WHAT IS BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a mental health condition that strongly affects our ability to control our emotions, distorting how we see ourselves and others. BPD can cause impulsive behavior patterns, emotion regulation issues, poor self-image, mood swings, etc.

It can also impair daily functioning and lead to unstable social and personal relationships. Surveys 1 estimate that BPD affects 1.6% of the world population and has a lifetime prevalence of about 6%. People suffering from BPD often have issues with their identity and experience feelings of emptiness, thereby resorting to desperate attention-seeking behavior and dependence on others. They become impulsive and reckless, consequently going into a spiral of self-destructive behavior. Such behavior often includes self-harm and harming others around them.

Frequently, people suffering from BPD experience mood swings and violent urges that come from hypersensitivity to rejection, among other things. As a result, they unconsciously or unintentionally act out against loved ones—a phenomenon called splitting—without any sense of guilt or remorse.

BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER SYMPTOMS INCLUDE:

 

  • Emotional dysfunction
  • Extreme fears of abandonment
  • Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment
  • Unstable social relationships
  • Distorted sense of reality
  • Lack of identity and morals
  • Feelings of victimization
  • Impulsive and reckless behavior
  • Self-complexity
  • Thought repression
  • Lack of resilience against stressors
  • Splitting, or sudden mood and behavioral changes
  • Chronic feelings of emptiness
  • Paranoia, or extreme feelings of suspicion and dysphoria
  • Dissociating from one’s own self and reality
  • Suicidal or self-harm tendencies
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