Can BPD Cause Hallucinations and Psychosis?

Are Hallucinations And Psychosis Caused by Borderline Personality Disorder?

Borderline personality disorder is known to have a number of challenging impacts on daily life, but can BPD cause hallucinations and psychosis?

There seems to be some ongoing confusion over this topic, so we’ll take a closer look at the matter on this page. It’s important to understand what experiences are truly associated with borderline personality disorder, whether this mental health condition is impacting you or a loved one.

If you are experiencing difficulties related to BPD or seeing a loved one struggle with them, keep reading to learn more.

And remember, if you would like to seek out support options for this condition, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our caring team at Icarus Wellness and Recovery confidentially, to learn more about our JCAHO-accredited services.

Understanding Borderline Personality Disorder

Borderline personality disorder is a complex mental health condition that affects how a person thinks, feels, and relates to others. People with BPD often struggle with emotional instability. Interpersonal relationships are also often very intense, and those with this condition have a fragile sense of self in many cases.

When you add it all up, mental disorders like BPD make daily life very difficult. Managing the psychotic symptoms that come with the condition while trying to maintain a normal daily life can feel impossible.

These symptoms can include rapid mood swings, fear of abandonment, unstable relationships, impulsive behaviors, and intense anger or frustration.

More than just a mood disorder, BPD is something that touches every area of life, given its many comorbid symptoms.

Can BPD Actually Cause Hallucinations?

Getting back to the focus of this page, yes, it is possible for BPD to cause hallucinations. If you have BPD, you may go through brief episodes of hallucinations or paranoia, particularly during times of extreme stress.

Naturally, these more severe symptoms are quite distressing, and chronic feelings that hallucinations and delusions may be around the corner can become debilitating.

However, those hallucinations are not caused in the same way that would occur with a psychotic disorder, so it’s important to break down this point and understand the difference.

Later on this page, we’ll get into the details of how BPD hallucinations differ from the experiences you may have with other conditions like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

The Role of Stress and Emotional Dysregulation

One of the calling cards of BPD is emotional dysregulation. This is simply a term that refers to difficulty managing emotions. As emotions become more and more overwhelming, the system in the brain that is responsible for perceiving the surrounding world can also become distorted.

This is why hallucinations tend to occur for people with BPD when high levels of stress are experienced. As stress rises, it becomes harder and harder to keep emotions in check, and visual or auditory hallucinations become a possibility.

One of the main goals in treating and managing BPD is to keep stress levels low to avoid this trigger and greatly reduce the chances of perceptual disturbances.

What are the Differences Between BPD vs Psychotic Disorders?

Let’s get back to the point about BPD differing from psychotic disorders. Both can lead to dissociative symptoms, but they get there in different ways.

Someone with borderline schizophrenia may have auditory, verbal hallucinations, along with other psychotic symptoms, but the root cause of those hallucinations and how they play out is different from how it is for someone with BPD.

The four points below should make it easier to understand the important differences.

Duration of Symptoms

With borderline personality disorder, a hallucination episode is likely to last for a relatively short period, anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. This is in contrast to those associated with psychotic disorders, which can last from days to weeks or longer.

Obviously, hallucinations and delusions that last much longer will have a more profound impact on daily life, so while they are concerning and upsetting, hallucinations linked to BPD are not as disruptive as those that stem from a psychotic disorder.

Triggers

Most of the time, a hallucination coming from BPD will be the result of stress or emotional conflict. In this way, they can be somewhat predicted, and it won’t be surprising when one comes on after a period of emotional struggle. With a psychotic disorder like schizoaffective disorder, there isn’t always a clear external trigger that leads to the hallucinations.

Insight

One of the primary challenges with hallucinations that are related to a psychotic disorder is that the affected individual lacks insight into the situation and may believe that the hallucination is real. This is very dangerous for them and those around them.

It’s important for the psychotic symptom rating scale to be used by professionals qualified by the American Psychiatric Association in these cases to determine the severity of the situation and provide appropriate care.

The hallucinatory picture is a little different from BPD. In this case, the affected person will often understand that the hallucinations and delusions aren’t real. It may take a moment to calm down and gain perspective, but at that point, they will realize that it is all imagined.

Response to Support

If you have BPD and suffer from hallucinations, you can expect to respond well to reassurance and grounding provided by others. This is part of what will help you get away from the hallucinations and back into reality. The same can’t be said for those with psychosis.

In those cases, medical intervention, including antipsychotic medication, is often necessary to get the desired results. It’s helpful to get a BPD diagnosis so you can know what actions are likely to help you get out of a hallucination quickly and safely.

The Connection Between BPD and Co-Occurring Conditions

Many people with BPD also have one or more co-occurring conditions. Posttraumatic stress disorder is a common one in these cases, as are depression and anxiety. Borderline Personality Disorder and Bipolar Disorder sometimes also overlap. Unfortunately, substance use disorder can also be included in this group. If you have BPD and are also struggling with an addiction to drugs or alcohol, know that you are not alone in that battle.

Substance abuse in particular can make your experiences with BPD-related hallucinations worse. For example, psychotic phenomena like hearing voices can get worse when using substances such as methamphetamine or LSD.

Even high doses of cannabis can take you down this path. Issues with flashbacks to things like childhood trauma or emotional abuse may come to the surface during these experiences.

BPD and other mental health disorders can be treated proactively here at Icarus Wellness and Recovery. It’s important to have our professional team perform a thorough assessment to determine the root cause of your psychotic episodes, whether they include visual hallucinations or other symptoms.

The intense emotions that come with hallucinations are hard to manage alone, but you can navigate this emotional distress and work toward a stable future with the help of our facility.

Evidence-Based Treatment for BPD and Related Symptoms

Everyone who visits our facility has a different story to tell. Some have dealt with adverse childhood experiences, others have battled with eating disorders and other health struggles. This is why we build custom treatment plans that perfectly suit the unique needs of each individual.

While these plans are customized to your needs, they are likely to include many common elements that have been proven to deliver excellent results for BPD patients. Included in the treatments we may use in your care are the following –

• Dialectical Behavior Therapy. This is a cornerstone of BPD treatment as it teaches mindfulness, emotion regulation, and distress tolerance.
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Another often-used treatment for BPD, this technique can help you challenge your distorted thinking patterns and reduce paranoia or hallucination-related fears.
• Medication Management. There isn’t a medication that can be prescribed to “cure” BPD, but various medications like antidepressants and mood stabilizers can help to manage your symptoms effectively.
• Group and Family Therapy. These sessions will encourage healthy communication and can build a strong network that will help you achieve long-term recovery.

Receive Treatment for BPD Symptoms Today at Icarus Wellness

Borderline personality disorder requires professional attention to be treated properly. This isn’t something that you can deal with on your own. The good news is that BPD patients can enjoy significant improvements through consistent care provided by trained professionals.

That care is available at Icarus Wellness and Recovery. We are able to accept most forms of Medicaid in Idaho, and also take many different types of private insurance.

Even if you aren’t sure how you’ll be able to pay for your care, reach out to our friendly team to talk about the situation and we’ll work together with you to seek a solution.

Your health and well-being in the long run are our top priority and our team would be honored to take your confidential call.