Whats the difference between bipolar and borderline personality disorder?

Answer 1

hello I coped this from another question I answers a while back hope it helps you.

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.

Signs and symptoms of mania (or a manic episode) include:
Increased energy, activity, and restlessness
Excessively "high," overly good, euphoric mood
Extreme irritability
Racing thoughts and talking very fast, jumping from one idea to another
Distractibility, can't concentrate well
Little sleep needed
Unrealistic beliefs in one's abilities and powers
Poor judgment
Spending sprees
A lasting period of behavior that is different from usual
Increased sexual drive
Abuse of drugs, particularly cocaine, alcohol, and sleeping medications
Provocative, intrusive, or aggressive behavior
Denial that anything is wrong
A manic episode is diagnosed if elevated mood occurs with three or more of the other symptoms most of the day, nearly every day, for 1 week or longer. If the mood is irritable, four additional symptoms must be present.

Signs and symptoms of depression (or a depressive episode) include:
Lasting sad, anxious, or empty mood
Feelings of hopelessness or pessimism
Feelings of guilt, worthlessness, or helplessness
Loss of interest or pleasure in activities once enjoyed, including sex
Decreased energy, a feeling of fatigue or of being "slowed down"
Difficulty concentrating, remembering, making decisions
Restlessness or irritability
Sleeping too much, or can't sleep
Change in appetite and/or unintended weight loss or gain
Chronic pain or other persistent bodily symptoms that are not caused by physical illness or injury
Thoughts of death or suicide, or suicide attempts
A depressive episode is diagnosed if five or more of these symptoms last most of the day, nearly every day, for a period of 2 weeks or longer.

A mild to moderate level of mania is called hypomania. Hypomania may feel good to the person who experiences it and may even be associated with good functioning and enhanced productivity. Thus even when family and friends learn to recognize the mood swings as possible bipolar disorder, the person may deny that anything is wrong. Without proper treatment, however, hypomania can become severe mania in some people or can switch into depression.

Sometimes, severe episodes of mania or depression include symptoms of psychosis (or psychotic symptoms). Common psychotic symptoms are hallucinations (hearing, seeing, or otherwise sensing the presence of things not actually there) and delusions (false, strongly held beliefs not influenced by logical reasoning or explained by a person's usual cultural concepts). Psychotic symptoms in bipolar disorder tend to reflect the extreme mood state at the time. For example, delusions of grandiosity, such as believing one is the President or has special powers or wealth, may occur during mania; delusions of guilt or worthlessness, such as believing that one is ruined and penniless or has committed some terrible crime, may appear during depression. People with bipolar disorder who have these symptoms are sometimes incorrectly diagnosed as having schizophrenia, another severe mental illness.

It may be helpful to think of the various mood states in bipolar disorder as a spectrum or continuous range. At one end is severe depression, above which is moderate depression and then mild low mood, which many people call "the blues" when it is short-lived but is termed "dysthymia" when it is chronic. Then there is normal or balanced mood, above which comes hypomania (mild to moderate mania), and then severe mania.

Answer 2

From Mentalhelp.net:

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a developmental syndrome that is superficially similar to bipolar disorder in terms of symptoms. Individuals with BPD are vulnerable to mood swings not because there are necessarily differences with their brain chemistry, but instead because they possess rather fragile, developmentally-delayed and under-developed emotional coping skills. Such people have a tendency to view relationship partners in a very high contrast, highly idealistic manner. Partners may be good or they may be bad, but they are generally not represented as possessing both qualities at once. As perceptions of a partner's actions and intentions shift in the borderline person's mind, so too do the moods of the person with BPD.

Young children tend to represent the word in this high contrast way, but to then grow out of this polarized way of seeing things as they mature. Borderline personality disorder represents a situation where that normal social and emotional maturation process becomes interrupted, due to trauma or difficult life circumstances that interact with temperamental (instinctual) emotional sensitivity.

Mood swings in the context of borderline personality disorder are thought of as 'software' problems brought on by changes in the patient's perception and appraisal of their social situation. This is in contrast to bipolar disorder patients whose mood swings are thought of as occurring due to brain chemistry problems (e.g., a 'hardware' problem). It is not at all easy to differentiate borderline mood swings from those, which might be attributed to ultradian style rapid cycling bipolar disorder. Because of this difficulty, some experts argue that BPD is best thought of as a form of ultradian cycling. This point is highly controversial and does not represent the mainstream view within the mental health professions, however. First line treatment for BPD remains psychotherapy (with medication offered as a secondary support). In contrast, bipolar patients are offered medication as their primary form of therapy.


Another source, specifically asks and answers the question
"What's the difference between bipolar disorder and "Borderline Personality Disorder"?" and can be found at

http://www.psycheducation.org/depression/borderline.htm

One final thought to keep in mind is that rapid shifts in mood does not rule out bipolar and mean it must be borderline, because mood cycles can vary from person to person. Some people with bipolar will have major mood episodes less than once a year, others can be ultra-ultra (or ultradian) rapid cyclers who go back and forth several times a day (this is more common in children with the disorder and appears to be more common in adults that had an earlier onset of bipolar).

Answer 3

The major difference is that bipolar disorder is a MOOD disorder, and borderline is a PERSONALITY DISORDER.

For information about symptoms of each, do a yahoo search.

Answer 4

It is going to be hard to beat that first answer... Anyway, They are closely related disorders but they are very distinctive. Borderline Personality Disorder individuals moods change rapidly and they have a hard time regulating their emotions. they have very stormy relationships, and thing in all or nothing terms. They either love you or hate you. they are impulsive, and engage in self injury, or are suicidal. This disorder can also include severe depression or anther mental illness.
Bi Polar Disorder / they are also moody, but it can last longer , and they have extreme highs(mania) and extreme lows. They feel powerful i their mania and stay up days at a time... Their lows they are suicidal and are severely depressed.

Answer 5

You have a computer, just look up the two disorders...try google, or if all else fails, try wikipedia...I know Yahoo Answers is for answers, but this is simply a definitional question, hence, look up the definitions. If you don't understand the definitions, phrase your question differently so that your audience knows where you're coming from and can help more efficiently.