UNDERSTANDING BPD: BREAKING THE STIGMA AROUND BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER

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Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a condition that is located in the “cluster B” of personality disorders, which is characterized by erratic behaviors. It is a disorder that severely impacts a person’s ability to regulate their emotions. It is mainly characterized by instability in self-image, interpersonal relationships and mood. Those people might create a difficulties in life of others, but they cause at least as much difficulties and instability for themselves. That’s why it is important to spread the awareness and break the stigma about people who live with BPD. 

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DISORDER: 

Borderline personality disorder is characterized by affective instability, which means that people with BPD have an intense emotional responses to environmental triggers and they slowly return to emotional baseline. Due to this, among others, they have often outbursts of anger or crying. 

People with BPD are very impulsive, which means that they follow the environmental cues without thinking about long-term consequences. This combined with affective instability makes them often engage in self-destructive behaviors, such as risky sexual behaviors or reckless driving. 

This disorder is also characterized by a chronic feeling of emptiness and despair, which they often try to fulfill by engaging in unhealthy and self-destructive behaviors, such as substance abuse or disordered eating or unstable relationships. It may give them a short-term relief but usually worsens the feeling and creates additional emotional difficulties. 

Suicide and self-harm is very common among those with BPD. They go through a severe emotional pain, which might be very hard for them to deal with. About one quarter of them at least once attempted suicide throughout their life. 

About 75% of those with BPD have some kind of cognitive symptoms, such as psychotic-like symptoms, hallucination or extreme dissociative symptoms. They might be triggered by extreme stress, caused for example by fear of abandonment. However, they are temporary and not severe enough to be considered another disorder. 

BPD is comorbid with both internalizing disorders (such as anxiety or mood disorders) and externalizing disorders (such as substance abuse). It is also common for people with BPD to have a different personality disorder, especially schizotypal, narcissistic or dependent disorder. 

SYMPTOMS OF BPD:

• Fear of abandonment: It’s common for people with BPD to fear abandonment intensely. They are scared of being left alone or rejected, which might also contribute to imaginative abandonment, where for example, they feel like their partner is about to leave them, when they don’t plan to do so. They might react to it by feeling of anger or fear. They might try to do anything to keep the person around or they might push the person away in order to avoid rejection.  

• Unstable, intense relationships: It is hard to keep a healthy personal relationship for people with BPD, due to their tendency to change their views of others. They can go from idealizing someone to devaluating them completely. That’s one of the reasons why their friendships or relationships tend to be chaotic. 

• Unstable self-image or sense of self: People with BPD often have an unclear self-image and they often feel ashamed or view themselves as a “bad person”. They change their goals, opinions or goals suddenly. They might also tend to sabotage their progress, through for example ruining relationship or failing a test on purpose. 
• Rapid mood changes: Those with BPD show sudden changes in how they feel about themselves others and the world. This involves also irrational emotions, such as uncontrollable anger, anxiety, sadness or love, which change suddenly and last from couple or minutes to maximum few days. 

• Impulsive and dangerous behavior: They engage themselves in impulsive behaviors such as reckless driving, gambling, binge eating or unsafe sexual activities. 

• Repeated self-harm or suicidal behavior: It’s common among people with BPD to self-harm or threaten to do so. They might also have suicidal thoughts. All of those are usually triggered by rejection, possible abandonment or disappointment. 

• Persistent feelings of emptiness: Feelings like sadness, boredom, fulfillment or emptiness are common. 

• Temporary paranoid thoughts: About 75% of those with BPD have some kind of cognitive symptoms, such as paranoid thoughts, hallucination or extreme dissociative symptoms. They might be triggered by extreme stress, caused for example by fear of abandonment. However, they are temporary and not severe enough to be considered another disorder. 

All of those symptoms differ in severity, frequency and duration among different people. Moreover, not everyone with BPD experiences all of the symptoms. 

CAUSES OF BPD: 

Borderline personality disorder might be caused both by biological and environmental causes. 

Heritability plays a relatively big role in BPD, around 40% of variance in the disorder. So risk of having BPD is four times higher for those with blood relatives, who have BPD. 

However environmental factors play largest role in developing this disorder (about 55% of variance). It can be caused by child maltreatment or other extreme early experiences. Another factor is emotional, physical or sexual abuse. About 70% people with BPD experienced some form of abuse during childhood. Maternal separation, inappropriate family boundaries and parental substance use are also associated with BPD. 

Another causal factor are brain changes, such as increased amygdala activation in emotion-inducing situations and reduced prefrontal regulation

STRENGTHS OF PEOPLE WITH BPD

Despite the challenges of BPD, individuals with this condition often possess remarkable strengths. Their emotional intensity can drive profound connections and resilience, showcasing their capacity for growth and transformation. Some of their main assets are:

• Deep empathy: Since those with BPD feel their emotions so deeply, they also have an ability to profoundly feel for others and their pain. 

• Perceptivity: They are equipped with heightened intuition and sensitivity, which makes them pick up subtle nuances and emotions. This leads to unique insights and perspectives, as well as deep appreciation for beauty, nature and experiences of others. 

• Passion: People with BPD show great attachment and commitment to people, their beliefs and interests. 

• Creativity: This passion can be channeled into creative work arts. 

• Resilience: They have strong ability to bounce back despite experiencing negative events. Even though there might be a lot of adversity in their life they find the strength to overcome it. 

By Kornelia Pacholec

korneliapacholec@gmail.com