Often having felt afraid, upset, unsupported or invalidated. Family difficulties or instability, such as living with a parent or carer who experienced an addiction. Sexual, physical or emotional abuse or neglect. Losing a parent.
Childhood abuse and trauma: Up to 70% of people with BPD have experienced sexual, emotional or physical abuse as a child. Maternal separation, poor maternal attachment, inappropriate family boundaries and parental substance use disorder are also associated with BPD.
Assessments of people diagnosed with BPD have revealed a variety of environmental stressors that heighten the risk of developing the condition. These include big T trauma such as childhood sexual abuse and little t traumas, such as harsh parenting, neglect and bullying.
Conclusions: Parental externalizing psychopathology and father's BPD traits contribute genetic risk for offspring BPD traits, but mothers' BPD traits and parents' poor parenting constitute environmental risks for the development of these offspring traits.
As a result, they often fear conflict, try to placate their family, and struggle with a core sense of identity. Parents with BPD may oscillate between being overly attached or involved with their children and being hostile or dismissive. Sometimes, they might present as extraordinarily loving and attentive.
Borderline personality disorder usually begins by early adulthood. The condition seems to be worse in young adulthood and may gradually get better with age.
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.
Borderline personality disorder is one of the most painful mental illnesses since individuals struggling with this disorder are constantly trying to cope with volatile and overwhelming emotions.
Maladaptive parenting including childhood maltreatment, abuse and neglect, exposure to domestic violence and parental conflict are found to be prevalent psychosocial risk factors for development of BPD in children and adolescents [10, 11].
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.
Empathy and compassion – People with BPD experience greater internal and external turmoil. However, this in turn allows for the ability to recognise and have greater insight for others in similar situations.
High-functioning BPD is the result of trauma in the form of chronic emotional abuse or neglect.
Some ways that a person with BPD thinks include having paranoid ideation, dichotomous thinking, and dissociation. If you believe that you might be experiencing thinking associated with BPD, talk to your doctor. They can evaluate your symptoms and refer you to a mental health professional.
The foundation of relational problems is often anger and impulsivity. If you are feeling devalued or completely disrespected, make that known to the person and then create boundaries that make it clear you will not tolerate any abuse. If this does not help, gradually distance yourself until boundaries are “reset.”
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.
The effects of untreated borderline personality disorder (BPD) can be devastating. For example, the physical and mental health impact of this disorder is so severe that life expectancy among people who have BPD is about 20 years less than the national average.
The Victim
Individuals with BPD often feel helpless, hopeless, powerless, and ashamed. When in this state of mind, they may adopt a passive role and draw in others to make decisions for them and support them.
Many individuals with BPD are highly intelligent and are aware that their reactions may seem strong. These individuals often report feeling that emotions control their lives or even that they feel things more intensely than other people.
Narcissistic personality disorder can exist on its own but can also co-occur with borderline personality disorder. It's vital to understand the BPD and NPD relationship because some of the symptoms of both disorders overlap.
Early evidence indicated that outpatients with BPD, compared to non-psychiatric controls, have crucial deficits in the important domains of emotional intelligence including self-awareness, control of emotions, motivating oneself, and empathy [4,5,6,7,8].
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.
For someone with this type of BPD relationship, a “favorite person” is someone they rely on for comfort, happiness, and validation. The relationship with a BPD favorite person may start healthy, but it can often turn into a toxic love-hate cycle known as idealization and devaluation.
Patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) are at high risk for early death from suicide and other causes, according to a study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.