Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a serious mental illness characterized by intense mood swings and difficulty in relationships. A person who has BPD feels emotions with great intensity, and episodes of anger, anxiety or depression can go on for several days.
Overview. 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.
Coping skills for BPD are often centered around learning to manage moments of emotional instability and/or control anger. Some techniques to help in these situations could include: Using stress-reduction techniques, like deep breathing or meditation. Engaging in light exercise, like walking or yoga.
The negative, inflexible, and unstable patterns of thought and behaviors experienced by someone with borderline personality disorder make it very challenging to live a normal or satisfying life.
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.
Not only is BPD one of the most painful mental illnesses, but it's also intensified by stigma and being misunderstood by others. Fortunately, borderline personality disorder is a treatable condition, and the pain doesn't have to be endless.
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.
About 8% to 10% of people with BPD die by suicide. Many people with untreated BPD also experience unstable or chaotic personal relationships and have trouble keeping a job. They have an increased risk of divorce, estrangement from family members and rocky friendships. Legal and financial problems are also common.
Clinicians can be reluctant to make a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder (BPD). One reason is that BPD is a complex syndrome with symptoms that overlap many Axis I disorders. This paper will examine interfaces between BPD and depression, between BPD and bipolar disorder, and between BPD and psychoses.
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.
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.
People with BPD need validation and acknowledgement of the pain they're struggling with. Listen to the emotion your loved one is trying to communicate without getting bogged down in attempting to reconcile the words being used. Try to make the person with BPD feel heard.
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.
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.
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.
Individuals with symptoms of BPD are particularly sensitive to perceived criticism. This increases the likelihood that they will feel attacked when a therapist attempts to offer suggestions or insights. This often leads to lashing out.
But antisocial personality disorder is one of the most difficult types of personality disorders to treat. A person with antisocial personality disorder may also be reluctant to seek treatment and may only start therapy when ordered to do so by a court.
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.
The condition seems to be worse in young adulthood and may gradually get better with age. If you have borderline personality disorder, don't get discouraged. Many people with this disorder get better over time with treatment and can learn to live satisfying lives.
Intense episodic irritability or anxiety lasting a few hours or more than a few days). Recurring feelings of emptiness. Frequent intense, inappropriate anger or issues controlling temper. Severe dissociative symptoms or stress-related paranoia.
People with BPD also have a tendency to think in extremes, a phenomenon called "dichotomous" or “black-or-white” thinking. 3 People with BPD often struggle to see the complexity in people and situations and are unable to recognize that things are often not either perfect or horrible, but are something in between.
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) has long been believed to be a disorder that produces the most intense emotional pain and distress in those who have this condition. Studies have shown that borderline patients experience chronic and significant emotional suffering and mental agony.
With treatment, medication, and counselling, most individuals suffering from BPD can build a life worth living but the dynamics of the illness make emotion dysregulation a reoccurring obstacle that can sometimes cause major setbacks (legal issues, loss of sobriety, physical injury, etc.)
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.