Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a condition characterized by mood swings, impulsivity, unstable personal relationships, and self-image (Streit, Colodro-Conde, Hall & Witt, 2020). One of the most important characteristics is impulsivity, most of it is behavior that ends in self-harming (Just remember, self-harming comes in many ways: physically, mentally, financially, and socially). Also, it is important to know that not all self-harming behaviors end in suicide. Nevertheless, studies suggest that 46% of people who deal with BPD have at least one suicide attempt and 10% completed suicide. So, yeah, believe us when we said that BPD is a serious matter.
BPD is a mental illness that affects people in all their functionality, which means that their job will be affected, their relationships with their friends and their families will be affected, and the ability to see themselves as a stable person.
Another important characteristic is the feeling of loneliness and the fear of abandonment sometimes is way too unbearable and can cause mental breakdowns, in which we suffer a lot. Regarding cognition people with BPD tend to have black and white thinking or all or nothing way of thinking, which makes things difficult when it comes to socializing.
But wait, how did I get BPD?
BPD comes in many ways and has many factors that contribute to its development. The first one is genetic, studies have found that BPD, as well as Bipolar disorder and schizophrenic, have some genetic factor that contributes to the presence of some of the symptoms (Streit, Colodro-Conde, Hall & Witt, 2020). But genetic does not act alone, the environment in which a person grows has a great influence as well, and when the environment and the genetic come together is called epigenetics. Epigenetics means how the context can start shaping the gens. The most important environmental factor found in people who deal with BPD is an early trauma or being mistreated in their childhood.
When you mix those two and mix it with a great stress environment, the way the brain is structured, and the cognition of the person, you have the greatest chances of getting BPD.
Am I going to live with this for the rest of my life?
BPD is a condition and yeah, it will be there the rest of your life. BUT WAIT. That doesn’t mean that the symptoms are going to be there with you forever. With the right psychotherapy and medication for you, studies have found that most patients with BPD get into a remission stage where they are able to better control impulsivity and mood swings (Winsper, 2020; Themes & Zanarini, 2018). If you live with BPD, I just want to tell you that THERE IS HOPE FOR US. With therapy, we are going to control our breakdowns better, debate irrational ideas and be able to form healthy relationships.
Themes, C. & Zanarini, M. (2018). The longitudinal Course of Borderline Personality Disorder. Psychiatric clinics of North America, 41(4), 685–694. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psc.2018.07.002
Winsper, C. (2020). Borderline Personality Disorder: Course and outcomes Across the Lifespan, Current Opinion in Psychology, 37, 94–97. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2020.09.010
Streit, F., Colodro-Conde, L., Hall, A., Witt, S. (2020) Chapter 19: Genomics of borderline personality disorder. In Personalize Psychiatry, Academic press.
