Overview. Borderline personality disorder is a mental health disorder that impacts the way you think and feel about yourself and others, causing problems functioning in everyday life. It includes self-image issues, difficulty managing emotions and behavior, and a pattern of unstable relationships.
Many people with BPD act impulsively, have intense emotions, and experience dissociation and paranoia when most distressed. This emotional volatility can cause relationship turmoil. Also, the inability to self-soothe can lead to impulsive, reckless behavior. People with BPD are often on edge.
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.
Some ways that a person with BPD thinks include having paranoid ideation, dichotomous thinking, and dissociation.
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.
One of the most common misdiagnoses for BPD is bipolar disorder. Both conditions have episodes of mood instability.
Borderline personality disorder directly affects how one feels about him or herself, one's behaviors as well as how an individual can relate to others. Psychoanalytic theorists assert that individuals with BPD are often intolerant of being alone, which may be caused by experiencing “annihilation anxiety…
BPD is considered to be one of the most serious mental illnesses, as it causes a great deal of suffering and has a high-risk for suicide.”
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.
Your family member or loved one with BPD may be extremely sensitive, so small things can often trigger intense reactions. Once upset, borderline people are often unable to think straight or calm themselves in a healthy way. They may say hurtful things or act out in dangerous or inappropriate ways.
This discomfort can lead borderlines to self-mutilate, which sometimes provides them with a sense of release. Or they may engage in some other type of impulsive, self-destructive behavior, like spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving or binge eating. About 8% to 10% of BPD patients commit suicide.
BPD makes people more likely to engage in impulsive or risky behaviors, such as: Speeding or other unsafe driving. Unprotected sex or sex with strangers. Binge eating.
High-Functioning BPD Symptoms
Those experiencing high-functioning BPD often alternate between pushing people away and pulling them in closer, and may similarly fall into patterns of idealizing and then devaluing others. They tend to exhibit quick switches in emotions, such as going from very happy to very irritated.
Many people with BPD find that a daily routine provides structure and stability, and helps them feel more in control.
Compared to non-patients, BPD patients showed the anticipated higher crying frequency despite a similar crying proneness and ways of dealing with tears. They also reported less awareness of the influence of crying on others.
Personality disorders are chronic (long-term) dysfunctional behavior patterns that are inflexible, prevalent and lead to social issues and distress. 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.
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is one of the most damaging mental illnesses. By itself, this severe mental illness accounts for up to 10 percent of patients in psychiatric care and 20 percent of those who have to be hospitalized.
It's characterized by unstable moods and emotions, which affect relationships and behaviors. As a result, friendships with people with BPD can be rocky. Sometimes, people with BPD engage in behaviors that can seem manipulative, mean-spirited, or destructive.
I see how both sides are deeply hurt—those affected directly from living the hellish realities of suffering from BPD and the non-BPDs who may feel terrified, abused, scared and who can be even criminally hurt by those with the disorder. Overall, people with borderline personality disorder are extremely unhappy people.
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.
A pattern of severe mood changes over hours or days. Extreme anger and problems controlling anger. Strong, up-and-down relationships with family and friends that can go quickly from very close to anger and hatred. Extreme fear of and reactions to abandonment, and extreme behaviors to avoid abandonment.
Extreme emotional swings.
Unstable emotions and moods are common with BPD. One moment, you may feel happy, and the next, despondent. Little things that other people brush off can send you into an emotional tailspin.
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.