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.
It can be challenging to make and keep friends if you live with any mental illness. If you have borderline personality disorder (BPD), your unpredictable behaviors, tumultuous emotions, and fear of abandonment can drive others away.
People with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) often have a difficult time maintaining friendships because of their tumultuous personalities. But these friendships can offer a source of stability in the midst of emotional turmoil.
Pulling someone into a close relationship and then pushing that person away repeatedly is one of the most well-known symptoms of BPD. It causes the person in question to be confused about where they stand in the relationship.
The fear of being abandoned is a big part of BPD, and when the abandonment is both real and frequent, it has a devastating impact. Some people will end friendships and relationships because they think the other person is going to leave them.
Research shows that those with BPD may have low expectations for their social partners that they can't adjust upward when others show interest. Focusing on the expectations, not just the experiences, would seem to be the key to ensuring stable and fulfilling interactions.
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.
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.
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.
There's also a lot of anecdotal evidence from other people's experiences that suggest 2-4 years is more common. So, if you want to know how long your relationships might last if you have BPD, it really does depend on the intensity of your condition.
It's characterized by unstable moods and emotions, which affect relationships and behaviors. As a result, friendships with people with BPD can be rocky. Sometimes, people with BPD engage in behaviors that can seem manipulative, mean-spirited, or destructive.
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.
For instance, a person with BPD is not trying to be manipulative; they are scared of being left or abandoned. They are also not uncaring people. They do care about family and friends but find it difficult not to act selfishly when experiencing their own heightened emotions.
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.
Those diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) or those with BPD who may not even know they have it, are more likely than the general population to be verbally, emotionally/psychologically, physically abusive.
People with BPD feel firmly attached to their favorite person and may depend on them for comfort, reassurance, and guidance. In many cases, someone with BPD may rely entirely on their favorite person. As a result, they may idealize them and expect them to always be available.
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.
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].
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.
Individuals with symptoms of BPD are particularly sensitive to perceived criticism. This increases the likelihood that they will feel attacked when a therapist attempts to offer suggestions or insights. This often leads to lashing out.
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.
The destructive and hurtful behaviors are a reaction to deep emotional pain. In other words, they're not about you. When your loved one does or says something hurtful towards you, understand that the behavior is motivated by the desire to stop the pain they are experiencing; it's rarely deliberate.
One relatively neglected explanation for the overblown rage so common in borderline personality disorders (BPD) relates to their unresolved trust issues. More often than not they were taught, however unintentionally, by their parents' unreliability, neglect, and criticism, not to trust them.
People with BPD are often on edge. They have high distress and anger levels, so they may be easily offended.
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.