who you are, healing PTSD can be difficult. While we can pump ourselves up (and get friends and family to give us pep talks) sometimes in those moments you're all alone you just need a go-to list of places to give yourself an infusion of calm, hope, inspiration, motivation and even, a little bit of love.
In everything I've written about here over the past year, I've never done a post that gives you a list of resources, so this will be the first one!
Every human struggles with emotions – plain and simple. These emotions can range from love and lust to fear and sadness. Sometimes, with the snap of a finger, emotions can dramatically change. It’s sad that when people start acting depressed or anxious or paranoid they automatically start throwing labels, saying so-and-so is “acting bipolar” or “must have schizophrenia”.
To everyone who throws around labels like this – think before you say because, believe me, it hurts.
Speaking out about having recovered from an eating disorder has been very rewarding to me. I have been getting involved with mental health related organizations in my community and I share aspects of my life as a person who has recovered from bulimia. Writing the Surviving ED blog has been very inspiring too.
In AA today, we were talking about the insanity behind substance abuse, a common symptom of borderline personality disorder (BPD). We agreed that self-knowledge is not enough to solve the various addictions we face in life, whether it be alcohol, self-injury or any other self-destructive behavior.
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It's important to honor our feelings, to treat them with respect and to not judge ourselves for having them. Even embarrassing feelings, or hateful ones, or angry ones. We can honor our feelings without acting on them immediately because when you own your feelings, you have self-discipline and can allow feelings to pass in and out of you until you feel ready to act on them. Or not. Learning to honor our feelings teaches us to honor ourselves.
Lately, I feel as if I've hit a roadblock in my recovery. I take my medications regularly, I go to therapy, I exercise, but I've hit a wall that I can't seem to move past (Bipolar Treatment: If I'm Doing Everything Right Why Am I Still Sick?). The other day, I received a book from a good friend of mine: Sane: Mental Illness, Addiction, and the Twelve Steps by Marya Hornbacher, and I started thinking about new things that I could incorporate in my life.
In bipolar disorder comorbid conditions (conditions that occur alongside the bipolar disorder) are more the rule than the exception. In the video I discuss the psychiatric and non-psychiatric conditions that commonly occur alongside bipolar disorder.
My point being, I'm right there with you. I hate the rollercoaster. I just want to live life without being in a state of constant fight or flight mode, only for his character to change and de-escalate and I fall for the person I fell for all over again.
Exhausting is a horrible word. The understatement of all understatements, if you will.
I wish there were better support groups for this kind of mental health condition.