It is commonly believed that some features of borderline personality disorder improve as individuals reach their late 30s and 40s.
Symptoms appeared to peak by age 15, decline through age 18, and remain steady between ages 18 and 19. Childhood temperament dimensions of emotionality, activity, low sociability, and shyness predict adolescent BPD symptom development.
Most of the time, BPD symptoms gradually decrease with age. Some people's symptoms disappear in their 40s. With the right treatment, many people with BPD learn to manage their symptoms and improve their quality of life.
BPD in adulthood
Studies found that most patients with BPD improve with time. After 2 years, 1/4 of patients experience a remission (less than 2 symptoms for a period of 2 months or longer) of BPD diagnosis. After 10 years, 91% achieved remission of at least 2 months and 85% achieving remission for 12 months or longer.
Research has shown that the prognosis for BPD is actually not as bad at once thought. Almost half of people who are diagnosed with BPD will not meet the criteria for a diagnosis just two years later. Ten years later, 88% of people who were once diagnosed with BPD no longer meet the criteria for a diagnosis.
Background. Recovery in borderline personality disorder (BPD) has predominantly been viewed in the context of symptom improvement and no longer meeting diagnostic criteria. Longitudinal studies have demonstrated that symptom remission is a common occurrence, with remission rates ranging between 33 and 99% [1].
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.
Someone with BPD may go to great lengths to feel something, as well as becoming increasingly withdrawn and avoidant during an episode.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.
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.
If left untreated, the effects of borderline personality can be devastating, not only for the individual who is diagnosed with the disorder, but their friends and family as well. Some of the most common effects of untreated BPD can include the following: Dysfunctional social relationships. Repeated job losses.
Intense and sometimes inappropriate rage is a characteristic of borderline personality disorder (BPD). A person with this condition has difficulty regulating their emotions or returning to their baseline. Extremes of rage and other intense emotions may last longer than might be expected, from a few hours to a few days.
A pattern of intense and unstable relationships with family, friends, and loved ones. A distorted and unstable self-image or sense of self. Impulsive and often dangerous behaviors, such as spending sprees, unsafe sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, and binge eating.
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) has historically been seen as a lifelong, highly disabling disorder.
While 2014 research indicates that people with borderline personality disorder often experience co-occurring psychiatric conditions, the exact rate of schizophrenia and BPD comorbidity specifically isn't clear just yet. A 2010 study found that 17.6% of people diagnosed with schizophrenia also met the criteria for BPD.
With borderline personality disorder, you have an intense fear of abandonment or instability, and you may have difficulty tolerating being alone. Yet inappropriate anger, impulsiveness and frequent mood swings may push others away, even though you want to have loving and lasting relationships.
Often, the borderline person is unaware of how they feel when their feelings surface, so they displace their feelings onto others as causing them. They may not realise that their feelings belong within them, so they think that their partner is responsible for hurting them and causing them to feel this way.
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.
Antipsychotics are widely used in BPD, as they are believed to be effective in improving impulsivity, aggression, anxiety and psychotic symptoms [Nose et al. 2006; American Psychiatric Association, 2001].
Patients with BPD showed significantly reduced volumes of both brain structures (left hemisphere hippocampus reduced 15.7%, right hemisphere hippocampus reduced 15.8%, left hemisphere amygdala reduced 7.9% and right hemisphere amygdala reduced 7.5%).
Most people with BPD do get better
The results: Nearly seven out of every eight patients achieved symptom remission lasting at least four years, and half no longer met the criteria for borderline personality disorder. “People with BPD can get out of the mental health system,” Hoffman said.
Borderline Personality Disorder is without question treatable. It takes time – healing is a marathon, never a sprint – but with early intervention, compassionate support, and appropriate treatment, individuals living with BPD can improve and ultimately thrive.
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.