With borderline personality disorder, you have an intense fear of abandonment or instability, and you may have difficulty tolerating being alone. Yet inappropriate anger, impulsiveness and frequent mood swings may push others away, even though you want to have loving and lasting relationships.
Abandonment issues stem from a fear of loneliness, which can be a phobia or a form of anxiety. These issues can affect your relationships and often stem from a childhood loss. Other factors that turn loss into abandonment issues include environmental and medical factors, genetics, and brain chemistry.
“Abandonment issues” is not a distinct diagnosis, but is a form of anxiety that can affect relationships throughout life. As such, it can refer to many things. Fear of abandonment can come from an anxious attachment style or early childhood trauma.
When people with this disorder feel that they are about to be abandoned, they typically become fearful and angry. For example, they may become panicky or furious when someone important to them is a few minutes late or cancels an engagement.
Persistently unable to form a stable self-image or sense of self. Drastically impulsive in at least two possibly self-damaging areas (substance abuse, reckless driving, disordered eating, sex). Self-harming or suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats. Instability often brought on by reactivity of mood (ex.
Separations, disagreements, and rejections—real or perceived—are the most common triggers for symptoms. 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.
Family members may be quick to deny or argue the feelings experienced the person with BPD. If these feelings are ignored, the individual may resort to self-destructive ways to express their emotions.
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.
Physical and emotional abandonment can lead to trauma. If a traumatic incident happened during childhood, it may impact your development and the way your brain is wired. It may also affect the way you see yourself and your adult relationships. Recovering from any type of trauma, including abandonment, is possible.
An anxious attachment style may manifest in fear of abandonment and a need for validation and constant reassurance from your loved one. It's typically caused by an unpredictable primary caregiver when you were a child.
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.
If your feelings are hurt, you feel betrayed, abandoned, or rejected, and your partner doesnt care or minimizes them, thats a red flag. You should also be wary if you notice a pattern of lying or half-truths about other issues.
Symptoms of Abandonment Issues in Adults or Adulthood
Extreme jealousy or clingy behavior in a romantic relationship. Pretend they don't care about a spouse when they do. Rejection of a partner before they can be rejected. Avoid getting close to others.
Many therapists share the general stigma that surrounds patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Some even avoid working with such patients because of the perception that they are difficult to treat.
Many people with borderline personality disorder (BPD) will report that they spend a lot of time and energy suppressing emotions. If you have ever had an intense thought or feeling that you couldn't handle in the moment and tried to push away, you have experienced emotional suppression.
"For a person with borderline personality disorder, [cutting] might be a way to draw others in or create intensity. " Put simply, self-harm is a way to take unbearable emotional pain and turn it into more manageable physical pain. Physical pain helps to numb out the emotional pain.
Recognizing a BPD Episode
Intense outbursts of anger are indicative of an episode of BPD as are bouts of depression and anxiety. Eighty percent of those suffering from BPD experience suicidal thoughts and behavior while in the throes of an episode as well.
Dating someone with borderline personality disorder can be challenging. Your partner may have major difficulties with strong emotions, drastic mood swings, chronic fear of abandonment, and impulsive behaviors that can strain your relationship with chaos and instability.
One explanation for the intolerance of being alone in BPD may be that individuals experience annihilation anxiety [10]. This is a traumatic anxiety based on an actual experience of danger and psychic helplessness [11], reflecting a fear of impending psychic or physical destruction [12].
Symptoms of personality disorder are: Moody, Criticizing everyone, Overreacting, Intimidating others, and Dominance over another person. A borderline personality disorder is the hardest to treat.
The Three Key Signs. Perhaps more importantly, and even more telling than specific symptoms associated with particular disorders, are matters of duration, rigidity, and globalism of the vexing behaviors.
Unstable sense of self, which may involve frequent shifts in goals, values, and career plans. Frequently changing your feelings toward other people. Feeling like you don't exist. Frequent feelings of emptiness or boredom.