People with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) occasionally exhibit strong impulsivity, seduction, and excessive sexuality. For both men and women with BPD, sexual promiscuity, sexual obsessions, and hypersexuality or sexual addiction are common symptoms. Over 90% of sex addicts exhibit personality disorder characteristics, claims research. According to recent studies, sex addicts frequently experience other psychological problems. A borderline personality disorder is one of the most prevalent co-occurring personality disorders among those with hypersexuality.
What Is Borderline Personality Disorder?
The brain is constantly on high alert when Borderline Personality Disorder emerges. The brain quickly switches to the fight-or-flight position. People with borderline personality disorder tend to change their emotions rapidly. Relationships are another common risk factor in their lives that may affect how they feel. The things people with BPD enjoy and detest frequently change over time, as does how they see themselves.
For those with BPD, emotions frequently run high. Some claim they can’t regulate their emotions or that they feel everything people say. They are quickly irritated, depressed, or joyful. Unfortunately, elevated moods also come with a loss of self-control or the capacity to calm down. Active suicidal thoughts, cutting, burning, or statements about committing suicide are signs of the impulse to harm oneself.
The following mental health issues most frequently coexist with Borderline Personality Disorder:
- Depression or bipolar disorder
- Substance abuse
- Eating disorders
- Anxiety Disorders
Causes of Borderline Personality Disorder
Researchers believe biological or environmental factors can inherit both mental health disorders. Researchers are still uncertain of the exact causes of bipolar and borderline personality disorders.
There’s no single cause of borderline personality disorder (BPD), and it’s likely to be caused by a combination of factors.
Genetics
You can be more prone to BPD if you acquire specific genes from your parents. Because there is yet no proof of a BPD gene, they must interpret these findings with care.
Problem with Brain Chemicals
Many people with BPD have issues with their brain’s neurotransmitters, especially serotonin. Your brain uses neurotransmitters, often known as “messenger chemicals,” to send information between brain cells. Serotonin imbalances have been related to sadness, violence, and difficulties resisting desires to harm.
Problem with Brain Development
The brains of those with BPD have been examined by researchers using MRI. The scans showed that three brain regions exhibited very high or low levels of activity in many BPD patients. These areas were the orbitofrontal cortex, hippocampus, and amygdala. Your early environment has an impact on the way certain brain regions grow. These brain regions are also in charge of controlling your mood, which may explain why some people with BPD face interpersonal relationship challenges.
Environmental factors
Environmental factors can include childhood trauma or abuse like sexual abuse and the like.
Treatment for Borderline Personality Disorder
It has been demonstrated that a number of evidence-based BPD therapies can reduce or completely eradicate symptoms, improve quality of life, and increase productivity. Depending on the patient, their condition, and the degree of their symptoms, the intensity and approach to treatment might vary. While some patients benefit from clinic treatment sessions, others with more severe symptoms could require inpatient care in a hospital.
Their therapist should be someone with experience in treating BPD. The therapist’s knowledge is crucial since people with BPD frequently have other mental illnesses, or BPD symptoms might be mistaken for those of another mental disease. The best therapies for one condition or individual might not be effective for another because treatment for BPD is not one-size-fits-all. Additionally, those with poorly treated BPD run a higher risk of contracting other physical or mental ailments.
The relationship between BPD and self-harm or suicide makes receiving therapy more crucial. The correct care can lessen self-destructive tendencies and the frequency of emergency department visits linked to attempted suicide or suicidal ideation.
What Is Hypersexuality?
Compulsive sexual behavior disorder, commonly known as sex addiction, is another name for hypersexuality. People may be hypersexual if they are obsessed with sexual activity, sexual behaviors, or sexual thoughts. This obsession is frequently so intense that it may interfere with a person’s ability to function. Some signs of hypersexuality include engaging in various inappropriate sexual experiences, including excessive pornographic viewing, excessive masturbation, and multiple sexual partners.
Causes of Hypersexuality
Chemical imbalances may cause hypersexuality, and some people resort to sex in the same way that other people result in alcohol and drug addiction. Experts are unaware of the exact reason, and various hypotheses, from genetics to medial environmental models, have been put forth. Some people find that having sex helps them deal with anxiety, worthlessness, or mood disorders. Hypersexuality behaviors can be seen in people with borderline personality disorder during manic episodes.
Treatment for Hypersexuality
Both Dialectical Behavioral Treatment (DBT) and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) try to alter behavior by influencing the mind. The foundation of CBT and DBT is the notion that they may change behavior by altering one’s thinking. Due to its emphasis on self-destructive behavior, DBT is very beneficial in treating hypersexual disorder.
The primary focus of DBT treatment is on the situations or people that make you think about or act on your sexual impulses. Your therapist will teach you coping techniques and skills to help you deal with and learn from these triggers.
Although DBT and CBT aren’t necessarily a “cure,” they can be used to control hypersexual behavior. They can hold their hypersexuality and regain their ability to function normally by learning to deal with their sexual desires.
Researchers need to do additional studies to properly understand the condition of sex addiction, which is currently poorly understood. The hypersexual disorder will probably undergo adjustments when the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders goes through more editions.
Borderline Personality Disorder and Hypersexuality
BPD is a complicated illness that makes people have impulsive behaviors that end up harming themselves. Additionally, they exhibit erratic conduct and mood swings. Furthermore, BPD patients frequently experience short psychotic episodes, which has historically made it simple to mistake BPD symptoms for those of other illnesses.
Impulsive and careless conduct, an inability to control emotions and ideas, and having toxic or unstable relationships are the common features of BPD.
On the other hand, people who have hypersexuality disorder develop obsessive routines associated with uncommon behaviors or ideas that may or may not transgress legal or societal norms. In either case, sex-related behavior or cognition lowers a person’s sense of well-being. It limits their capacity to keep or establish a productive routine.
Due to the self-destructive urges of BPD, people with hypersexuality and BPD frequently use sexual activity as a way of self-harm and endangerment, especially when it comes to having safe sex. The connection between dual diagnosis and sex addiction is incredibly complex, much like other types of addictive behaviors. The difficulty arises from many emotional and mental illnesses, including hypersexuality as a symptom. The question then arises whether a sex addict’s hypersexuality is a sign of a secondary diagnosis or a co-occurring disorder. It often happens both ways and varies depending on the individual and their symptoms.