People with BPD may experience rage when they perceive rejection, neglect, or abandonment in a relationship. During rage, a person may say or do things that they later regret. This could lead to ending the relationship in the heat of the moment. BPD rage is often followed by significant regret and shame.
BP/NPs don't take responsibility for their own moods or actions, so they don't feel remorse. Instead, they typically feel angry at you for reacting negatively to their actions. They rarely even notice that they have hurt your feelings or insulted you or put down your opinions or views.
It is often the case that a person with borderline personality disorder displays intense emotions, sometimes "flying off the handle." After such a display, they have difficulty regulating themselves. Once they have regained their equilibrium, they do often feel guilt or remorse about their behavior.
It's not a character flaw on the part of the sufferer, and although sufferers from BPD are aware of their behavior and its effects on others, they lack the insight and ability to change their ways of behaving. BPD can begin in childhood, although it typically emerges during adolescence.
A person with BPD or NPD may lie to distort reality into something that fits with the emotions that they are feeling, rather than the facts. These personality disorders can lead to significant challenges with interpersonal relationships.
A person with borderline personality disorder tends to anxiously avoid being separated from or abandoned by people they care about. They might go to extreme lengths such as stalking people they care about through tracking their phone or following them.
Individuals with BPD do report significantly higher levels of shame compared to individuals diagnosed with other affective disorders (Rüsch et al., 2007; Scheel et al., 2014) and exhibit more shame in response to negative affect (Jacob et al., 2009).
Studies have found that there are clear links between BPD and memory loss. One such study determined that BPD patients displayed enhanced instances of memory loss in response to the presentation of negative emotions. 1 This is thought to occur because of other severe dissociative symptoms that sufferers experience.
Many people who live with borderline personality disorder don't know they have it and may not realize there's a healthier way to behave and relate to others.
What are the conditions that may drive a person in their manipulative behavior? In BPD, these conditions are a lack of affective self-understanding, difficulties with regulating one's own emotions, and an impeded interaffectivity that makes it incredibly difficult for the person to feel connected with other people.
What others perceive as a simple mistake to be brushed off, people with BPD might perceive as a serious wrongdoing. You might hold onto a grudge for days, or until the person has apologized sufficiently.
Past vs Present in Borderline Personality Disorder: Those with BPD can become stuck in the past in their attempts to recover their lost self. What keeps the past so alive is not facing your feelings.
Separations, disagreements, and rejections—real or perceived—are the most common triggers for symptoms. A person with BPD is highly sensitive to abandonment and being alone, which brings about intense feelings of anger, fear, suicidal thoughts and self-harm, and very impulsive decisions.
These results suggest that patients with BPD report becoming more accepting and forgiving over time.
However, those positive attributes are not without the proverbial strings attached; when the BPD explodes with vindictive rage, all they said or gave to their loved one may be taken away in one fell swoop of aggression. BPDs experience the world in extremes: black-and-white or all-or-nothing.
Care and Management of BPD Splitting
Remember that splitting is a symptom of borderline personality disorder - while it can be difficult not to take their words and actions personally, remember that the person is not intentionally trying to hurt you. Splitting is something that they are doing unknowingly.
People with borderline personality disorder may experience intense mood swings and feel uncertainty about how they see themselves. Their feelings for others can change quickly, and swing from extreme closeness to extreme dislike. These changing feelings can lead to unstable relationships and emotional pain.
People with BPD fear abandonment and have trouble maintaining relationships. Nevertheless, they tend to lie, which ruins trust and intimacy, fosters resentment, and harms the very relationships they fear losing. Many family members and friends of those with BPD cite lying as a major problem in their relationships.
A key component of borderline personality disorder is a persistent feeling of loneliness. Treatment, especially within a supportive therapeutic community, can not only help you learn to manage your condition but also ease your loneliness and reduce social isolation.
Quiet BPD looks different from 'typical' BPD. Having Quiet BPD means you 'act in', rather than act out. You may not have stereotypical BPD symptoms such as frequent anger outbursts – instead you suffer in silence. You may appear calm and high functioning, instead of 'exploding', you implode and collapse from within.
Cyclical Nature of BPD Abandonment
The fear of being abandoned often causes people with BPD to form unhealthy attachments. Sometimes, they may abruptly cut off these relationships, effectively abandoning their partners. Other times, they make frantic attempts to hold onto relationships.
For many folks with BPD, a “meltdown” will manifest as rage. For some, it might look like swinging from one intense emotion to another. For others, it might mean an instant drop into suicidal ideation. Whatever your experience is, you're not alone.
Though it's not a specific symptom of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), it's not uncommon for people with BPD to lie compulsively. If you are related to someone with BPD, you might be concerned by the tendency of your loved one to lie and wonder how to cope.
People with BPD can be very direct and honest people, and while it does not always feel that way to them and others, they are often well equipped to handle challenges in life. Myth #6: People with BPD are dramatic attention-seekers.
People with borderline personality disorder may experience intense mood swings and feel uncertainty about how they see themselves. Their feelings for others can change quickly, and swing from extreme closeness to extreme dislike. These changing feelings can lead to unstable relationships and emotional pain.