Amber Hollingsworth breaks down how borderline personality disorder and addiction look similar but require different treatment. The key difference: people with BPD have frantic efforts to avoid abandonment, while addiction centers on substance use. DBT therapy works for BPD; a follow-up covers official substance use disorder criteria.
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Borderline personality disorder and substance use disorders frequently occur together and there's a lot of overlap in symptoms. So how do you tell the difference? How do you pull the pieces apart to figure out if you or a loved one has just addiction, just borderline personality disorder, or both? Yeah, it can be a little bit complicated, but stay tuned because I'm going to give you a way to think about this that might help you decide what is what. Now, the first thing I'd like to do is just kind of give you a quick rundown of the symptoms. Symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder. A person with borderline personality disorder doesn't have to have all these symptoms, but it's going to have a number of these. You're going to see frantic efforts to avoid real or even imagined abandonment. You're going to see a pattern of intense and unstable emotions. People with borderline personality disorder often engage in dangerous impulsive acts like binge eating, reckless driving, excessive shopping, unsafe sex, and substance use disorders. There it is. It is literally one of the criteria that can happen as a symptom of borderline Personality disorder. You may also see self harming behaviors and recurrent suicidal ideation. You're going to see some intense mood swings in someone with borderline Personality disorder, and they often struggle with feelings of emptiness. People with BPD may demonstrate inappropriate, very intense anger and at times feel very disassociated from themselves and the world around them. Now, as you can see, looking at all of these symptoms, I could literally take pretty much any of these and throw them right into the symptoms of what it looks like when someone is struggling with a substance use disorder. Right. Intense mood swings, impulsivity, inconsistent sense of self, feeling empty, feeling dissociated moodiness. Right. All of these symptoms overlap, which is why it's difficult to pull these two diagnoses apart. But there's a couple of ways that might help you think through the situation if you're trying to figure this out for yourself or for somebody that you care about. There's one key symptom in here that I want you to pay close attention to. And that symptom is the frantic efforts to avoid real or perceived abandonment. Now, someone with an addiction will have frantic efforts to avoid not having the substance or the behavior or whatever they're addicted to, but not necessarily the abandonment. Now, it could get a little confusing here because sometimes someone that just has a substance abuse problem might try to make you feel guilty and say, you're abandoning me. Like if you won't give them money for the Drug. But you can really see that that behavior is really a manipulation. And it's about getting the drug, not necessarily about the relationship, Although they will use the relationship as a weapon or tool to get what they need related to the addiction. Probably the biggest question you can ask yourself to help you figure this out is to think about what you or your loved one was like before they ever had an addiction. Did they have all these symptoms in place pretty much forever, from like young adulthood on, even before the addiction? Or do these symptoms really start to show themselves mostly when they' an active addictive state? That's going to give you a huge clue on whether or not someone has just borderline personality disorder or just addiction, or sometimes both. Now, in both situations, someone with a substance use disorder and someone with borderline personality disorder, they're very likely to be using the addiction as a way to emotionally regulate. And there's a high statistical chance of trauma in the backgrounds of either and or both of these disorders. Now, why might it be difficult for you to figure out exactly what you're dealing with when it comes to substance abuse and borderline personality disorder? The answer to that is treatment and outcome. If you're mostly dealing with these behaviors and they're just really related to the substance abuse, Once you treat the substance abuse problem, most of these behaviors will go away, or at least very much stabilize. If you're dealing with someone who has borderline personality disorder and you get the substance abuse stabilized, but you haven't dealt with the borderline personality disorder, then your still gonna see a lot of these symptoms. And even if they're not using drugs, alcohol, or engaging in addictive behavior, you may see those dangerous, impulsive acts come out in other ways. Ask yourself this, Are these behaviors a reflection of the substance use, or is the substance use a reflection of these behaviors? It's kind of a chicken or the egg question here, but if you can figure that out, then you'll have your answer. Now your next question might be, well, what kind of help do you get for someone who has borderline personality disorder and or substance use disorder? Well, there are tons of videos on my channel about getting help for substance use disorders, so I won't go into all of those. But there are special kinds of help that someone with borderline personality disorder might want to look into. Namely, there's a type of specific therapy called DBT that stands for dialectical behavior therapy. If you're looking for help for yourself or for a loved one, then a really great fast place to get started is through BetterHelp Now, BetterHelp is the sponsor of today's video, so I want to tell you a little bit about them. BetterHelp has more than 20,000 therapists worldwide, which is one of the things that makes them so easily accessible. That is honestly my favorite thing about BetterHelp is that you can get access to the help when you actually need it. You guys know that I talk about getting help. When you're in that right moment, timing is everything. And the last thing that you want to do is start calling around to all these different therapist practices and waiting for weeks to get a call back if you even get one. Now, betterhelp, it's not a crisis line. It's not a hotline. It's real professional therapy done securely online. It's so easy to set up an account, all you have to do is go to betterhelp.com puttheshuffledown. Don't forget to use that link to get an extra 10% off. That's B E T T e R H e L P. Puttheshovel down. Now, once you get in there, it is going to be super easy. The first thing they're going to do is ask you what type of counseling that you're looking for. Then they're going to ask you some simple demographic information, and they're going to ask you what you'd like to work on, find out your location, walk you through the paperwork, super easy process. And then they're going to match you with a counselor. You can be talking to that counselor within 48 of setting up your account. The other thing that makes BetterHelp so accessible is that you can actually message back and forth with your therapist. And not only will your therapist message you back, but you can set up weekly virtual appointments with your therapist, which I'm telling you is so much easier than having to drive to the place, sit awkwardly in the waiting room, try not to make eye contact. You know the drill. If you're a little uncomfortable about going to therapy or you're just not sure, this is seriously the easiest, simplest way to get started. And it's more affordable than your traditional online counseling. All you have to do is visit betterhelp.com puttheshoveledown and I'm going to include that link in the description for you. Now, we went through all the criteria for borderline personality disorder, and I'm guessing that you have a pretty good general understanding of what the criteria for substance use disorder are. But in case you don't, I want you to watch this video next because in this video, I'm going to go through all the criteria for you, the official ones for having a alcohol use disorder. And if you're thinking to yourself, well, well, maybe the problem isn't alcohol, it's something else, these are the same criteria for any addiction, all the substance use disorders. You can just replace the word alcohol with any other drug, insert name, and you still have the same criteria. I'm going to link it up for you here so you can watch it. Next, I'd like to send a big heartfelt thanks to all of you who help support this channel. Your likes, shares and donations are helping us spread the message of recovery. And without you, this wouldn't be possible. Now, this next video has been hand selected to go right along with this one. And don't forget to check the description for additional resources.
