Sometimes also known as emotional regulation disorder, the hallmarks of BPD are difficulty managing moods and expressing emotions. Symptoms can include avoiding abandonment at all costs, unstable relationships, suicidal ideation, periods of emotional intensity, chronic emptiness, paranoia, and dissociation.
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. When something happens in a relationship that makes them feel abandoned, criticized, or rejected, their symptoms are expressed.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
Borderline personality disorder usually begins by early adulthood. 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.
But with some individuals with BPD, you don't want to get into the habit of allowing certain things such as calls after hours, visits to your home without announcing it, borrowing your things and never returning them, driving your car and keeping it longer than they should, etc.
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.
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.
While any mental health disorder can pose significant health challenges, eating disorders are currently the most deadly category of mental health conditions. Any mental health disorder can present risk factors across the duration of a person's life.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Anyone living with BPD can still lead satisfying lives and take pleasure in long-term relationships and even life partnerships. With the proper treatment and support, people with BPD can and do have healthy and happy relationships.
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.
Favorite person in the borderline personality disorder community. FP has a unique meaning in the BPD community. A FP is a person who someone with BPD relies heavily on for emotional support, seeks attention and validation from, and looks up to or idealizes.
BPD Anger Triggers
Anger that is intense, uncontrolled, or inappropriate can be a devastating symptom for someone struggling with borderline personality disorder. They may be driven by a desire to be connected to others, yet loss of emotional control frequently drives others away.
Across the 20 years of the study, the rates of social isolation in the borderline participants ranged from 22 percent to 32 percent, with 26 percent remaining isolated at the end of the study period.
Their fear of abandonment and low self esteem may manifest into them convincing themselves that you no longer want to be with them – whether there is any actual evidence for this or not. To try and tackle the “divide” in the relationship, the borderline sufferer might begin to withdraw or pick fights.
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.