BPD: Borderline Personality Disorder Photo © Juliet Morris This is a fairly common disorder yet is not well known. It is sometimes the best diagnosis for people who show great instability and intensiveness over a long period of time. A person with a borderline personality disorder often experiences a repetitive pattern of disorganization and instability in self-image, mood, behaviour and close personal relationships. This can cause significant distress or impairment in friendships and work. A person with this disorder can often be bright and intelligent, and appear warm, friendly and competent. They sometimes can maintain this appearance for a number of years until their defence structure crumbles, usually around a stressful situation like the break-up of a romantic relationship or the death of a parent. Although I must stress that you should never self diagnose, the common traits of BPD according to the Mind web site are: 1. Self-harm or repeated attempts or expressions of the desire to commit suicide. An example of this would be cutting yourself. This behaviour can only be counted as one of the criteria for diagnosis; it can't be counted again as demonstrating any of the other symptoms. 2. Frantic efforts to avoid being alone, due to an intense fear of being abandoned. Others may not see this fear as justified, but you may go to great lengths to avoid being alone. For example, you may say that you will harm someone if they leave. 3. Relationship problems where you may see the person you love as absolutely wonderful, able to do no wrong one moment, and then wholly bad the next. Some ‘idealisation’ is often present in relationships but, here, there will be a pattern of relationships being particularly unsteady and intense. 4. A very uncertain, shaky self-image or sense of self. You may feel good whilst you feel loved by someone you think is wonderful. If you later see them as bad, your own sense of self could be affected. You may also have doubts about your sexual identity. 5. Two or more areas of your life where your behaviour could cause you harm and be seen as impulsive. Examples would be: spending money extravagantly and having huge debts, having unprotected sex, abusing drugs or alcohol, driving without due care, or binge-eating. You may do these things because you're trying to deal with awful feelings of pain or emptiness. 6. You may have moods that are very difficult to come out of. For example, you may go through long periods (usually lasting a few hours) of extreme irritability, restlessness, unhappiness or anxiety. 7. Terrible feelings of emptiness. 8. Anger that's inappropriate, intense or difficult to control. You may lose your temper a great deal, experience constant anger or be involved in physical fights. You may feel particularly angry when you think you're being criticised. It's a fine line between assertiveness and the appropriate _expression of anger. Anger is often a very difficult feeling for people to acknowledge and deal with, but may cause particular problems in the life of someone diagnosed with BPD. 9. Periods of paranoia or feeling unreal when under stress. This might be accompanied by an almost complete lack of physical sensation. At difficult times, you may experience yourself as having more than one personality or feel you are in a trance-like state. Meeting the criteria of 5 or more of these traits may be diagnosed as having BPD. FURTHER READING ON BPD Wikipedia.org