Understanding Borderline Personality Disorder

Borderline personality disorder is sometimes referred to as "Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder", is characterized by the lack of ability to properly control emotions and emotional response. Things are very black and white, with little room for middle ground gray areas.

Sufferers of borderline personality disorder generally have very unstable relationships with others, inconsistent self-image and very unstable moods including radical mood swings.

This creates, with the sufferer, the lack of ability to maintain relationships on a personal level, work or in social settings. It is also very common for these people to have more than one mental illness condition present. Very frequently this disorder appears alongside other mood, anxiety and eating related disorders, which can seriously complicate accurate diagnosis.

Common Symptoms

Common symptoms of borderline personality disorder include:

• Extreme methods to avoid real or imagined abandonment
• A pattern of unhealthy, unstable relationships on personal and professional levels usually caused by extreme ups and downs
• Very inconsistent self-image, suicidal tendencies and chronic feelings of emptiness or loneliness
• Areas where the person is very impulsive to a self-damaging degree (drugs, spending, gambling, sex, etc.)
• Inappropriately placed and very intense fits of anger (not always violent, but intense)

Self-Harm and Suicide Risk

Common emotional issues experienced by the sufferer include feelings of destructiveness or self-destructiveness, feelings of victimization, lack of personal identity or understanding of it, as well as extreme feelings regardless of context.

The most recognized form of self-injury is cutting of the arms, though legs, chest and other areas of the body have been noted as well. Self-injury is very common but is not necessarily a true attempt at suicide. These self-injury incidents with low likelihood of death are often brought on by relatively minor emotional incidents and is a way, in their minds, of releasing the pain caused by those incidents.

Treatment

Treatment for Borderline Personality Disorder is a mix of therapy and medication, and is currently under aggressive study to find better treatment approaches.

The understanding and treatment of borderline personality disorder has improved greatly in recent years. However, treatment is still an imperfect science, as it is with many personality disorders. Group and individual psychotherapy has proven at least partially effective, and in the past decade, a new psychosocial treatment termed dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) has been used and researched with great interest.

Medication is carefully monitored as prescriptions differ for each patient depending on the primary characteristics that need the most stabilizing for each individual. Anti-depressants, mood stabilizers and anti-psychotic drugs are often mixed and matched to suit the individual's symptoms as needed.

Dealing With a Person With Borderline Personality Disorder

Many times people want to be a befriender—it's human to want to help, to listen and to be a friend. In the case of a borderline, it is often not helpful to the borderline, as the pain and misery they share will never end. It's a bottomless pit, and will only serve to further weigh on you as the borderline increasingly counts on you for that shoulder to cry on. It will come more often, and when you choose to pull it away they could react in extreme anger, even violence, and further influence their already suicidal tendencies or feelings of loneliness and emptiness.

Protecting Yourself

Above all you must protect yourself and any involved dependents from the situation. You must communicate this with the borderline as well. You can listen, you can try to help, but you cannot internalize it or be expected to do anything. Whenever raging starts, you must leave, you must take children or other dependents with you, and most importantly you must indicate you are taking them until the borderline calms down and gets a grip on themselves. Most of all, indicate you will talk later, once calm is again achieved.

Setting Boundaries

You must figure out your limits, what you are willing to put up with from the borderline, and clearly state it to them. Obviously, as with any personality disorder, you cannot ask the sufferer to change their feelings, but you can ask (or demand) that they change their behavior.

Borderlines can have devastating impact on the people around them. If you are not already legally involved with one (married or whatever), don't. Do not have children, do not marry unless they are at least fully aware of the problem and the limits you will need to impose.

Parenting With Borderline Personality Disorder

An undiagnosed or unaccepting Borderline Personality Disorder sufferer will be the cause of untold damage to their children. During manic periods their lives will be controlled by feelings of fear and confusion. It is imperative that any suspected Borderline get treatment as soon as possible, and it's just as imperative for the family to have resources to help with parenting when a manic episode appears.

It is better for mom or dad to be out of sight while dealing with their personal demons and come back happy and healthy, than it is to try to fight through those episodes while trying to be a parent. Kids are not stupid—they see and know what goes on around them even if they do not know what exactly it is.

One of the best lessons we can teach our children is how to deal with adversity. If your children know you are ill, and they know you work to better it, that is a good lesson. If they just know every now and then they see signs of mom or dad about to become incredibly angry, insulting, condescending and uncaring, that will be a very bad lesson and create a very unhappy home life for the entire family.

Continuing your role as a parent while untreated has been proven to cause BPD, passive-aggressive disorders and anti-social personality disorders in the children being raised by the BPD parent. It only continues the cycle of instability.