About BPD

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) overview

While the pressure of everyday life can sometimes bring about stormy relationships, misshapen self-image, and mood fluctuations – borderline personality disorder (BPD) is marked by an intense pattern of those unstable thoughts, moods, and feelings. It is a mental illness that not only causes problems for the person affected, but for their family, friends and partners too.

The ongoing challenges for a sufferer of borderline personality disorder can make it difficult to feel comfortable in one's own skin and think rationally in times of stress, resulting in impulsive actions and problems with their interpersonal relationships. This instability can also disrupt work life, long-term planning, and how an individual self-identifies and finds their place in their community.

What causes Borderline Personality Disorder?

As with most conditions, most experts agree there is no single cause of borderline personality disorder – albeit genetic and environmental factors, as well as brain chemistry, do play a role in the onset and progression of the condition, which is predominant throughout adolescence.

Borderline Personality Disorder often improves with age, and impulsive and anti-social behaviours tend to settle and reduce by the age of 30 to 40.

Signs and Symptoms

Borderline Personality Disorder is a complex psychiatric condition in which a person has difficulty managing their behavioural, psychological and cognitive impulses. Proper diagnosis is based on a clinical assessment by a mental health professional. Criteria of the disorder may or may not include the following:

Behavioural

• Threats or attempts related to suicide or self-harm
• Substance use or abuse
• Antisocial tendencies
• Risky sexual behaviour (i.e. unprotected sex, multiple partners, infidelity)
• Other risk-taking behaviour (i.e. reckless driving, spending sprees, gambling)
• Self-destruction
• Social isolation
• Excessive neediness or fear of abandonment
• Intense or chaotic relationships
• Avoidance or lack of self-direction
• Difficulty empathising
• Binge eating or other eating disorders
• Extreme reactions to real or perceived threats

Psychological

• Feelings of depression or hopelessness
• Low self-esteem or distorted self-image
• Fluctuating sense of identity
• Narcissism or superiority
• Anxiety or nervousness
• Paranoia or emotional detachment
• Suicidal thoughts
• Erratic moods
• Uncontrollable anger
• Irritability
• Feelings of boredom or emptiness

Cognitive

• Paranoia
• Hallucinations
• Suspiciousness
• Disassociation
• Neurosis

Helping friends / family suffering from BPD

Sufferers of borderline personality disorder are impaired by their inability to cope with stress in relationships (i.e. rejection, criticism, disagreements) – which is why a cool, calm home environment can help to manage their condition. Listening is the best way to help an emotional or irrational person regain self-control, and it’s important to acknowledge your loved one’s feelings.

Borderline Personality Disorder can not only be tough to recognise, but managing its symptoms and coping with day-to-day life can also be difficult. The stigma attached to the condition is unfair, and strong emotions and impulses exhibited by sufferers can make it difficult for friends and extended family members to be supportive or understand. If your child, friend, or partner has been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, it’s important to build up a solid support base for your own wellbeing too.