Borderline Personality Disorder Symptoms

What is Borderline Personality Disorder(BPD)?

Borderline personality disorder (BPD), is a mental health condition that severely impacts a person's ability to control their emotions. 

If you have borderline personality disorder (BPD), you probably get overwhelmed by your feelings not just because of unstable emotions or relationships, you also develop a fluctuating sense of self. You're uncertain about your goals, interests, likes and dislikes, everything just seems unclear. This intense struggle of regulating emotions can lead to frequent mood swings and impulsivity. Little things tend to trigger intense reactions and once upset, you have trouble calming down.

When you're in distress of overwhelming emotions, you tend to act out, unable to think straight and might say hurtful things that make you feel guilty afterwards.

One of the defining characteristics of BPD is that people with the condition may engage in something called "splitting." This is when they see others as either "all good" or "all bad," with no middle ground. It can be difficult for people with BPD to understand the complexity of others and relationships. Splitting can also happen with one's own sense of self, leading to feelings of extreme self-love or self-hatred.

Signs And Symptoms Of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)

While a diagnosis of BPD should only be made by a qualified mental health professional, there are some common signs that may indicate someone has BPD. These include:

• Intense fear of abandonment or rejection: people with BPD often feel terrified of being abandoned or left alone which can cause them to become overly possessive and would physically try to block the person from leaving. This behavior tends to have opposite effect — drive others away.

• Unstable relationships, that can shift from idealization to devaluation quickly and they often view relationships as completely perfect or completely bad without any middle ground.

• Unstable sense of self (often with shifting goals and values): people with BPD have an unclear self-image and often feel guilty or ashamed and see themselves as "bad". They have uncertain sense of self and suddenly change their goal, interests and opinions.

• Unstable emotions, with intense and rapidly changing moods (such as feeling very happy and confident to feeling very sad and low).

• Impulsive and risky behavior, like driving recklessly, substance abuse or engaging in unsafe sex. 

• Intense and inappropriate anger, often followed by shame or guilt: people with BPD  often have difficulty controlling their anger and often become intensely angry.

• Chronic feelings of emptiness, boredom, or loneliness: people with BPD often feel empty, sad and unfulfilled. At the extreme, you may feel as if you are "nothing" or "nobody". They might try to fill that void of emptiness with things like food, drugs, sex. But there is still no sense of contentment.

BPD typically begins by early adulthood and occurs across a variety of situations like depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, eating disorder.

Borderline personality disorder is a complex and often misunderstood mental health condition that can cause significant distress for the person living with it.