borderline personality disorder?

Question

what is it?

Answer 1

While a person with depression or bipolar disorder typically endures the same mood for weeks, a person with BPD may experience intense bouts of anger, depression, and anxiety that may last only hours, or at most a day. These may be associated with episodes of impulsive aggression, self-injury, and drug or alcohol abuse. Distortions in cognition and sense of self can lead to frequent changes in long-term goals, career plans, jobs, friendships, gender identity, and values. Sometimes people with BPD view themselves as fundamentally bad, or unworthy. They may feel unfairly misunderstood or mistreated, bored, empty, and have little idea who they are. Such symptoms are most acute when people with BPD feel isolated and lacking in social support, and may result in frantic efforts to avoid being alone.

People with BPD often have highly unstable patterns of social relationships. While they can develop intense but stormy attachments, their attitudes towards family, friends, and loved ones may suddenly shift from idealization (great admiration and love) to devaluation (intense anger and dislike). Thus, they may form an immediate attachment and idealize the other person, but when a slight separation or conflict occurs, they switch unexpectedly to the other extreme and angrily accuse the other person of not caring for them at all. Even with family members, individuals with BPD are highly sensitive to rejection, reacting with anger and distress to such mild separations as a vacation, a business trip, or a sudden change in plans. These fears of abandonment seem to be related to difficulties feeling emotionally connected to important persons when they are physically absent, leaving the individual with BPD feeling lost and perhaps worthless. Suicide threats and attempts may occur along with anger at perceived abandonment and disappointments.

People with BPD exhibit other impulsive behaviors, such as excessive spending, binge eating and risky sex. BPD often occurs together with other psychiatric problems, particularly bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety disorders, substance abuse, and other personality disorders.

Treatment
Treatments for BPD have improved in recent years. Group and individual psychotherapy are at least partially effective for many patients. Within the past 15 years, a new psychosocial treatment termed dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) was developed specifically to treat BPD, and this technique has looked promising in treatment studies.6 Pharmacological treatments are often prescribed based on specific target symptoms shown by the individual patient. Antidepressant drugs and mood stabilizers may be helpful for depressed and/or labile mood. Antipsychotic drugs may also be used when there are distortions in thinking.

Recent Research Findings
Although the cause of BPD is unknown, both environmental and genetic factors are thought to play a role in predisposing patients to BPD symptoms and traits. Studies show that many, but not all individuals with BPD report a history of abuse, neglect, or separation as young children. Forty to 71 percent of BPD patients report having been sexually abused, usually by a non-caregiver.9 Researchers believe that BPD results from a combination of individual vulnerability to environmental stress, neglect or abuse as young children, and a series of events that trigger the onset of the disorder as young adults. Adults with BPD are also considerably more likely to be the victim of violence, including rape and other crimes. This may result from both harmful environments as well as impulsivity and poor judgement in choosing partners and lifestyles.

NIMH-funded neuroscience research is revealing brain mechanisms underlying the impulsivity, mood instability, aggression, anger, and negative emotion seen in BPD. Studies suggest that people predisposed to impulsive aggression have impaired regulation of the neural circuits that modulate emotion. The amygdala, a small almond-shaped structure deep inside the brain, is an important component of the circuit that regulates negative emotion. In response to signals from other brain centers indicating a perceived threat, it marshals fear and arousal. This might be more pronounced under the influence of drugs like alcohol, or stress. Areas in the front of the brain (pre-frontal area) act to dampen the activity of this circuit. Recent brain imaging studies show that individual differences in the ability to activate regions of the prefrontal cerebral cortex thought to be involved in inhibitory activity predict the ability to suppress negative emotion.

Serotonin, norepinephrine and acetylcholine are among the chemical messengers in these circuits that play a role in the regulation of emotions, including sadness, anger, anxiety, and irritability. Drugs that enhance brain serotonin function may improve emotional symptoms in BPD. Likewise, mood-stabilizing drugs that are known to enhance the activity of GABA, the brain's major inhibitory neurotransmitter, may help people who experience BPD-like mood swings. Such brain-based vulnerabilities can be managed with help from behavioral interventions and medications, much like people manage susceptibility to diabetes or high blood pressure.

Future Progress
Studies that translate basic findings about the neural basis of temperament, mood regulation, and cognition into clinically relevant insights which bear directly on BPD represent a growing area of NIMH-supported research. Research is also underway to test the efficacy of combining medications with behavioral treatments like DBT, and gauging the effect of childhood abuse and other stress in BPD on brain hormones. Data from the first prospective, longitudinal study of BPD, which began in the early 1990s, is expected to reveal how treatment affects the course of the illness. It will also pinpoint specific environmental factors and personality traits that predict a more favorable outcome. The Institute is also collaborating with a private foundation to help attract new researchers to develop a better understanding and better treatment for BPD.

Answer 2

Generally, people with this form of mental illness think everyone around them is changing their opinions and their behavior. In fact, the person with the disorder is doing the changing, and one of the signs is they take no responsibility for their feelings or attitudes--it is all because of someone else.

"Borderlines" were so named because, back in the days of "neurosis" and "psychosis," the borderline personality disordered person had the signs and symptoms of both. They often have a loose grasp of reality. They can have hallucinations, but delusions are much more common (e.g., "they are trying to make me do x").

The best resource is a book called "I Hate You, Don't Leave Me." It is short and easy to read, and, since it is not new, it is cheap and easily obtained.

If you have been diagnosed, it will help you gain some insight into your own illness and the dynamnics of your thinking process. If a friend or family member has been diagnosed, the book gives some good tips on how to keep your own sanity intact and establish good boundaries between yourself and them. If you have just met a love interest that has the disorder, you will do yourself a big favor if you read this book pretty quickly, before you become more involved.

It is a difficult disorder to live with, a difficult one to live around, impossible to have a relationship with because there is no internal stability and there is a lot of resentment and vindictiveness--and therapists find them a challenging group to work with because they either love you or hate you, they quit you because they are mad and won't talk it out, which would actually be therapeutic for them, and they will wear you out.

Answer 3

RE: Nurse - Very accurate!!! It's not regurgitated out of a book or internet site - that anyone looking for actual answers and explanations to their cruel world has already read many times and knows it word for word. You have been touched, I wish you well!

RE: Christine - All that experience you claim to have.... and you still have no clue as to what you are talking about. I hope to God you are not a therapist. Read a book - you're making yourself look stupid!

You want to know what it is.... It is a living hell (if you are lucky enough to not realize what is going on!) The best way to explain it is this - the good experience's are good (while you cling to them for dear life because you already know it wont last if you are aware of your illness). The bad experience's are ALL horrific, life altering catastrophic events!
Lets say something happens, on a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being a "oh well crap happens" situation and 10 being "Oh my god life will never be the same" while you are curled up in the fetal position on the laundry room floor crying hystericaly!
Now something happens, and for the average person it is a 1 or 2 on this scale, while for the person BPD it is a 10+! Every event - every time - it is a 10+! Bad enough when this is just normal in your eyes. Now wake up one day and KNOW - without a doubt, that EVERY not good event will be like that! Every time you break up with a boy/girl friend - even if its only been weeks since you started dating - that is what it IS going to feel like to you, when a week from that time the other person wont even remember your name! Every time you lose a job - you know you are less than whale crap on the bottom of the ocean floor. You know every waking moment that you have no controll of your own emotions....

Betrayed by my own mind

Answer 4

Get a 2d opinion. Character issues will not be identified unless after the age of 18 because until then their persona is still forming and field to alter... A personality disease is a pervasive sample of perceiving and reacting to the world that is enduring and long term..... I think it's the new capture all although for some medical professionals. Was it a psychiatrist who diagnosed her? She could have "rising" BPD, or she would have Oppositional defiance disease, or Bipolar... However you're correct, technically, according to the diagnostic standards, she are not able to have Borderline. Without doubt get a 2nd opinion.... If she is Bipolar then the medication is very exceptional.

Answer 5

Borderline personality disorder is a mental health condition that causes unstable emotions, impulsiveness, relationship problems, and an unstable self-image. People with the disorder often behave self-destructively, have problems managing anger, and have an intense fear of being rejected and left alone (abandoned). They often also struggle with other conditions such as depression, eating disorders, or substance abuse problems.

Signs of the disorder usually first appear in childhood, but problems often don't develop until early adulthood. Treatment can be difficult. Setbacks are common, and recovery from troubling emotional and behavioral symptoms can take years. However, treatment may be more effective than was previously thought, and even people with severe symptoms usually improve over time.

Answer 6

get a moment opinion. Personality issues don't seem to be identified till after the age of 18 considering that till then their persona continues to be forming and discipline to difference... a character disease is a pervasive sample of perceiving and reacting to the arena that's enduring and longer term..... I believe it's the new trap all although for a few medical professionals. Was it a psychiatrist who identified her? She would have "rising" BPD, or she would have Oppositional defiance disease, or Bipolar... But you're correct, technically, in line with the diagnostic standards, she can't have Borderline. Definitely get a moment opinion.... if she is Bipolar then the medication could be very exclusive.

Answer 7

Borderline Personality Disorder is defined as a mental illness primarily characterized by emotional dysregulation, extreme "black and white" thinking, or "splitting", and chaotic relationships. The general profile of the disorder also typically includes a pervasive instability in mood, interpersonal relationships, self-image, identity, and behavior, as well as a disturbance in the individual's sense of self. In extreme cases, this disturbance in the sense of self can lead to periods of dissociation.

Good luck!

Answer 8

"Borderline Personality Disorder" is the name of a mental illness characterized by the following group of symptoms:
cannot tolerate anxiety and due to this, they use poor coping behaviors to protect themselves from these anxious feelings such as: avoidance, withdrawal, acting out, somatic complaints (physical ailments--headache/stomachache/fatigue etc.)
They view people as being "all good" or "all bad" and not able to see that people have characteristic of both good AND bad. They also lack a clear picture of themselves (self-image). They may fail to learn lessons from experiences in life, repeat mistakes in life.
They tend to be intense in their presentation: angry, lonely, depressed, impatient, self-pity, self esteem, confidence. They also may have a sense of entitlement (like everyone owes them something or should treat them with special priveleges. Can easily become rageful, hostile and jealous. Behavior changes drastically and suddenly and become extreme readily. They tend to be manipulative, argumentative, demanding, threatening to others. They do not usually become physically assaultive. They suffer from difficulty in relationships, jobs, and friendships and seldom reach their full potential in life.
These traits become deeply ingrained and as such, is fairly resistant to treatment. Intensive, prolonged psychotherapy offers the best chance for long term changes in behavior.

I hope this helps :)
NurseMom

Answer 9

Look it up in the DSM-IV. You;ll get a better exokaination there.

Answer 10

I believe it means that your personality changes and u can have huge mood swings (u go between moods)