What are the warning signs of borderline personality disorder (BPD)? People struggling with BPD seem to forever pull the petals from flowers. Their black-and-white thinking can take them from “he loves me” to “he loves me not” almost as quickly as adolescent girls playing can pluck the blossoms clean. But this is no game for people struggling with BPD. Their feelings run deep and are so painful and frightening that about 10% of BPD patients commit suicide.
If you or someone you love struggles with BPD, you must seek professional help. Call Promises Behavioral Health at 844.875.5609 to speak with someone from our caring and compassionate staff about recognizing signs of BPD and our borderline personality disorder treatment centers across the United States.
What Is BPD?
People struggling with borderline personality disorder have difficulty figuring out who they are, often changing their habits and values to mimic whomever they’re around. Of all the personality disorders, BPD is the most common, most perplexing, and usually has the most severe impact due to its tendency toward suicide. Despite its prevalence, BPD treatment and even diagnosis are difficult because borderline personality disorder symptoms often overlap with other disorders, such as:
- Anxiety disorders
- Bipolar disorder
- Depression disorders
- Eating disorders, particularly bulimia nervosa
- Substance use disorders
If you or someone you love is “borderline,” you know something is dreadfully wrong with certain behaviors but often do not know what to do about it. One moment the borderline person thinks someone is wonderful and the most amazing individual they’ve ever known, and the next believes that same person is an evil and horrible human being. There is no middle ground in the minds of those struggling with BPD, which can make living with them emotionally exhausting.
What Are the Signs of Borderline Personality Disorder?
The symptoms of borderline personality disorder are often mistaken for signs of other mental health disorders, making BPD hard to diagnose. To be diagnosed with BPD, a person must exhibit at least five of the following symptoms:
- A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood
- Chronic feelings of emptiness or boredom
- Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment
- Identity disturbance involving a notable inconsistency in self-image, beliefs, or values
- Impulsivity in at least two areas that are self-damaging, like substance abuse or binge eating
- Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger
- Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats—or self-mutilating behavior
- Relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation
- Transient, stress-related paranoid thoughts or severe dissociative symptoms
Borderline personality disorder symptoms can vary from person to person. However, people struggling with BPD often experience relationship difficulties, severe emotional swings, impulsivity, chronic feelings of emptiness and boredom, recurrent threats or attempts of suicide, and self-harming behaviors.
What Causes BPD?
Some experts have theorized that borderline personality disorder’s critical underpinnings are an invalidating environment and an innate tendency to react more intensely to lower stress levels.
In an invalidating environment, children are taught to keep their thoughts and feelings to themselves, and any emotion displayed is disregarded or trivialized. An environment like this causes children to distrust their feelings, which leads to mimicking behavior in adulthood. Because of their distorted sense of self, people struggling with BPD often take on the characteristics of another person to be liked and accepted. BPD also occurs much more frequently in people struggling with childhood trauma, mainly if the trauma involves sexual abuse or incest.
Find Borderline Personality Disorder Treatment with Promises Behavioral Health
If you or a loved one shows signs of borderline personality disorder, we can help. At Promises Behavioral Health, our treatment centers offer comprehensive care for people struggling with BPD and other mental health disorders. Contact Promises today at 844.875.5609 to start on the road to improving your mental health.