Many people turn to drugs and alcohol as a way of coping with a mental illness. Using substances as a way to deal with confusing thoughts and emotions can quickly spiral into an addiction. One of the issues is that when people think of mental illness, they often think of disorders like anxiety and depression. However, there are a variety of personality disorder types that can lead to addiction.

What are the Different Personality Disorder Types?

Personality disorders can make life highly unmanageable and have unclear symptoms. These disorders can range from mild to severe, but they can have a significant impact on relationships.

Some personality disorders might lead to extreme social isolation. Others might cause you to become overly attached to people and have drastic shifts in your emotions. The most common behavioral disorders include the following:

  • Borderline personality disorder
  • Paranoid personality disorder
  • Narcissistic personality disorder
  • Antisocial personality disorder
  • Dependent personality disorder
  • Obsessive-compulsive disorder

Each one of these disorders can cause various symptoms and make life extremely difficult to live. Regardless, these personality disorder types usually create difficulties in fostering healthy relationships with others.

Generally, symptoms are clear in how the person with the disorder functions in daily life. Behaviors from someone who needs multiple personality disorder treatment might be:

  • Odd or eccentric
  • Dramatic, emotional, or erratic
  • Anxious, fearful, or paranoid

How Personality Disorders Turn Into an Addiction

When you’re struggling with one of the personality disorder types, you may battle overwhelming, intense emotions and relationship issues. Each of the disorders can create difficulties in how people socialize and interact with others. For instance, some people might become overly concerned with what others are thinking. Others might suffer from depression and seek to push away their loved ones.

When a person begins to have these various life situations happen, it can seem like the simple solution to turn to substances. The problem is that drugs and alcohol only make these problems worse. You may begin to push even more people away, and you may also not like yourself much.

Living in isolation leads to you trying to cover up your feelings and emotions even more with substances. Quickly, the cycle of substance abuse and emotional turmoil can get out of hand. Entering treatment is crucial to get on the road to recovery.

Help is Available at Steps to Recovery

For those who have both a personality disorder and an addiction problem, a dual diagnosis center is the best option. Steps to Recovery takes pride in servicing our clients with this specialized treatment plan. We are a facility that specializes both in treating mental illness and addiction and we provide numerous Pennsylvania addiction recovery services. At Steps to Recovery, we also take pride in making members of the LGBTQ+ community comfortable when they come to us for help.

Our staff is here to provide you with different forms of therapy that can help manage different personality disorder types. Some of the methods we use include:

  • Family therapy
  • Individual therapy
  • Group therapy
  • Behavioral therapy
  • Psychotherapy
  • Addiction counseling

If you’re seeking care for you or someone you love who has one of the personality disorder types, don’t wait. Take action today to begin the right path to recovery. Call us at 267.719.8528.