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.
The negative, inflexible, and unstable patterns of thought and behaviors experienced by someone with borderline personality disorder make it very challenging to live a normal or satisfying life.
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.
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.
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.
Loving someone with borderline personality disorder isn't easy. Watching your loved one struggle with deep inner turmoil, negotiating a fluctuating sense of identity, and experiencing such profound rawness of emotion can be painful. Often, even everyday interactions can be laden with potential hazards.
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. Many people with this disorder get better over time with treatment and can learn to live satisfying lives.
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.
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.
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.
Many people with BPD feel emotions deeply and find working in a caring role fulfilling. If you are an empathetic person, consider jobs such as teaching, childcare, nursing and animal care.
People with BPD experience intense mental-emotional pain as their baseline mood. Emotions are extremely intense, leading to episodes of depression, anxiety or anger. If you need help, we're here for you. Contact us today.
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 are often affected by several types of distorted thinking. 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.
It's a technique often used by those with narcissistic and/or borderline personality disorders to deflect any responsibility from themselves. The victim of gaslighting often asks “what did I do?” and finds themselves eventually questioning and second guessing everything they do.
BPD Triggers Loneliness and Isolation
It may spring from your fear of being rejected or abandoned. This fear can make you feel lonely, even when you have a partner or loving family. Also typical with borderline personality is co-occurring mental illness. One of the most common is depression.
Do Those Suffering from BPD's Regret Breaking Up? Although BPD personalities initiate a break-up as a way of seeking validation, because of the intense anxiety at play, they'll often express intense regret because of their abandonment wounding, especially if they're not met with the response they desire.
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 misuse, reckless driving, and binge eating.
The symptoms of borderline personality disorder usually first occur in the teenage years and early twenties. However, onset may occur in some adults after the age of thirty, and behavioral precursors are evident in some children.
Both BPD and NPD behavior patterns include swift mood swings, impulsive behavior, sudden anger and aggression, potential violence, substance abuse, and a great fear of being abandoned. The person usually has an inflated self-image and be extremely charming, fun, and persuasive.