Borderline Personality Disorder

Borderline personality disorder is a mental illness marked by an ongoing pattern of varying moods, self-image, and behavior. These symptoms often result in impulsive actions and problems in relationships. People with borderline personality disorder may experience intense episodes of anger, depression, and anxiety that can last from a few hours to days.

People with borderline personality disorder may experience mood swings and display uncertainty about how they see themselves and their role in the world. As a result, their interests and values can change quickly. People with borderline personality disorder also tend to view things in extremes, such as all good or all bad. Their opinions of other people can also change quickly. An individual who is seen as a friend one day may be considered an enemy or traitor the next. These shifting feelings can lead to intense and unstable relationships.

Signs and Symptoms

Not everyone with borderline personality disorder experiences every symptom. Some individuals experience only a few symptoms, while others have many. Symptoms can be triggered by seemingly ordinary events. For example, people with borderline personality disorder may become angry and distressed over minor separations from people to whom they feel close, such as traveling on business trips. The severity and frequency of symptoms and how long they last will vary depending on the individual and their illness.

  • Efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment, such as rapidly initiating intimate (physical or emotional) relationships or cutting off communication with someone in anticipation of being abandoned

  • A pattern of intense and unstable relationships with family, friends, and loved ones, often swinging from extreme closeness and love (idealization) to extreme dislike or anger (devaluation)

  • Impulsive and often dangerous behaviors, such as spending sprees, unsafe sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, and binge eating. Note: These may be signs of a mood disorder, not BPD.

  • Inappropriate, intense anger, or problems controlling anger

  • Intense and highly changeable moods, with each episode lasting from a few hours to a few days

  • Distorted and unstable self-image or sense of self

  • Difficulty trusting, which is sometimes accompanied by irrational fear of other people’s intentions

  • Feelings of dissociation, such as feeling cut off from oneself, seeing oneself from outside one’s body, or feelings of unreality

  • Recurring thoughts of suicidal behaviors or threats

  • Self-harming behavior, such as cutting

  • Chronic feelings of emptiness

Resources

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

Get more information about borderline personality disorder.

December 10th, 2019

Core (Adult) Mental Health First Aid® Course

The Core (Adult) Mental Health First Aid® course builds skills to help adults ages 18 and older who may be experiencing a mental health problem or crisis.

November 30, 2018

MHAMD’s Jennifer Treger Discusses Mental Health on Straight Talk with Mike Gimbel Program

  The director of Mental Health First Aid Maryland Jennifer Treger will be featured in a segment of Straight Talk with Mike Gimbel to be aired this weekend and throughout December. Jennifer discusses the potential warning signs of a mental health issue and resources a person can turn to…

May 18, 2016

Breaking the ice and starting the conversation about mental health

  Earlier this week, six runners left California on the IceBreaker Run. These six runners will run a marathon each day as they travel from California to Virginia, stopping along the way to start community conversations about mental health. The six runners have diverse backgrounds and…

December 10th, 2019

Core (Adult) Mental Health First Aid® Course

The Core (Adult) Mental Health First Aid® course builds skills to help adults ages 18 and older who may be experiencing a mental health problem or crisis.

November 30, 2018

MHAMD’s Jennifer Treger Discusses Mental Health on Straight Talk with Mike Gimbel Program

 

The director of Mental Health First Aid Maryland Jennifer Treger will be featured in a segment of Straight Talk with Mike Gimbel to be aired this weekend and throughout December. Jennifer discusses the potential warning signs of a mental health issue and resources a person can turn to for help.

May 18, 2016

Breaking the ice and starting the conversation about mental health

 

Earlier this week, six runners left California on the IceBreaker Run. These six runners will run a marathon each day as they travel from California to Virginia, stopping along the way to start community conversations about mental health. The six runners have diverse backgrounds and experiences, but each one has had their life touched by mental illness.

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