Cases of teen BPD or Borderline Personality Disorder in teenagers concern most parents. In truth, most mums and dads mistake teen BPD with the effects of puberty or school bullying. Unfortunately, those are just some of the factors of this condition.
Are you noticing some unusual behaviours with your child—like often feeling suspicious and struggling with paranoia? It could be a sign of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) in teens.
In this article, you’ll read:
- Habits That Confirm Your Teen Might Have BPD
- Few Things You Should Know About BPD
Many teenagers nowadays can be fragile, especially regarding their mental health stability. With the kind of environment we have now, teens can be mentally sensitive and vulnerable.
Adolescence is a crucial stage for every individual. It is the period when a person is developing their social and emotional habits, which are vital to their mental well-being.
Experiencing mental health problems and illness can be common among this age group. They tend to experience anxiety, behaviour, mood, and attention disorder. Aside from that, another mental health disorder that teens nowadays experience is Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).
Habits That Confirm Your Teen Might Have BPD
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Experiencing extreme and roller coaster emotions can be usual for individuals in their adolescence. However, there could be times when they are becoming too much to themselves, negatively affecting their life.
Experts say that when your teen starts engaging in self-harm, illegal vices, and extreme moods, it could be a sign of borderline personality disorder (BPD). To deepen your knowledge about it, here are some habits that may confirm that your teen might have BPD:
Self-Harming Behaviour
A teen with BPD may rely on their self-harming behaviour as a way to cope with severe emotional pain. From their perspective, physical sensations help them relieve the mental pain that they are experiencing.
Appropriate treatment, such as DBT or dialectal behaviour therapy, will be necessary for teens with BPD. It can help them turn their self-harming behaviour into learning some healthy coping mechanisms.
Extremely Dependent but Easy to Lose Interest
Most individuals with BPD tend to act like they cannot live without someone. However, it only lasts until they witness that person make mistakes.
There is a strong possibility that their condition may highly affect their relationships. They tend to be extremely dependent on a person, putting them on a pedestal.
However, they also tend to feel disconnected or misunderstood by either person. As a result, teens with BPD may lash out in cruel ways.
Afraid to Be Abandoned by Someone Important
People with BPD fear being abandoned by those who have a close relationship with them. This kind of feeling can be common, especially in those who experience significant abandonment.
For instance, people with BPD commonly and consistently fail to receive emotional support from their parents. As a result, they tend to learn to believe that everyone may leave them or no one will ever stay by their side.
Using Illegal Vices to Escape
There could be a huge possibility for a teen with BPD to use drugs and other illegal vices to escape. These kinds of negative things can be the result of peer pressure and an act of rebellion.
Additionally, teen BPD causes some underaged individuals to engage in intimate acts as a way to control their confusing emotions. They experience this hunger to blend in and escape intense and complex emotional states.
It is their way of running from having painful emotions that they do not know how to regulate. After they give in to these negative influences, they usually regret everything doing it in the end.
Few More Things You Should Know About BPD
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The negative impacts of BPD may include self-image issues, patterns of unstable relationships, and struggling to manage emotions and behaviours.
It can be common for people with BPD to feel an extreme fear of abandonment. They can struggle to be stable and finds it difficult to be alone.
Keep in mind that you do not need to feel discouraged once you notice your child show signs of BPD.
Several people who had gone through this kind of mental health problem were able to get better over time. It just requires appropriate treatment.
What Causes Borderline Personality Disorder?
Experts are yet to discover the exact causes of BPD. However, here are the things that may be linked to BPD:
- Environmental factors. It may be related to a history of child abuse or neglect.
- Brain abnormalities. Certain human brain parts are related to emotion regulation, aggression, and impulsivity.
- Genetic. Individuals can inherit this kind of mental health problem from their family members.
Here are other mental health disorders that can be related to borderline personality disorder:
- Bipolar disorder
- Depression
- PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder
- Anxiety
- Abuse of alcohol
- ADHD o attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder
This article has been republished with the permission of theAsianparent Singapore.