I’ve tried researching it and many explanations seem to be emotionally charged, judgmental, and non-factual. “They’re so evil and manipulative!” Okay, but can you actually describe what it is?
The the factual, non-biased explanations show what’s in the DSM-5, but it’s kind of vague. What exactly is it? What might people with BPD do to avoid abandonment? Etc.
Edit: Just wanted to thank everyone for their reply. Everyone has brought something of value and an interesting perspective.
In: Other
The definition on the NIMH website isn’t vague at all:
People with borderline personality disorder may experience mood swings and display uncertainty about how they see themselves and their role in the world. As a result, their interests and values can change quickly.
People with borderline personality disorder also tend to view things in extremes, such as all good or all bad. Their opinions of other people can also change quickly. An individual who is seen as a friend one day may be considered an enemy or traitor the next. These shifting feelings can lead to intense and unstable relationships.
Other signs or symptoms may include:
* Efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment, such as rapidly initiating intimate (physical or emotional) relationships or cutting off communication with someone in anticipation of being abandoned
* A pattern of intense and unstable relationships with family, friends, and loved ones, often swinging from extreme closeness and love (idealization) to extreme dislike or anger (devaluation)
* Distorted and unstable self-image or sense of self
* Impulsive and often dangerous behaviors, such as spending sprees, unsafe sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, and binge eating. **Please note:** If these behaviors occur primarily during a period of elevated mood or energy, they may be signs of a mood disorder—not borderline personality disorder
* Self-harming behavior, such as cutting
* Recurring thoughts of suicidal behaviors or threats
* Intense and highly changeable moods, with each episode lasting from a few hours to a few days
* Chronic feelings of emptiness
* Inappropriate, intense anger or problems controlling anger
* Difficulty trusting, which is sometimes accompanied by irrational fear of other people’s intentions
* Feelings of dissociation, such as feeling cut off from oneself, seeing oneself from outside one’s body, or feelings of unreality
Not everyone with borderline personality disorder experiences every symptom. Some individuals experience only a few symptoms, while others have many. Symptoms can be triggered by seemingly ordinary events. For example, people with borderline personality disorder may become angry and distressed over minor separations from people to whom they feel close, such as traveling on business trips. The severity and frequency of symptoms and how long they last will vary depending on the individual and their illness.
Emotion dysregulation, interpersonal issues, and sometimes self harming behavior usually linked to early trauma or emotional neglect. Also a heavily pathologizing wastebasket diagnosis for mental health workers who dislike their patients.
I worked in mental health years ago and there seems to also be a difference between genders for borderline personality disorder. I may be incorrect but since I am a female, most of my female patients i worked with this diagnosis were consistently on suicide watch (why I mentioned being a female bc this includes arms distance at all times including bathroom and shower)
Best book title ever (imho) is about borderline. “I hate you; don’t leave me.” Perfectly sums this disorder up.
Completely serious, if you have time watch “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” through all the seasons to watch Rebecca’s journey to her diagnosis. Bonus, it’s hilarious and heartfelt.
For normal people they seem manipulative and abusive because not even the person with BPD knows what they really want. Distorted emotions takes the best of them. Since to them they feel like they are the ones being manipulated and they go down the wrong thought loop which leads them to do the wrong thing or make the wrong decision.
This may seem out of control to the other person because all of this is imaginary.
Also Borderline personalities have had issues growing up. Abusive childhood that leads them to develop such personalities.
I actually have my first appt with a therapist for these very reasons(not all of them. But def a good chunk of what was included in this list.) Just kinda took me by surprising reading this
The word “borderline” means the border between psychosis and neurosis.
The NIMH definition is accurate, but doesn’t ELI5 as you’re requesting. Based on the book I link to below, and I can tell you also from my first hand experience, that BPD has roots in feeling worthless. Behavior which can be seen as damaging or uncomfortable or abusive, can also be explained as someone with BPD having an overwhelming need to be perceived as having worth. It’s not just being “evil” or “manipulative”, there’s a reason WHY the behavior occurs. The mindset is closer to: “You’re wrong, you aren’t hurt by me. I can’t have hurt you, because if I did then I was wrong, and if I was wrong you won’t love me, and if you don’t love me I’m worthless and will be abandoned. So I didn’t hurt you, you are not hurt, because I can’t be revealed to be worthless.” Something like that.
I STRONGLY recommend you read the book [“Stop Walking On Eggshells”](https://www.amazon.com/Stop-Walking-Eggshells-Borderline-Personality/dp/1572246901), which describes BPD through the lens of the family and friends of those who suffer from it. It makes it much easier to identify, and to understand the difference between “high functioning” and “low functioning” BPD.
Also, it’s worth noting that BPD is often diagnosed alongside narcissistic personality disorder, they amplify each other in some ways.
I hope this helps.
I think one thing worth mentioning is that BPD is a treatable disorder. Since it’s often the result of trauma or neglect, basically nurture over nature, it seems to be easier to work through than say mood disorders like bipolar disorder. It’s also something that’s commonly misdiagnosed.
I personally witnessed someone close to me be misdiagnosed as bipolar when they actually suffered from bpd. When we realized that the bipolar diagnoses didn’t really fit, we were eventually able to recognize that bpd might be the culprit.
The awesome part is that with the correct therapy, this person was able to get phenomenally better in a relatively quick span of time. They really turned their life around in a way that sadly isn’t typical of someone suffering from bipolar disorder.
So while many people who suffer from bpd can have a very difficult go of it, there is hope they can recover.
My mother had this.
For an eli5 explanation:
Think of a time when you felt an extremely intense emotion. Maybe rage or grief or fear. If you have experienced an emotional extreme – and most of us have – you’ll notice it temporarily changes the way you think.
Most people know that thoughts create emotions, but the opposite is also true. When you’re enraged with someone, you probably can’t remember much you like about them. You could even forget every positive thing about them and wonder why you ever hung around with that person in the first place!
Now most of us have what’s called meta cognition, which is thinking about our thoughts. So when I get angry with someone and think ‘why do I even hang out with this person?’ there’s another part of me that says ‘yeah, you feel that way now, but give it an hour and you’ll remember everything you like about them’. This is a type of emotional regulation that we learn through experience of noticing our thoughts shift with our mood – we start to take them with a pinch of salt and that knowledge that not everything we feel is reality helps us stay relatively calm.
But I bet you’ve sometimes had emotions strong enough to override that, right? You’ve occasionally acted regrettably due to a very strong emotion? Most people have, it’s very normal.
People with bpd tend to experience very extreme emotions on a far more regular basis and are trapped in that state where the emotion overrides regulation, so they tend to take their emotionally driven thoughts as fact and they act accordingly. They also tend to lack meta cognition – often because they haven’t been in an environment safe enough to learn it – so can’t calm down. They often also deal with very high levels of shame derived from an abusive or troubled upbringing that add fuel to the emotional fire.
And that’s essentially what bpd is.
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