An employee or coworker with BPD may be a good worker when not overwhelmed by their symptoms. However, the effects of BPD symptoms can vary with different workplace situations, affecting job performance and the ability to “fit in” with the work environment.
Many people who live with BPD have meaningful and successful careers in a wide range of industries. When it comes to borderline personality disorder and work, everyone's experience is different. For some people, their BPD symptoms can lead to challenges in the workplace.
In the workplace, BPD can manifest in a person as: Indecision: it may be that their goals, likes, dislikes, and career progression change often. Unstable relationships: relationships with colleagues may be intense, all-or-nothing, and inconsistent.
Symptoms of BPD can also interfere with concentration, which can lead to poor work performance. For example, frequent dissociation can inhibit your ability to finish your tasks in a timely fashion.
It is certainly possible to have BPD and success in education and employment. In fact, many maintain strong careers when able to control BPD symptoms. On the other hand, some people with BPD have trouble with their career in which some are unemployed, underemployed or unhappy in their jobs.
Bold – Impulsivity is a BPD trait that can be positively linked to being bold, courageous and having the ability to speak one's mind. Creative – The high intensity of emotions can be released into creative endeavours. Many people with BPD put their entire emotional expression into music, art, performance and writing.
Barriers to employment mainly related to characteristics of BPD, such as low self-image, difficulty posing personal boundaries, difficulty regulating emotions, and lack of structure.
Be as consistent with your behavior toward them as you can. Try to keep things on decent, civil terms and document everything. Cover yourself at every turn. Learn as much as you can about Borderline Personality Disorder and try not to take any irrational actions personally.
The Social Security Administration placed borderline personality disorder as one of the mental health disorders on its disabilities list. However, you'll have to meet specific criteria for an official disability finding. For example, you must prove that you have the symptoms of the condition.
Know that you can live a normal life with BPD.
People with BPD often have risk-taking behaviors, such as overspending, drug use, reckless driving, or self-harm due to a lack of inhibition. Although these behaviors can be dangerous, and potentially life-threatening, many people with BPD are high-functioning individuals.
For example, someone with BPD may misperceive the intentions of a loved one and believe that they are being “treated like a child.” This individual may go to a close family member to gossip which causes this person to want to get involved in the argument and “make things better.” To avoid feeding into this behavior, ...
Many people with borderline personality disorder procrastinate and have trouble finishing projects because when they self-activate, they outrun their internal self-support.
People with a diagnosis of BPD report low levels of self-compassion (Pohl et al., 2021). Low self-compassion is correlated with shame in this group and predicted by low warmth, invalidation and abuse in childhood (Naismith et al., 2019).
You don't have to tell your boss that you have BPD, but some people find that being transparent actually improves relationships at work. You may find it easier to explain your mood swings and impulsive behaviours or ask for help when you need it.
Limited therapeutic effectiveness of antidepressants in BPD may be related to lack of serotonin receptor specificity, since 5-HT2A but not 5-HT2C antagonism is associated with decreasing impulsivity.
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a serious, long-lasting and complex mental health problem. People with BPD have difficulty regulating or handling their emotions or controlling their impulses.
National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS)
It is possible for people to recover from BPD however, and to go onto the NDIS, it is required you have a permanent disability this is one of the challenges faced with being eligible for the NDIS. The scheme was developed with physical disabilities in mind.
The Fair Employment and Housing Act
It also protects you if you have a history or record of a mental disability, or if you have a perceived mental disability. Your employer is not permitted to terminate you because of a mental disability or because you requested a reasonable accommodation for your mental disability.
While researchers are still trying to pin down the precise areas where BPD and autism overlap, it seems clear that many traits are indeed shared, especially among females. In one study, nearly half of women diagnosed with BPD also met diagnostic criteria for autism when assessed using the Autism Spectrum Quotient.
People with BPD score low on cognitive empathy but high on emotional empathy. This suggests that they do not easily understand other peoples' perspectives, but their own emotions are very sensitive. This is important because it could align BPD with other neurodiverse conditions.
This clinical study of 23 borderline outpatients and 38 outpatients with other personality disorders provides evidence that individuals who become borderline frequently have a special talent or gift, namely a potential to be unusually perceptive about the feelings of others.