1. Know Your Enemy
Once you have been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, learn everything you can about it. The more you know about the causes and the symptoms, the more you'll be aware of the symptoms when they appear and the better you'll be at fighting them off.
Learning about borderline disorder will also make you more aware of what therapy is supposed to accomplish. This will enable you to better work with your therapist to become more stable. Also, the knowledge that how you feel is due to an illness rather than your fault may allow you to cope with the feelings of guilt and worthlessness that many people who are borderline have.
2. Make Therapy a Family Affair
Borderline personality disorder can stress your relationships, especially the relationships with the people you care about. Taking your family or spouse to family or marital counseling can help mend those relationships. In family therapy, the therapist will concentrate on getting your family to hone its problem-solving skills and come up with action plans when your borderline symptoms act up. Family therapy will also help you and your family communicate better, and will help both sides understand what the other is going through with this disorder.
3. Back to Your Regularly Scheduled Life
A good schedule can eliminate feelings of stress and anxiety, both of which can aggravate your borderline personality disorder symptoms. Get 7 to 8 hours of sleep a night to feel refreshed. Another good thing to schedule is your mealtime. Get in four servings of grain, four servings of fruits and vegetables, three servings of dairy products, two servings of meats per day, and only the occasional serving of snack food.
Be sure to schedule exercise into your life. In addition to its physical benefits, constant exercise releases endorphins into your system. This has been shown to improve a person's mood and lessen feelings of depression and anxiety.
4. Join a support group
One of the hardest parts of coping with borderline personality disorder is the feeling that no one else understands what you're going through. Support groups help ease that feeling by letting you know that other people are coping with the same disorder you are. The members of the support group can also offer you advice that someone not suffering from borderline might not think of. As their name implies, support groups can also give you emotional support, partially relieving your family and friends of the burden.
