Case Study On Borderline Personality Disorder

Over 3 million residents in the United States of America deal with a mental disorder called borderline personality disorder. Manuel Herrera is a United States Soldier for army. All his life he has been very strange, and has showed too many emotions that show he does not feel much for others. I've become very curious to understand why he is the way he is and to further understand if there’s something in my friend Manuels head that influences him to act the way that he does and has. To further understand what Manuel has, I've decided to take a further step in studying a case called borderline personality disorder. Does Manuel Herrera suffer from Borderline Personality Disorder, and if so, what treatments are available?

What is Borderline Personality Disorder?

So I decided to go further on and research what exactly is borderline personality disorder. According to the text psychology 1, it is someone who is “Unstable in self-image, mood, and behavior; cannot tolerate being alone and experiences chronic feelings of emptiness; unstable and intense relationships with others; behavior is impulsive, unpredictable, and sometimes self-damaging; shows inappropriate and intense anger; makes suicidal gestures”. Basically this person with this mental issue has many problems, they do things like cutting themselves, or casually having unsafe sex and absolutely hate to be alone and get very overwhelmed when they are. When alone they often due things they later regret. Their relationships are always unstable and they often lack control and get very frustrated easily. A lot of people struggle with borderline personality disorder and it is very much overlooked. It is very, very much overlooked and what I really believe that in order to have this mental issue, you do not need to have every single one of it’s symptoms which will be talked about further on. After further investigating I came to a huge conclusion that my friend Manuel had more than 5 of the symptoms of borderline personality disorder so I kept studying and researching on it.

Symptoms of BPD Borderline Personality Disorder has 9 different types of symptoms. According to helpguide. org, the first symptom is the fear of being alone. The person fears being alone at all times and is always trying to have someone alongside them sometimes even at will, and show clingy type of emotions so they will not feel seperated; which usually leads to abandonment. Symptom number 2 just happens to be unstable relationships. This person often feels attached than disattached to those he or she relationships themselves with. Sometimes they love a person more than anything in the world and a moment later they hate them more than anything in the world causing the victim to feel what is going wrong. Unclear or unstable view of self is symptom number 3. This symptom is when a person is unknown of who they are. Sometimes they are 100 percent happy and proud of who they are and other times they hate themselves and feel as if they are evil, they still have yet to know what is their meaning in this world. The next two symptoms are self harm and impulsive self-destructive behaviors. In self harm the main word is suicide; this person is always threatening, thinking or is hurting themselves. Acts of cutting or burning themselves, way of speaking like “I’m going to kill myself” all fall under the self harm symptom: on the other hand impulsive and self destructive behaviors can be engaging in unsafe situations like crazy and random amount of sex, drinking and doing many drugs, and more reckless behaviors showing they don't care for their well being.

The 6th symptom is extreme mood swings; this is when they have unstable emotions, in one moment they're happy, the very next they are mad and can last minutes or even hours. Number 7 being chronic feeling of emptiness which is they feel as if they are nobody in this world and usually do things to get over it like sex but regardless of what is done, they still feel that sadness in their heart. Explosive anger and out of touch with reality are the last two symptoms. Explosive anger is when they get mad very easily for things others would not and usually mad at yourself for a long period of time while out of touch with reality is feeling paranoid and as if you are not in the world. These 9 symptoms are all very serious in their own way and i have concluded my friend Manuel has 6 of the 9.

BPD Symptoms on Manuel Herrera Manuel Herrera has 6 Borderline Personality Disorders which are fear of abandonment, unstable relationships, impulsive behaviors, unstable behaviors, feelings of emptiness, and feeling out of touch with reality. Let’s start of with fear of abandonment and why i label this as one of his symptoms.

Manuel before leaving to the army always use to call me to hang out with him, or he would share stories with me that made me understand more of who he was. A lot of these stories and events featured him not allowing someone to leave because he did not want to be alone. He had an ex girlfriend who he claimed to hate and did not love but would never leave her and when asked why, “Being lonely sucks” would be the response, which further pushed me to believe he was afraid of abandonment. Manuel has many unstable relationships whether that be with his ex girlfriend or even family. I often ask him about his family and he usually says he doesn't care about them, at all. He stays in his room all day when on vacation home from the army and completely neglects his family, but here and than he supports them financially which make me question his feelings.

Manuel is a very, very confident man. He always ranks himself upon the most and is always admiring his “handsome” looks; but, he considers himself an evil human being due to the fact that he expresses no sympathy towards others. Manuel is a very impulsive man with very impulsive behaviors. Before leaving to the army he would always drink and do drugs non stop, while making money by selling his body to women online, but has never shown any signs of self harm. He is a usually a very stable guy so I do not consider him to have mood swings. He is also typically very calm so he is not an anger management type person. On the other hand, Manuel does absolutely question who he is and makes weird decisions like joining the army because that just did not seem like something he would do, and from last time I saw him, he has shown to me he is a very paranoid man now and more cautious due to joining the army and having a near death experienceHow is it developed?

Borderline personality disorder is one in which is developed typically because of an event from ones childhood. According to Borderlinepersonalitydisorder. com, “Certain events during childhood may also play a role in the development of the disorder, such as those involving emotional, physical and sexual abuse. Loss, neglect and bullying may also contribute. The current theory is that some people are more likely to develop BPD due to their biology or genetics and harmful childhood experiences can further increase the risk”. Basically this disorder is developed as a young child and can be any type of traumatizing event whether that’d be your father leaving you or you being called terrible sexual names, they get to your emotions and tend, for some, mess up a lot of their life. My friend Manuel and I talked and he confessed to me two things he has never before, one being that his father left him as a child and he always blamed himself for it and another witnessing his grandfather die and blaming himself as he believed he could have done a lot more for him. Typically when a person experiences these events that traumatize them as children they do not get over it and continue believing they were at all fault their whole life, as my friend Manuel has. If one does not realize they are harmed they become irrational and do stupid things and eventually realize something is wrong with them and potentially and hopefully reach out for help, as my friend Manuel eventually did.

Treatments for BPD

Borderline personality disorders can be treated with cognitive therapy and hospitalizations. According to tandfonline. com, “There has been a spate of new developments in the treatment of borderline personality disorder (BPD) in the past few years. Improved diagnostic methods and clarifications of the nosological status have led to progress in recegnitionand management of this condition. In particular, uses of low dose neuroleptics and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, partial hospitalization and cognitive behaviour therapy have helped to reduce the nihilism associated with treating these patients. The emphasis is now on providing integrated as well as targeted treatment packages The trends in treatment are reviewed with a stress on needs for more randomized controlled studies of effective pharmacologic agents as well as psychological treatments”.

Basically cognitive therapy is therapy which is short term and it’s main goal is understand we we think happened in a situation not what happened. For example with Manuel we need to further understand the reason he believes his father abandoned him as a father, not why his father actually left but to see what he thinks the reason is as it could be one thing that has been holding him back for many years now. So in the therapy they help understand what one thinks, and give them resources to what then can do like, if Manuel always has terrible thoughts on how evil he is the goal is to tell himself to stop before it continues whether that is yelling stop or saying it in your head the goal is to stop. Cognitive therapy is to understand not what happened to us but what we think happened to us. Another option of therapy is called a psychiatric ward. What this basically is, is a place that potentially holds people in their hospital to help them deal with their disorder. After talking to Manuel several hours he has admitted to me he was in a psychiatric ward for over a month several months ago due to all these issues as he claimed to me “I did not know who I was”. He basically explained he went through several therapy sessions and much time alone together yourself again/. He explains to me since that he has been feeling a lot better with further understanding of who and what he is.

The end goal of all treatment is to understand why this is happening whether it’s blaming yourself for your father leaving you or it is seeing someone you live die and believing you could have done more, you have to understand situations better to further better yourself. Manuel has admitted to me of his condition and names it a disorder that has a spectrum, whether that is high or low he says, “The disorder is ranked, some have it more, some have it less, but it is always great for everyone who has it in the slightest form to take it serious and reach out for help, as I learned that the absolute hardest way in the world, we can not swallow our emotions, as they always come back to us!”

Conclusion

The goal was to further research a disorder called Borderline personality disorder; while doing so I figured out my friend Manuel might be a victim of it so i became 100 percent more interested in the topic. After researching for hours and studying it for hours i found out it had 9 symptoms and Manuel had 6 of them. I then reached out and called him as we are very, very close and we talked about it and that is when he admitted to me about his disorder and why he believes he has it, how he is working on it and how is becoming a better person. Manuel 100 percent allowed me to use this information, and he explained to me more about his past. The goal was to understand the topic and understand why people get it and what it basically is, and I figured out my closest friend has it, and I potentially as well, have many of the symptoms. Borderline personality disorder is very underlooked and should be taken 100 percent serious as it does affect a human beings life.