With treatment and continual support from family and partners, people with BPD can have successful relationships.
Encourage the Help a Mental Health Counselor or Therapist
To get the most out of life together you will need guidance— separately and together. Personality disorders often require layered treatment by a professional or group of professionals that remain fixtures in your partner's life. Acknowledge and accept this.
Pay attention to your own behavior, and try to avoid taking on their responsibilities or encouraging their dependence. Let your loved one know you are concerned. Suggest that they talk to a doctor or therapist to be evaluated and offer to go along to the first session if they want you to.
A personality disorder can affect your emotions, how you cope with life, and manage relationships. You may find that your beliefs and ways of dealing with day-to-day life are different from others. You might find it difficult to change them. You may find your emotions confusing, tiring, and hard to control.
Why Borderline Personality Disorder is Considered the Most “Difficult” to Treat. Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is defined by the National Institute of Health (NIH) as a serious mental disorder marked by a pattern of ongoing instability in moods, behavior, self-image, and functioning.
Personality disorders can significantly disrupt the lives of both the affected person and those who care about that person. Personality disorders may cause problems with relationships, work or school, and can lead to social isolation or alcohol or drug abuse.
Individuals with DPD may be willing to suffer denigration and maltreatment to avoid being alone. Relationship ruptures are their greatest fear; unfortunately, their excessive need for reassurance and their dependence on others can overwhelm partners and friends.
Key points. People with personality disorders do fall in love. They have leftover problems from childhood that make it hard for them to form stable intimate relationships. People with borderline, narcissistic, or schizoid personalities have difficulty sustaining mutually satisfying intimate relationships.
When Is It Time to Walk Away? In some cases, the decision to leave is obvious. If physical abuse is present to any degree, and especially if the individual fears for their own life or well-being or that of their children, it's important to leave as soon as possible. Safety is the number one priority.
Personality disorders are enduring patterns of behavior, but some can change.
Often, the borderline person is unaware of how they feel when their feelings surface, so they displace their feelings onto others as causing them. They may not realise that their feelings belong within them, so they think that their partner is responsible for hurting them and causing them to feel this way.
At the start of the relationship, your partner with BPD might tend to idealize you and everything you do. They may focus all their attention on you, singing your praises, and demanding your attention. They might see only the positives and feel you correspond to their interest and feelings.
Despite the divergences of their approaches, many psychologists agree that while treating personality disorders is not easy, it isn't impossible. "That personality disorders are not treatable was a myth that occurred because there was very little empirical research [on treatments]," says Lynch.
Approach them very gently when they are in a stable mood. Don't specifically mention BPD if you can help it—just tell them their behavior is worrisome to you because you love them and want them to be happy. Offer your support every step of the way.
The disorders do have one thing in common: They usually don't go away without treatment. Psychologists are finding new approaches to treating these notoriously hard-to-treat disorders. Two interventions show promise for treating borderline personality disorder, the most-studied personality disorder.
Causes. It's not clear exactly what causes personality disorders, but they're thought to result from a combination of the genes a person inherits and early environmental influences – for example, a distressing childhood experience (such as abuse or neglect).
Untreated personality disorders may result in: Poor relationships. Occupational difficulties. Impaired social functioning.
PHILADELPHIA — Personality disorders may appear to worsen with age, although the prevalence remains stable with 10%–20% of people age 65 or older having a personality disorder, according to geropsychologist Erlene Rosowsky, PsyD. In general, personality disorders do not appear for the first time in old age.