BPD and Psychotic Symptoms

Here we are at another post about borderline personality disorder or BPD and this week we are looking at psychotic symptoms.

Around 20-50 per cent of suffers will have psychotic

symptoms.

So, it seems that when under extreme stress, those with BPD may experience what we call psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions or some other form of extreme paranoia. What the hell this condition really sucks.

Can you imagine how it must feel to firmly believe that someone is out to harm you or that impending danger is just around the corner, with something terrible going to happen to them.

Thankfully those things are not every day common place, but they can happen. What I far more common is dissociated traits such as having the feeling of being detached from your body or from life itself. Even though I don’t have BPD I have experienced this dissociated when I felt like I was outside of my body watching things happen. I have only experienced it once.

I didn’t realise that dissociation can cause memory issues most likely to happen when the person dissociates regularly and for long periods of times.

So, it is not unusual that people with BPD will dissociate into safer states, these states may look like a completely different person. By this I mean they may regress into that of a child, or a stronger personality then they feel they really are. This doesn’t mean they have multiple personalities. It is referred to as splitting and it is something they may or may not be aware is happening. It is a way of coping.

These symptoms may be so severe that people with BPD may be mistakenly diagnosed with schizophrenia this is because BPD is often misunderstood even by healthcare professional.