A borderline personality disorder is a mental illness impact your self-image, the way that you feel about yourself as well as other people in your life. Borderline Personality Disorder significantly affects your life and causes problems in your everyday life. You’ll find yourself having difficulty maintaining friendships as well as romantic relationships. The natures of your relationships are unstable and extremely passionate and intense.

When you have BPD, your self-image is skewed, which causes you to have intense emotions and behave impulsively. Many people develop Borderline, and some of those people go on to become mothers. When you have a mother who has a Borderline personality disorder, it’s important to understand that this illness is not her fault. She has experienced significant trauma in her life, which has caused her to develop BPD. Just because she had a traumatic childhood doesn’t mean she can’t go on to be a wonderful parent, but it’s important to recognize what she’s struggling with so that you can be supportive to her. That’s why we’re focusing on understanding the Borderline mother in this article.

I Don’t Want to Be Alone

The Borderline personality disorder mother is afraid people will leave her, maybe even her children. This is because people with Borderline personality disorder have severe abandonment issues. They are deeply afraid of being abandoned, usually due to childhood trauma. When you have a Borderline personality disorder, you may have a hard time being by yourself. Being alone is hard because people with BPD are dependent on other people to soothe their intense emotions. They often express their volatile nature when others are around, and lash out at them, especially those that they are close to. They may lash out and express what looks like inappropriate anger. They have frequent mood swings and tend to push people away, even though they want to have close relationships with others.

When Does Borderline Develop?

Borderline personality disorder typically shows up during when the person is a young adult. BPD seems to peak during this time in a person’s life but can get better as they get older, especially when they receive the right treatment. The treatment for BPD that has been proven effective is called Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). A person with Borderline has difficulty tolerating high levels of pain and managing challenging emotions. Therefore, DBT teaches them to tolerate their emotions better.

Symptoms

The symptoms of Borderline personality disorder are linked to extreme emotions as well as an inaccurate sense of self. The borderline personality mother traits are important to recognize so that the mom can get the help that she needs to raise healthy children and take care of herself as well. Here are the most common symptoms of someone with Borderline:

  • The Borderline mother has a fear of abandonment and the perception that others are rejecting or separating from them whether this is real or imagined.
  • Having volatile and unstable relationships. The person on the other end of the relationship is either idealized or perceived as malicious, cruel or that they “don’t care.”
  • The borderline mother has a distorted perception of self where she sees herself as bad or invisible.
  • She can have paranoia, which can last as much as a few hours. Typically high levels of stress cause these paranoid feelings.
  • She engages in risky behavior such as unsafe sex, compulsive spending sprees, and substance abuse. She might abruptly quit a job she likes or stops relationships that are positive influences in their lives.
  • She expresses suicidal threats and engages in self-harm. These behaviors are linked mostly to fear of rejection or being separated from loved ones.
  • The Borderline mother has mood swings, which can last for a few days or shift in a matter of hours. She can experience euphoric happiness, anger, guilt, anxiety or panic all in a few hours.
  • She has a feeling of numbness or emptiness.
  • She has intense feelings of anger or rage. The Borderline mother loses her temper. She lashes out verbally or even physically attacks

Treatment

When you are a mother with a Borderline personality disorder, it’s extremely important to get treatment for your mental illness. You want to be able to be present for your children and be mentally and emotionally healthy. Part of the treatment for BPD is going to therapy to understand your abandonment issues better and work on learning to create and maintain healthy relationships. This is especially important if you are a Borderline mother so that you can model healthy relationships for your children.

Here are some common treatments for a Borderline personality disorder that can help the Borderline mother get the help that she needs:

Talk Therapy – This is a foundational treatment that can help a mother with a borderline personality disorder. The therapist that she’s working with will adjust her treatment plan depending on her particular issues that she is struggling with. She could work on self-harm issues, creating and maintaining relationships or emotional regulation.

Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT). Similar to CBT (Cognitive Behavior Therapy) DBT focuses on behavior modification. The Borderline mother will learn what behaviors are preventing her from functioning well and work to change them. DBT often will include group therapy sessions so that patients can learn from one another, but there are also therapists who treat Borderline patients with individualized sessions. One key component of DBT is utilizing mindfulness techniques. The Borderline mother learns to sit with her emotions rather than running from them. She understands the importance of regulating her emotions.

She will begin to notice when she’s feeling out of control and work on meditation and breathing techniques to prevent angry outbursts. Another key issue that DBT treats is for the Borderline mother to be able to manage emotional distress. When she is triggered and wants to panic, she can calm down using therapeutic techniques learned in DBT. DBT teaches useful skills to her that she can use in everyday life and helps her to seek out healthy relationships, which she can maintain. She will also be able to improve her existing relationships with a romantic partner as well as her children.

Schema-focused therapy. Schema-focused therapy is another form of therapy that can be conducted individually or in group sessions. It can help the Borderline mother figure out what her needs are that have not been met in her life previously. The neglect that she experienced earlier in life has caused her to engage in unhealthy behavioral patterns, which need to stop. At some point, these patterns served a purpose for her.

They helped her cope even though the coping mechanisms were maladaptive and self-destructive. She used these unhealthy coping skills to survive, but when she enters schema therapy, she can relearn how to take care of herself. She learns to meet her own needs instead of seeking them out from other people. This helps the Borderline other to create positive experiences for herself and her children.

Mentalization-based therapy (MBT). MBT is considered talk therapy, and it focuses on helping the Borderline other identify her own what she is thinking and feeling at that moment in time. She is then challenged to change and reframe her negative thought patterns. She learns to think, pause and then react after she’s analyzed the situation. This form of therapy is effective for treating the impulsivity associated with BPD. People with Borderline struggle with reacting before they have thought things through and that’s what MBT aims to teach the Borderline mother to manage better.

Parenting

Having Borderline personality disorder and being a mother can be challenging, but it’s possible to live a fulfilling, healthy life with your kids. Children are incredibly observant and pick up on subtle shifts in their parent’s behaviors. That’s why it’s essential for a mother to be mindful of how she acts in front of her kids even if she’s not interacting with them directly. If you are a mother with Borderline, it’s important that you are in therapy and working on managing your intense emotions.

It’s also a good idea to explain to your children that sometimes you might have strong feelings and that’s okay. It doesn’t mean that something is wrong, it’s just the way you express yourself. You know that you’re working to be the best mother you can be, and that’s the most important thing to remember.

If you are a mother, who has a Borderline personality disorder you can talk about what you’re going through with a skilled online therapist. These professionals are trained to treat Borderline and know the best techniques to help you live the healthiest life so you can be present for you and your children. Your mental health is important, and if you are feeling well, you can be present for your children who need you the most.

If you have a borderline personality disorder, don’t lose hope. People with this disorder get better over time with treatment and can learn to live satisfying lives.