# Please describe Borderline Personality Disorder **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 10, 2005, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-describe-borderline-personality-disorder/320961 "2005-09-10T05:51:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![MaryEFoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@MaryEFoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaryEFoo)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2005, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-describe-borderline-personality-disorder/320961/1 "2005-09-10T05:51:13Z")
It was being discussed in this IMHO [thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=333893) about people who can’t stop talking. What are the characteristics of someone with BPD? The term pops up from time to time. Is there such a thing as Total Personality Disorder? ---
**Author:** ![by-tor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/by-tor/32/266_2.png) [@by-tor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/by-tor)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2005, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-describe-borderline-personality-disorder/320961/2 "2005-09-10T07:16:51Z")
My copy of the DSM-IV-TR says that is: A pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, affects, and marked impulsivity beginning in early adulthood… Includes at least 5 of the following (paraphrasing): 1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. 2. A pattern of unstable and intense personal relationships characterized by by alternating extremes of idealization and devaluation. 3. Identity disturbance; unstable self-image/sense of self 4. Impulsivity in at least 2 areas that are self damaging. 5. Recurrent suicidal or self mutilating behavior. 6. Affective instability/marked reactivity of mood 7. Chronic feelings of emptiness. 8. Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger. 9. Transient, stress-related paranoia or dissociative symptoms Sounds like a big grab bag of dysfunctions to me. Apparently it is highly untreatable. As usual, it is not a good idea to self-diagnose. ---
**Author:** ![by-tor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/by-tor/32/266_2.png) [@by-tor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/by-tor)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2005, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-describe-borderline-personality-disorder/320961/3 "2005-09-10T07:28:37Z")
No, there is no such thing as “Total Personality Disorder.” Was that a joke? Total Asshole Personality Disorder on the other hand seems to be on the rise… just kidding. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2005, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-describe-borderline-personality-disorder/320961/4 "2005-09-10T07:36:19Z")
> [@MaryEFoo](#): > > The term pops up from time to time. Is there such a thing as Total Personality Disorder? No. The name “Borderline Personality Disorder” is a leftover from an earlier name (before the concept of personality disorders had been elucidated.) Back in the day, it was called “Borderline Psychosis”, which is probably not a terribly good name for it, since to my knowledge it doesn’t involve psychosis (loss of contact with reality) at all. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2005, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-describe-borderline-personality-disorder/320961/5 "2005-09-10T07:57:18Z")
Back in my Grad Studies in Counseling, the Prof put it this way- a person might have a bunch of loosely related difficulties, the therapist needs to put a neat package label on them to pass on to the Insurance Company- thus titles like BPD are born! ---
**Author:** ![davenportavenger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f8ce5/32.png) [@davenportavenger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davenportavenger)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2005, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-describe-borderline-personality-disorder/320961/6 "2005-09-10T08:34:09Z")
Don’t know about today, but in the past BPD was often given as a diagnosis to strong women who didn’t know their place in the world, and used as an excuse to lock them up until they were broken enough to accept a husband, no career, and 2.5 kids. Lesbianism was also seen as a symptom of BPD; that whole “attention-grabbing” thing. And of course, since anger is one of the symptoms, any woman who complained about her treatment was obviously sick! Even today, women are diagnosed with this over three times as often as men. Personally, it sounds like a made-up diagnosis to me. I think I’d have a really hard time finding people who didn’t manifest two or three of those symptoms. ---
**Author:** ![Go\_You\_Big\_Red\_Fire\_Engine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/eada6e/32.png) [@Go\_You\_Big\_Red\_Fire\_Engine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_You_Big_Red_Fire_Engine)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2005, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-describe-borderline-personality-disorder/320961/7 "2005-09-10T10:32:28Z")
> [@davenportavenger](#): > > Personally, it sounds like a made-up diagnosis to me. I think I’d have a really hard time finding people who didn’t manifest two or three of those symptoms. I hope you’re not talking about **Satasha’s** mentioned symptoms? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Slant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c57346/32.png) [@Mr.Slant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Slant)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2005, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-describe-borderline-personality-disorder/320961/8 "2005-09-10T12:34:26Z")
I gotta’ chime in, that diagnostic criterion looks like a bunch of bull-patooties. I get the distinct feeling a better name for it would be “Psychiatrists-Don’t-Have-A-Descriptive-Enough-Diagnosis-For-You-Yet Personality Disorder”. That has to be the broadest mental health criterion I’ve ever seen, excepting “Conduct Disorder” for minors. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2005, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-describe-borderline-personality-disorder/320961/9 "2005-09-10T13:00:06Z")
> [@Excalibre](#): > > No. The name “Borderline Personality Disorder” is a leftover from an earlier name (before the concept of personality disorders had been elucidated.) Back in the day, it was called “Borderline Psychosis”, which is probably not a terribly good name for it, since to my knowledge it doesn’t involve psychosis (loss of contact with reality) at all. I thought it used to be manic-depression. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2005, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-describe-borderline-personality-disorder/320961/10 "2005-09-10T13:14:06Z")
> [@Mr. Slant](#): > > I gotta’ chime in, that diagnostic criterion looks like a bunch of bull-patooties. > I get the distinct feeling a better name for it would be “Psychiatrists-Don’t-Have-A-Descriptive-Enough-Diagnosis-For-You-Yet Personality Disorder”. No, it fits a particularly common type of patient really, really, really well. And is a big red flag for psychiatrists and other mental health professionals, which says that “if the patient has been given this diagnosis in the past, and becomes your patient, expect a very high level of frustration, stress, anxiety, and despair. And that’s what will happen to you, not the patient, unless you establish really really really really rigid boundaries! And if you do establish said boundaries, they won’t stay your patient. Oh, they won’t get better, either.” The nice thing is that if you educate the patient’s family and associates, they can finally understand a bit about what’s going on, realize that they themselves are not crazy, and accept that there’s nothing that they can do to make the patient better. ---
**Author:** ![Brynda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e79b87/32.png) [@Brynda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brynda)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2005, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-describe-borderline-personality-disorder/320961/11 "2005-09-10T13:56:55Z")
I understand the reactions of those of you who don’t know folks with this diagnosis. To me, it is the hardest diagnosis to put into words. You have to go a few rounds with one to understand it. Then you recognize it when you see it–usually because it feels like they are sucking the life out of you…and run like hell. When you read the symptoms, you have to think of them as far more extreme than you probably are, since some of them are exaggerations of normal behavior. For example, unstable relationships. Well, all of us have had times when we are fine with someone, then they piss us off, then we forgive them, etc. BPD is not like that. They LOVE someone, then HATE that person, he is THE BEST EVER, no, I WANT TO KILL HIM, no, I want to kill myself, and on and on. Everything is extreme. Now apply that to all of the symptoms listed. ---
**Author:** ![davenportavenger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f8ce5/32.png) [@davenportavenger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davenportavenger)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2005, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-describe-borderline-personality-disorder/320961/12 "2005-09-10T14:53:19Z")
> [@Go You Big Red Fire Engine](#): > > I hope you’re not talking about **Satasha’s** mentioned symptoms? Indeed I am. Who hasn’t felt empty? Impulsive? Angry? Granted, the people I know might not display those emotions/behaviors to a pathological degree, but 4, 7, and 8 could apply to a lot of people at many points in their life. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2005, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-describe-borderline-personality-disorder/320961/13 "2005-09-10T15:08:55Z")
I agree that some people can’t visualize it based on what they read. Borderline personalities are very real and distinct. An example of a borderline is Glenn Close’s character (the mistress rabbit killer) in Fatal Attraction. A friend of mine had a Borderline girlfriend in high school. He moved to my hometown to escape her and even then, she found him while I was in the car and forced us to go on a 120 mph car chase while she was trying to force us off the road (she was arrested and sent to a psych ward). My SIL is now a clinical psychologist and had a mother with BPD that killed herself. She thought that she wanted to help people like that when she went into practice. After a few of them, she refused to accept anymore because they don’t respond to treatment. She labels them as “Just Plain Crazy”. Now she gets mad if you bring Borderline Personalities up. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2005, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-describe-borderline-personality-disorder/320961/14 "2005-09-10T15:09:33Z")
> [@davenportavenger](#): > > Indeed I am. Who hasn’t felt empty? Impulsive? Angry? Granted, the people I know might not display those emotions/behaviors to a pathological degree, but 4, 7, and 8 could apply to a lot of people at many points in their life. But we are talking precisely that, a **pathological** degree. Which means the person must have at least 5 of those traits to the extent that the behaviors persist _despite_ significant recurrent negative consequences from said behaviors. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2005, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-describe-borderline-personality-disorder/320961/15 "2005-09-10T15:18:43Z")
Shagnasty writes: \> An example of a borderline is Glenn Close’s character (the mistress rabbit killer) \> in Fatal Attraction. So which 5 (at least) of the symptoms does her character have?: \> 1) Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. \> 2) A pattern of unstable and intense personal relationships characterized by by \> alternating extremes of idealization and devaluation. \> 3) Identity disturbance; unstable self-image/sense of self \> 4) Impulsivity in at least 2 areas that are self damaging. \> 5) Recurrent suicidal or self mutilating behavior. \> 6) Affective instability/marked reactivity of mood \> 7) Chronic feelings of emptiness. \> 8) Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger. \> 9) Transient, stress-related paranoia or dissociative symptoms ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2005, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-describe-borderline-personality-disorder/320961/16 "2005-09-10T17:18:45Z")
Alternate diagnostic description: “Wow, that person is a mega bitch/total bastard!” ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2005, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-describe-borderline-personality-disorder/320961/17 "2005-09-10T17:21:35Z")
> [@davenportavenger](#): > > Indeed I am. Who hasn’t felt empty? Impulsive? Angry? Granted, the people I know might not display those emotions/behaviors to a pathological degree, but 4, 7, and 8 could apply to a lot of people at many points in their life. From my layman’s understanding, most psychiatric problems are just extreme manifestations of things we all experience. Everyone feels distracted and lacks attention from time to time, but ADD people have it to the degree that it causes serious problems in their llives. Everyone feels depressed on occasion, but people with clinical depression have that feeling to an extreme degree on a relatively constant basis. Everyone feels manic on occasion, and sad on occasion, but bipolar people swing from extreme to extreme with much greater frequency/intensity. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2005, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-describe-borderline-personality-disorder/320961/18 "2005-09-10T17:37:25Z")
> [@Wendell Wagner](#): > > Shagnasty writes: > > \> An example of a borderline is Glenn Close’s character (the mistress rabbit killer) > \> in Fatal Attraction. > > So which 5 (at least) of the symptoms does her character have?: > > \> 1) Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. > \> 2) A pattern of unstable and intense personal relationships characterized by by > \> alternating extremes of idealization and devaluation. > \> 3) Identity disturbance; unstable self-image/sense of self > \> 4) Impulsivity in at least 2 areas that are self damaging. > \> 5) Recurrent suicidal or self mutilating behavior. > \> 6) Affective instability/marked reactivity of mood > \> 7) Chronic feelings of emptiness. > \> 8) Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger. > \> 9) Transient, stress-related paranoia or dissociative symptoms 1, 4, 6, 8, 9 with others probable but not shown in the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2005, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-describe-borderline-personality-disorder/320961/19 "2005-09-10T17:48:53Z")
> [@Beware of Doug](#): > > I thought it used to be manic-depression. Uh, well, you thought wrong, then. Completely different matters. Bipolar is a mood disorder; do the symptoms listed above even resemble the symptoms of bipolar disorder to you? ---
**Author:** ![Dan\_Norder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4af34b/32.png) [@Dan\_Norder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dan_Norder)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2005, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-describe-borderline-personality-disorder/320961/20 "2005-09-10T20:08:10Z")
> [@davenportavenger](#): > > Indeed I am. Who hasn’t felt empty? Impulsive? Angry? Granted, the people I know might not display those emotions/behaviors to a pathological degree, but 4, 7, and 8 could apply to a lot of people at many points in their life. Most the diagnostic criteria of all mental illnesses aplly to most people at many points in their life. So what’s your point? And for a flippant answer to the original post… Remember Madonna’s first breakthrough song? “Borderline.” Conveniently if you want a good way to remember what someone with Borderline Personality Disorder is like, just think Madonna. (Perhaps moreso around the years when the song came out instead of now.) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-describe-borderline-personality-disorder/320961.md?page=2)