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.
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.
People with BPD often harbor an intense fear of being abandoned by the ones they love, suffer from chronic feelings of emptiness, engage in suicidal behavior or threats, and have difficulty controlling anger.
They struggle to relate to other people, to control extreme emotions like anger and depression, and they live with a near-constant fear of being abandoned. They also have a difficult time constructing a sense of self, which can lead to regular shifts in career, activities, friends, and other aspects of life.
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.
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.
BPD in particular is one of the lesser-known mental illnesses, but all the same it is one of the hardest to reckon with. (Some people dislike the term so much they prefer to refer to emotionally unstable personality disorder.)
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.
Loneliness and the need to self-isolate are common in borderline personality disorder. Here's how you can overcome these feelings. If you live with this condition, you might crave close connections with others — but you might also find it challenging to interact with them.
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.
Intense outburst of anger. Repeated involvement in risky, impulsive behaviors. Lack of a stable or clear self-image. Intense, often unreasonable fear of being abandoned.
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.
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.
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.
Additionally, living with untreated borderline personality disorder can leave someone feeling disconnected, unhappy, and unable to build a healthy sense of self-esteem. If you think that you may have BPD, don't delay in seeking professional support.
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.
Feeling rejected or abandoned
Fear of abandonment is a common symptom of BPD. Anything that causes someone to feel rejected or abandoned could be a trigger. While these fears are especially common in romantic relationships, any real (or perceived, for that matter) abandonment could escalate BPD symptoms.
Environmental factors
being a victim of emotional, physical or sexual abuse. being exposed to long-term fear or distress as a child. being neglected by 1 or both parents. growing up with another family member who had a serious mental health condition, such as bipolar disorder or a drink or drug misuse problem.
Someone with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) often has trouble maintaining friendships. They tend to search for emotional caregivers and have difficulty grasping the idea of friendship. In any sort of friendship, they have unreasonable expectations for attention, validation, and compassion.
Overall, people with borderline personality disorder are extremely unhappy people.
Cyclical Nature of BPD Abandonment
The fear of being abandoned often causes people with BPD to form unhealthy attachments. Sometimes, they may abruptly cut off these relationships, effectively abandoning their partners. Other times, they make frantic attempts to hold onto relationships.
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.
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.