Understanding the Signs of Borderline Personality Disorder

The DMS-IV outlines nine symptoms that identify borderline personality disorder. In order to be diagnosed by a mental health care profession, one needs to be at least 18 years of age and exhibit five or more of the following symptoms:

• • Extreme reactions to real or perceived abandonment. The feeling of being abandoned is perhaps one of the most indicative markers of borderline personality disorder. Whether real or imagined, a person suffering from BPD may show intense, often inappropriate, reactions when he/she feels abandoned.

• • Torrid relationships. A person with borderline personality disorder often has intense emotions about friends and others close to him/her, in particular lovers or caretakers, which may correlate to fear of abandonment. Feelings may constitute extreme love (idealization) or hate (devaluation) and are subject to change without notice or predicating event. People with BPD may also seem overly reliant or dependent upon friends, lovers, or family members.

• • Distorted self-image. Often feeling like he/she is “bad” or “evil,” a person with BPD may show signs of low self-worth or value. This disturbance in perceived identity is frequently negative or pessimistic and can shift suddenly. For example, someone with BPD may have extreme feelings about how they are unloved or worthless triggered by an event in which a friend is five minutes late for a lunch date.

• • Impulsive or dangerous behavior. Impulsive or risky behavior often includes sex, substance abuse, binges, or charging a lot of money on credit cards. These behaviors are often considered to be dangerously impulsive and can put oneself or others at risk.

• • Recurring suicidal thoughts. The National Alliance on Mental Illness reports that living with BPD can manifest into destructive behavior, such as self-harm (cutting) or suicide attempt.

• • Chronic feelings of emptiness or boredom. Those suffering from BPD may often feel disillusioned or unfulfilled with their places in life.

• • Inappropriate anger. Referring to the earlier example about a lunch date, a person with BPD may yell at a friend for being late. It’s possible that, going to back to unstable relationships, he/she may immediately switch feelings about that person and illustrate devaluation as a result.

• • Intense and highly unstable moods. Those with BPD often display unpredictable and erratic behavior as the result of varying moods.

• Stress-related paranoia or dissociative symptoms. This symptom is marked by a loss of reality or perception.