"Borderline personality disorder, often considered to be among the most severe behavioral disorders, is estimated to affect between 1.2 and 6% of the general population and perhaps as many as 10.8% of adolescents" (ValeNtiNer, HiraoKa, aND, SKowroNSKi, 2014)
The symptoms of the disorder known as borderline personality can be briefly summarized as instability in mood, thinking, behavior, personal relations, and self-image. Although people diagnosed with this disorder cannot bear to be alone and constantly demand attention, they are often difficult to work and live with. They plague friends, family, and lovers with unreasonable demands, provocative behavior, tantrums, hypochondriacs complaints, and suicide threats. They are chronically angry, quick to take offense, and easily depressed. They are susceptible to drug and alcohol abuse and other self-destructive impulsive behavior. They repeatedly follow idealization of another person with contemptuous rejection, and their intense attachments alternate with equally sudden breakups. Their descriptions of other people are, grossly inconsistent caricatures. They often say that, they are bored, life is empty, and they do not know who they are, From time to time many of them develop delusions and slip temporarily into a psychosis., borderline personalities may be easily depressed because they are hypersensitive to loss and emotionally demanding. Maybe a common biological vulnerability leads to borderline behavior, depression, or both, depending on circumstances and temperament (Links,1994).
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Borderline personality Disorder
"Three-quarters of patients diagnosed as borderline are women. Experimental studies have not found sex bias in the diagnosis itself--that is, the symptoms are not less likely to be labelled borderline if the name attached to them is male. But the disorder may go unnoticed in many men because they never come to psychiatric attention or because their symptoms are obscured by alcoholism, drug addiction, and criminal careers. (The vast majority of people given the diagnosis of antisocial personality are men.)" (Links, 1994)
Symptoms:
A pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five or more of the following:
1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.
2. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.
3. Identity disturbance
4. Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging.
5. Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior
6. Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood .
7. Chronic feelings of emptiness.
8. Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger.
9. Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms. (DSM-5)
More information can be found at:
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/borderline-personality-disorder/basics/symptoms/con-20023204
"Three-quarters of patients diagnosed as borderline are women. Experimental studies have not found sex bias in the diagnosis itself--that is, the symptoms are not less likely to be labelled borderline if the name attached to them is male. But the disorder may go unnoticed in many men because they never come to psychiatric attention or because their symptoms are obscured by alcoholism, drug addiction, and criminal careers. (The vast majority of people given the diagnosis of antisocial personality are men.)" (Links, 1994)
Symptoms:
A pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five or more of the following:
1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.
2. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.
3. Identity disturbance
4. Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging.
5. Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior
6. Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood .
7. Chronic feelings of emptiness.
8. Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger.
9. Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms. (DSM-5)
More information can be found at:
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/borderline-personality-disorder/basics/symptoms/con-20023204
Children and borderline personality disorder: Parents and children share their experiences.
Support and resources referenced in the video: National Educational Alliance of Borderline Personality Disorder: www.borderlinepersonalitydisorder.com 914-835-9011 Behavioraltech.org Parent support group: www.parent2parentbpd.org Video by Montefiore and WNET, Channel 13, New York, 2006. |
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FEAR OF ABANDONMENT/FEAR OF BEING ALONE
Individuals with borderline personality disorder make frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. The perception of impending separation or rejection, or the loss of external structure, can lead to profound changes in self-image, affect, cognition, and behavior. They experience intense abandonment fears and inappropriate anger even when faced wit ha realistic time-limited separation or when there ar unavoidable changes in plan. UNSTABLE AND INTENSE RELATIONSHIPS Individuals with borderline personality disorder have a pattern of unstable and intense relationships. They may idealize potential caregivers or lovers at the first or second meeting, demand to spend a lot of time together, and share the most intimate details early in a relationship. However, they may switch quickly from idealizing other people to devaluing them, feeling that the other person does not care enough, does not give enough or is not “there” enough. "It has been theorized that the core psychopathology of BPD is evident in the domain of interpersonal functioning . Consistent with this proposal, BPD is associated with greater reactivity to negative interpersonal events and especially negative reactions to signs of rejection" (ValeNtiNer, HiraoKa, aND, SKowroNSKi, 2014). IDENTITY DISTURBANCE: UNSTABLE SELF-IMAGE OR SENSE OF SELF There are sudden and dramatic shifts in self-image , characterized by shifting goals, values, and vocational aspirations. There may be sudden changes in opinions and plans about career, sexual identity, values, and types of friends. These individuals may suddenly change from the role of a needy supplicant for help to that of a righteous avenger of past mistreatment. |
IMPULSIVITY Individuals with borderline personality disorder display impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging. They may gamble, spend money irresponsibility, binge eat, abuse substances, engage in unsafe sex, or drive recklessly. They may display recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior. AFFECTIVE INSTABILITY Individuals with borderline personality disorder may display affective instability that is due to a marked reactivity of mood. The basic dysphoric mood of those with borderline personality disorder is often disrupted by periods of anger, panic, or despair and is rarely relieved by periods of well-being or satisfaction. These episodes may reflect the individual’s extreme reactivity to interpersonal stresses. FEELINGS OF EMPTINESS Individuals with borderline personality disorder may be troubled by chronic feelings of emptiness. Easily bored, they may constantly seek something to do. INAPPROPRIATE, INTENSE ANGER OR DIFFICULTY CONTROLLING ANGER Individuals with this disorder frequently express inappropriate, intense anger or have difficulty controlling their anger. They may display extreme sarcasm, enduring bitterness, or verbal outbursts. The anger is often elicited when a caregiver or lover is seen as neglectful, withholding, uncaring, or abandoning. Such expressions of anger are often followed by shame and guilt and contribute to the feeling they have of being evil. DISSOCIATIVE SYMPTOMS During periods of extreme stress, transient paranoid ideation or dissociative symptoms may occur. These episodes occur most frequently in response to a real or imagined abandonment. Symptoms tend to be transient, lasting minutes or hours. (DSM-5) |
WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE MIND OF A PERSON AFFLICTED WITH BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER? Here are some quotes from those suffering from borderline personality disorder:
If others really get to know me, they will find me rejectable and will not be able to love me; and they will leave me; I need to have complete control of my feelings otherwise things go completely wrong; I have to adapt my needs to other people's wishes, otherwise they will leave me or attack me; I am an evil person and I need to be punished for it; Other people are evil and abuse you; If someone fails to keep a promise, that person can no longer be trusted; If I trust someone, I run a great risk of getting hurt or disappointed; If you comply with someone's request, you run the risk of losing yourself; If you refuse someone's request, you run the risk of losing that person; I will always be alone; I can't manage by myself, I need someone I can fall back on; There is no one who really cares about me, who will be available to help me, and whom I can fall back on; I don't really know what I want; I will never get what I want; I'm powerless and vulnerable and I can't protect myself;. I have no control of myself; I can't discipline myself; My feelings and opinions are unfounded; Other people are not willing or helpful. |