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.
In response to this problem, Oldham proposed five types of BPD: affective, impulsive, aggressive, dependent and empty.
Explains borderline personality disorder (BPD), also known as emotionally unstable personality disorder (EUPD). Includes what it feels like, causes, treatment, support and self-care, as well as tips for friends and family.
BPD features are highly represented in subjects with psychopathy as well as psychopathic traits are highly prevalent in patients with BPD.
Overview. Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a serious, long-lasting and complex mental health problem. People with BPD have difficulty regulating or handling their emotions or controlling their impulses.
Borderline personality disorder often occurs with other mental illnesses, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). These co-occurring disorders can make it harder to diagnose and treat borderline personality disorder, especially if symptoms of other illnesses overlap with symptoms of the disorder.
The Social Security Administration placed borderline personality disorder as one of the mental health disorders on its disabilities list. However, you'll have to meet specific criteria for an official disability finding. For example, you must prove that you have the symptoms of the condition.
Having quiet borderline personality disorder (BPD) — aka “high-functioning” BPD — means that you often direct thoughts and feelings inward rather than outward. As a result, you may experience the intense, turbulent thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that characterize BPD, but you try to hide them from others.
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.
Myth: BPD Is a Rare Condition
It is estimated that more than 14 million Americans have BPD, extrapolated from a large study performed in 2008. An estimated 11% of psychiatric outpatients, 20% of psychiatric inpatients, and 6% of people visiting their primary health care provider have BPD.
According to the DSM-5, BPD can be diagnosed as early as at 12 years old if symptoms persist for at least one year. However, most diagnoses are made during late adolescence or early adulthood.
While researchers are still trying to pin down the precise areas where BPD and autism overlap, it seems clear that many traits are indeed shared, especially among females. In one study, nearly half of women diagnosed with BPD also met diagnostic criteria for autism when assessed using the Autism Spectrum Quotient.
BPD, Depression, and Dysthymia
One argument in favor of BPD as a form of major depression was based on the frequency of family history of depression in BPD patients. However, impulsive disorders, such as substance abuse and antisocial personality, are actually more common in families than mood disorders.
BPD is a mental health disorder characterized by extremes in the way a person thinks, feels, and acts. Many people with BPD form extreme characterizations about themselves, others, objects, beliefs, and situations during episodes called splitting. Situations associated with anxiety often trigger splitting episodes.
Many people still believe that those living with it can be manipulative or dangerous due to their symptoms. While this can be the case in a very small minority of people, most people with BPD are just struggling with their sense of self and their relationships. It's important to note that we're not dangerous people.
The types of attachment found to be most characteristic of BPD subjects are unresolved, preoccupied, and fearful. In each of these attachment types, individuals demonstrate a longing for intimacy and—at the same time—concern about dependency and rejection.
Quiet BPD has sometimes been called “high-functioning” BPD. This reflects the idea that some people with BPD may not “show” their symptoms and are still able to cope in everyday situations, such as work and school.
Symptoms of BPD can also interfere with concentration, which can lead to poor work performance. For example, frequent dissociation can inhibit your ability to finish your tasks in a timely fashion.
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.
Additionally, relationship instability is a feature of BPD, and clinicians may be wary of patients with whom establishing a therapeutic bond could be difficult. They may also hold the mistaken belief that treatment is ineffective for BPD patients.
BPD clients are so desperate for attachment that their fierce need can draw a therapist in. At the same time, many BPD clients have learned not to trust those very attachments they demand and crave. Thus, therapists can find themselves caught in their BPD clients' conflicting desires.
Treating antisocial personality disorder
But antisocial personality disorder is one of the most difficult types of personality disorders to treat. A person with antisocial personality disorder may also be reluctant to seek treatment and may only start therapy when ordered to do so by a court.