This is just to second those who’ve pointed out the differences between a vague description in the DSM IV and Borderline Personality Disorder in real life. Phase42’s description was right on the money. I was a Mental Health Technician (that’s “psychiatric aide” to you and me) for a couple of years. I knew a lot of the descriptions of mental health disorders from reading, but when I finally met someone who was suffering from one, it was a “So that’s what they were talking about” experience.
The best word I can think of to describe someone with Borderline Personality Disorder is “dramatic,” and I’m thankful that those with which I’ve had a relationship was within the safe confines of a psychiatric hospital. Granted, they were already in bad shape or they wouldn’t have been in a hospital in the first place, but I can’t imagine what it would have been like to have been married to someone with the disorder.
There are actually two types of Bipolar Disorder. Bipolar Type I is the classic kind. Sufferers (including me) swing between severe depression and full blown mania. People with Bipolar Type II also have depression but their mania takes the form of hypomania (less than full blown mania). That is a very simplistic explanation. There are whole books written just describing the symptoms of Bipolar Disorder and it’s subtypes.
Affect basically means emotion in this context. Affective instability means an unstable emotional state. Reactivity of mood means a generally unpleasant mood, irritability, or anxiety. People with BPD reactivity of mood is often pronounced.
While the DSM defines the low-functioning form of BPD, there is a more deceptive high-functioning type as recognized by some in the psychiatric profession. Here’s a link: http://www.bpdcentral.com/
At this site, you’ll find out everything than you need to know, especially if you know one with BPD.
(bolding mine)
The girl I was dating suffered severe physical abuse from her mother. She bore the brunt of her mother’s anger; her younger sister was not abused. What anger she felt toward her father took the form of accusing him of being a “workaholic”, because he spent way more time than necessary at work. It seems that he once tried to stop his wife from beating their daughter - he physically restrained her. This just resulted in her calling the police and accusing him of wife-beating. And naturally, since it’s the way things seem to work - he went to jail. After that he just avoided the whole situation by staying at work as much as possible. Doesn’t say much for him, I know.
For all intents and purposes, my ex’s dad abandoned her by not being there to protect her. I’m sure that contributed to her BPD.
This is what I meant when I said " I can go from being irrationally angry at literally nothing to within a matter of seconds hyperactive to suddenly in the depths of depression. All apparently caused by nothing, all extremes, and all within the space of 10 minutes." This is a diagram of the mood states I experience most commonly.
I can expect to go through almost all of these in a day, and the central ones swing over a matter of hours. That’s with no external input. Once I am presented with events to react to the rapidity of the cycle escalates.
e.g. Over the course of an hour session with my Shrink, she’ll see everything on that diagram at least once, with the common ones cycling like flicking a light switch.
Couple of notes about that:
It’s an excel file, so not sure if you’ll be able to view it if you don’t have excel
This is something I’ve been working on with my Shrink. It’s specific to me, wont fit other BPs.
I’ve edited it slightly, this is the simplified version and I’ve removed specific stuff ya don’t need to know.
In my case (very much in a nutshell) it was caused by neglect as a child. I was stuck on my own in a room and left to it, very little parental attention other than feeding me or shouting/slapping at me when I did something that, for no reasons known to man, was a Bad Thing (like I sneezed). I never managed to learn emotional reactions to things past the state of being a child. I have the “EQ” of a four year old, which is why I react so badly to any situations that an adult would normally take in their stride, essentially my coping mechanisms have been crippled.
Jinx that site is for BPD Supporters, friends and family. Just as a quick side note, it’s not generally a good idea to let the BP themselves read the stuff for supporters, it can get very negative which only sets off the abandonment issues of the BP (I’ve learnt this the hard and painful way). That’s why most BPD websites you find will be for the sufferer or supporter, less commonly both.
Sorry for the double post, but just to expand on my last comment…
(Generalisation alert)Most BP’s, for whatever reason, have stunted emotional maturity.
Although we are physically, mentally and socially adults we never grew-up emotionally, so we react childishly to stimulus. Which can be very hard on other people who are expecting (quite rightly) to deal with us as adults.
e.g. if I don’t get my bikkit now, then you hate me, don’t love me and don’t care whether I die. Give me that bikkit and I’ll love you forever: forever being until the next time I interact with you when we go back to the begginning of the cycle.
So yes, we get “dramatic” in the same way a child throws a tantrum, we may not know another way to react to something that upsets us. But because we are mentally mature we’ve evolved ways of manipulating people rather than just stamping our feet and pouting (plenty of that goes on too though!)
There’s a fair amount of debate going on about this subject, I can’t say whether it’s correct or not, just that it certainly applies to me.
Well, this certainly sounds like my daughter! We tried modeling good behavior for her, as well as giving her tools to handle situations in a more mature way, but to no avail. Her biggest problem is that the meds that would help her effectively deal with the BP also level out her bipolar; she doesn’t want that, because she likes the highs of the manic phases. It’s the same with therapy; we’ve tried I don’t know how many different therapists, but none of them do any good because right now she’s not interested in getting better. It’s very frustrating for us.
Aye, that sounds a little like what I went through as a teenager, some things being similar across the board I guess.
I was on various different medications, saw dozens of specialists and what not. But none of them worked because deep down I was fighting it.
I kinda liked the idea if being “mad”, it has a certain kudos attached to it. Plus it was such a useful get-out clause. “Oh, it’s not me, it’s my BPD/Bi-Polar/OCD/etc” I could absolve myself of all responsibiilty for my actions then.
As I got older I realised the “insanity tag” was doing me more harm than good, but it was still difficult to try and give therapy or meds a chance. I’d lived with it so long, it was such an intregal part of me, I had no idea how I’d cope or what I’d do if it was gone. And, frankly, that thought was (and still is) desperately frightening. I’ve been this way for such a long time I can’t imagine not being this way. It almost feels like removing it would remove who I am.
But it has finally managed to sink in that I shouldn’t feel/act this way, and that I don’t have to. There is help out there for me. It might never cure me, but hopefully it’ll give me better coping stategies so I wont keep going off the deep end at the slightest provocation, and I’ll be more at peace internally.
Here’s hoping your daughter reaches the same conclusions eventually, both for your (familys) sake and for hers. I can’t begin to describe how much better it feels to have even the slightest semblance of control over this. It’s a very frightening and lonely place to be, and -fingers crossed- she’ll realise that it doesn’t need to be like that for herself too.
Interesting thread. I have to concur with what others have said - when you read an Abnormal Psych book you think “Huh, I can diagnose all my friends and family members with diseases and disorders!”
Then you actually meet someone with a personality disorder such as BPD and you go “Holy shit!”
I know of one woman who was on a form of Disability because of Histironic Personality Disorder. The woman sobbed and wept, unconsolably, for over an hour, during an appointment to get her a new fridge, upon finding out that her social worker (one of my girlfriends) had both a cat and a dog for pets. Why? Because she couldn’t help thinking about how mean the dog surely was to the cat.
Trust me, a personality disorder is pretty easy to tell apart from a normal personality and normal, healthy person.
I too am one of the dopers that suffer from BPD. Not really up for a public response today, however if you have any private questions you can email me at blueroses413 at yahoo
I am looking for the same and when i went to research the symptoms of bpd i came to know that i am wasting time because this question is every thing and if you agree with it then you have bpd.
Q. Do you behave vigor like taking high risks, spending lot of money, reckless driving.
I got this question from this bpd quiz .
I am also suffering so and now planing to get professional help.
This is back when psychology was all Freudian-based, and disorders were either neurotic (disturbed, but living in the same reality as the rest of the world) or psychotic (out of touch with reality). People on the borderline between psychosis and neurosis were “borderline cases.” Tennessee Williams was trying to create a character like this in Blanche DuBois.
If one of the symptoms is self-mutilation, I hope you aren’t just dismissing it as “only one symptom.”
But, as a point, to be diagnosed, you need more than one or two symptoms. It’s true that most normal people have one or two symptoms of almost everything. To have the disorder, you need more than one symptom. It’s kind of like poison being in the dose, not the actual substance. A lot of people have kind of poor social skills, but few of them are autistic. A lot of people get antsy if they have to sit still for a long time and are not being entertained, but few of them have ADHD. Every parent gets furious with their children at some point, but few of them turn into abusers.
We’ve had people with Borderline PD in the caseloads of agencies I’ve worked for. They were also usually clinically depressed, and that was why they were on disability or otherwise qualified for services. Most had at least one suicide attempt that needed medical attention in the past.
The abandonment issues weren’t just for romantic relationships. They would get upset and take it personally every time we had a reorganization, and they got switched to a different caseworker (which happened a lot and new cases came in and we had new hires, or people left to go to grad school, or something). Other people didn’t care who their caseworker was, as long as their services were intact. BPD people treated reorganization like personal rejection, and sometimes there were tears, and a scene. When we knew we had to reassign someone with issues like this, we’d have a discussion, and a plan of how to handle it.
IANA psychologist or psychiatrist, but I think that a lot of people with this have a combination of clinical depression, and an adult version of “reactive attachment disorder.” I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of BPD adults had childhood circumstances that could have produced reactive attachment disorder.
Zombies have no personality.
On a more serious note, dindar, you have replied to 9 year old thread, so the OP may not even be around to converse with you (their last activity was in 2006).
The fact that you are somewhat self aware of the issue you are ahead of approximately 99.9% of the people that I know that suffer from this issue. Normally when confronted with the possibility that they may be BPD, they quickly go into transference and project onto you as their accuser. Good luck.
