Can You Be Born With Borderline Personality Disorder?

Can borderline personality disorder be inherited? Or does BPD develop from certain life events or other outside influences?

The majority of experts appear to concur that borderline personality disorder develops as a result of both genetic and environmental factors.

In other words, it might not be accurate to suggest that borderline personality disorder runs in your family. However, you might be more likely to acquire this disorder if you inherit specific genetic features.

Borderline Personality Disorder: What Is It?

Instability and impulsivity are hallmarks of the mental condition known as BPD.

People with BPD frequently find it difficult to establish and sustain wholesome relationships. Additionally, their objectives and morals may undergo significant changes. The BPD symptoms might make it difficult for a person to finish their education, find employment, and pursue a fulfilling profession.

People’s perceptions of themselves can be negatively affected by borderline personality disorder. Numerous terrible events, including suicide death, may result from this.

What Are the Signs & Symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder?

Signs and symptoms of borderline personality disorder can include the following:

Extreme fear of being abandoned
A pattern of intense but unstable relationships
Dissociation (feeling that they are detached from their emotions, thoughts, and memories)
Intense outbursts of anger
Spending sprees, substance abuse, unsafe sex, and other dangerous and impulsive behaviours
Poor self-image
Paranoid thoughts (which can include thinking that they are being spied on or persecuted)
Self-harm
Frequent threats of suicide

The signs and symptoms of BPD should be evaluated by a physician or other certified practitioner.

Although borderline personality disorder (BPD) is often diagnosed in adults, symptoms of the disease may start to show in teenagers.

How Common Is Borderline Personality Disorder?

The following statistics about the prevalence of BPD were reported by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH):

According to experts, 1.4% of American individuals are thought to suffer from a borderline personality disorder. The 2020 census estimates that there are 258 million adult residents in the United States. According to the NIMH estimate, BPD may affect 3.6 million adult Americans.
More than 84% of people who have BPD also have another mental or behavioural health disorder.
Anxiety is the most common co-occurring mental health disorder. Six out of 10 people who have BPD also have an anxiety disorder.
Just under 40% of people who have borderline personality disorder also have a substance use disorder (which is the clinical term for addiction).

The majority of patients with BPD, according to the NIMH, have not sought professional help in the last 12 months. According to NIMH data, just 42% of BPD patients received care in the previous year.

Can Borderline Personality Disorder be Inherited?

Are you born with borderline personality disorder, or did anything happen to you that made you get it? One of the more important queries regarding BPD, as well as other forms of mental illness, is this one.

There is still no known cause for bpd, according to researchers. However, they are aware of a number of variables that appear to affect a person’s likelihood of getting this illness.

It would seem that genetics are significant. The chance of developing BPD is five times greater among people who have a parent, sibling, or child who has the disease than it is among the general population, according to the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Growing up in a poor neighbourhood, experiencing other childhood trauma, being mistreated or neglected, and having poor impulse control or anger management skills are additional possible risk factors for BPD.

Facts about Borderline Personality Disorder

Severe mental health disease, known as borderline personality disorder (BPD), has an effect on all aspects of an individual’s life. Because people with BPD struggle to control their emotions and stay focused, these individuals frequently display highly erratic behaviour, interpersonal interactions, and self-perception.

BPD was once considered to be a rather uncommon condition. However, more people than previously thought may have borderline personality disorder, according to recent studies.

Recent research suggests that up to 6% of the adult population in the United States may at some point in their lives fit the criteria for a BPD diagnosis, contrary to earlier estimates that estimated the incidence of the illness at 1.6% of the adult population.

These figures don’t provide a complete picture. One myth concerning BPD is that it only affects adults, however, new evidence indicates that it affects youth more frequently than previously thought. According to a 2014 study, by the time they became 16, 1.4% of adolescents had a borderline personality disorder, and by the time they turned 22, the percentage had progressively risen to 3.2%. The majority of BPD cases are discovered in young adults, however, a sizeable portion of these people would have been diagnosed years ago if a careful examination of their symptoms had been done.

Adult trauma may have an impact on BPD patients, making their symptoms worse or more difficult to treat. But these events do not cause borderline personality disorder to arise. Instead, borderline personality disorder is brought on by the confluence of hereditary and early environmental effects from a person’s development.

Causes – Borderline Personality Disorder

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 certain genes from your parents. According to a study, there is a 2-in-3 risk that the other identical twin will also have BPD if one identical twin has it. The absence of a gene for BPD necessitates caution in the interpretation of these findings.

Problem with Brain Chemicals

Many BPD sufferers are known to have issues with their brain’s neurotransmitters, especially serotonin. Your brain uses neurotransmitters, often known as “messenger chemicals,” to send signals between brain cells. Serotonin imbalances have been linked to sadness, violence, and difficulties in resisting urges to do harm.

Problem with Brain Development

The brains of those with BPD have been examined by researchers using MRI. Strong magnetic fields and radio waves are used in MRI scans to create a detailed image of the inside of the body.

The scans showed that 3 brain regions exhibited very high or low levels of activity in many BPD patients. Such components were:

The amygdala plays an important role in regulating emotions, especially the more “negative” emotions, such as fear, aggression and anxiety
The hippocampus – helps regulate behaviour and self-control.
The orbitofrontal cortex – is involved in planning and decision-making.

It’s possible that issues with certain areas of the brain are a factor in the symptoms of BPD.

Your early environment has an impact on the way certain brain regions grow. These regions of the brain are also in charge of controlling your mood, which may explain some of the difficulties people with BPD face in intimate relationships.

Environmental factors

A number of environmental factors seem to be common and widespread among people with BPD. These include:

Being a victim of emotional, physical or sexual abuse
Being exposed to long-term fear or distress as a child
Being neglected by 1 or both parents
Growing up with another family member who had a serious mental health condition, such as bipolar disorder, or a drink or drug misuse problem.

Biological Factors

Numerous studies have revealed that individuals with BPD have variations in both their brain’s structure and function. Excessive brain activity in regions that regulate emotional experience and expression has been linked to BPD.

For instance, individuals with BPD exhibit higher levels of limbic system activity than individuals without BPD, which is a region of the brain that regulates fear, rage, and violence. This distinction might be connected to BPD’s emotional instability symptoms. Additionally, more recent research has linked the oxytocin hormone to the emergence of BPD.

How Is Borderline Personality Disorder Treated?

Therapy of all kinds has been shown to be helpful for those with bpd. Additionally, a few prescription drugs may help with specific BPD symptoms.

DBT, or dialectical behaviour therapy, was created especially for the spravato treatment of borderline personality disorder. While working with women who have a history of self-harm and suicide, these are two symptoms of borderline personality disorder.

DBT aids with the development of four different types of skills: emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness, distress tolerance, and mindfulness.

Borderline personality disorder may also be treated with cognitive behavioural therapy or CBT. During CBT sessions, clients can recognise self-defeating thoughts and behaviour patterns and learn how to swap them out for more constructive ones.

Multiple levels of therapy, including residential treatment, partial hospitalisation, and intensive outpatient and outpatient programmes, may be used to deliver borderline personality disorder and treatment resistant depression.

Others may enter and leave therapy at the same level, while some people with a bpd will receive care for the disorder on several levels. Finding the type and degree of care that most closely matches a person’s history, requirements, and objectives is crucial.