Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a mental illness that causes intense mood swings, impulsive behaviors, severe difficulties with relationships, and poor feelings of self-worth. People with this disorder often have other challenges in their lives, such as depression, eating disorders, self-harm, or substance abuse, and are at high risk for suicide.
Sometimes, signs of the disorder first appear in childhood, but significant problems often don’t start until early adulthood, when a person is diagnosed with BPD. BPD can be diagnosed as mild, moderate, or severe.
While the mood of a person with depression or bipolar disorder typically stays consistent for weeks, a person with BPD may experience intense bouts of anger, depression, and anxiety that last only for an hour of two, or at most a day. Also, people struggling with BPD harbor feelings of emptiness.
People with BPD often have very unstable social relationship patterns. They can develop intense but fragile attachments to others, but their attitudes towards loved ones are liable to suddenly shift from great admiration to intense anger and dislike.
Indicators of BPD include:
- Concerns with abandonment
- Idealizing people
- Devaluing people (often switching back and fourth from idealizing them)
- Disturbance about self-image
- Lack of sense of boundaries
- Impulsive behavior (for example, binge eating and substance abuse
- Inappropriate anger
- Paranoid ideation (think someone’s after them)
- Dissociative feelings (feeling like they are not present in their body)
To be diagnosed with BPD, a person must have at least five of the above indicators.
