How do I cope with borderline personality disorder?

How can I help myself in the longer term?
  1. Talk to someone.
  2. Keep a mood diary.
  3. Plan for difficult times.
  4. Make a self-care box.
  5. Try peer support.
  6. Focus on what matters to you.
  7. Look after your physical health.
  8. Find specialist support for contributing factors.

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What triggers a person with borderline personality disorder?

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.

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What not to say to someone with BPD?

What Not to Say to Someone With Borderline Personality Disorder
  • “You seemed fine earlier.”
  • 2. “ Stop trying to make me feel guilty” / “It's not a big deal” / “You're overreacting”
  • 3.“ Don't be upset” / “Don't be so sensitive” / “Don't worry about it”

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What does a BPD episode feel like?

Someone with BPD may go to great lengths to feel something, as well as becoming increasingly withdrawn and avoidant during an episode. Paranoid thoughts of everyone being out to get them and hating them are also common during these times. Episodes can also be extreme highs, bursts of euphoria and positive emotions.

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How do I let go of feelings with BPD?

Healing from Heartbreak with BPD
  1. Remember this emotion is temporary. ...
  2. Ride the emotions like a wave. ...
  3. Don't expect others to feel as strongly as you feel. ...
  4. Take a step back before reacting. ...
  5. Be kind to yourself.

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How to Cope with the Challenges of Living with BPD

42 related questions found

What does a BPD meltdown look like?

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.

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Why do borderlines hurt the ones they love?

BPD splitting destroys relationships because the behaviour can be impulsive or reckless in order to alleviate the pain, often hurting loved ones in the process. It can feel like everyone abandons or hurts them, often causing them to look for evidence, and creating problems from nothing.

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What is the hardest mental illness to live with?

Individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPDs) become overwhelmed and incapacitated by the intensity of their emotions, whether it is joy and elation or depression, anxiety, and rage. They are unable to manage these intense emotions.

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What are the red flags of BPD?

Persistently unable to form a stable self-image or sense of self. Drastically impulsive in at least two possibly self-damaging areas (substance abuse, reckless driving, disordered eating, sex). Self-harming or suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats. Instability often brought on by reactivity of mood (ex.

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What is the biggest symptom of BPD?

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.

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Can you trust someone with borderline?

Recent Findings. In trust appraisal paradigms, people with BPD have a bias to rate others as untrustworthy. In behavioral exchange games, they report lower trust in partners and are more likely to rupture cooperation.

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What calms someone with BPD?

Provide distractions. Sometimes helping to distract someone from difficult feelings can be really useful. Try suggesting activities or tasks, such as watching a film or tidying up. Or you could start something and let them know they're welcome to join in when they feel ready.

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Do borderlines end up alone?

Loneliness may be common with BPD, but it's not impossible to overcome. There are many strategies you can use to feel less alone, such as joining a support group, taking classes, caring for an animal, and finding new ways to communicate with your loved ones. You may also want to consider engaging in therapy.

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What is the best job for someone with BPD?

Many people with BPD feel emotions deeply and find working in a caring role fulfilling. If you are an empathetic person, consider jobs such as teaching, childcare, nursing and animal care.

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What are the strange behaviors of BPD?

Impulsive and often dangerous behaviors, such as spending sprees, unsafe sex, substance abuse, reckless driving and binge eating. Recurring suicidal behaviors or threats or self-harming behavior, such as cutting. Intense and highly changeable moods, with each episode lasting from a few hours to a few days.

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Do people with BPD have empathy?

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.

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What are the three C's of borderline personality disorder?

The 3 C's are: I didn't cause it. I can't cure it. I can't control it.

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What is a childlike behavior of a person with BPD?

A person with BPD may appear to be emotionally immature because they often expect others to put their needs first. They're frequently emotionally dependent on others and may appear to be trying to manipulate others to give them their way by inappropriate emotional reactions or acting out.

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How to tell if someone is borderline?

Symptoms - Borderline personality disorder
  1. emotional instability – the psychological term for this is "affective dysregulation"
  2. disturbed patterns of thinking or perception – "cognitive distortions" or "perceptual distortions"
  3. impulsive behaviour.
  4. intense but unstable relationships with others.

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What is the borderline rage cycle?

Intense, inappropriate anger can be one of the most challenging symptoms of borderline personality disorder (BPD). This anger in BPD is often referred to as “borderline rage.” It can lead to explosive episodes of anger that are difficult to manage and can have a significant effect on a person's relationships.

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Do borderlines cry a lot?

To evaluate crying behavior, we used a set of specially designed tools. Compared to non-patients, BPD patients showed the anticipated higher crying frequency despite a similar crying proneness and ways of dealing with tears.

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What is the life expectancy of someone with BPD?

People with Borderline Personality Disorder have a reduced life expectancy of some 20 years, attributable largely to physical health maladies, notably cardiovascular. Risk factors include obesity, sedentary lifestyle, poor diet and smoking.

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Why you shouldn't date someone with BPD?

Dating someone with borderline personality disorder can be challenging. Your partner may have major difficulties with strong emotions, drastic mood swings, chronic fear of abandonment, and impulsive behaviors that can strain your relationship with chaos and instability.

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Do borderlines regret their actions?

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.

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