Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is classified in the 📝Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)-5 as a personality disorder marked by pervasive instability in interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affect, alongside marked impulsivity. The diagnostic criteria require five or more of the following nine symptoms: frantic efforts to avoid abandonment (real or imagined), unstable interpersonal relationships, identity disturbance, impulsive behaviors that are potentially self-damaging, recurrent suicidal behavior or self-harm, affective instability, chronic feelings of emptiness, intense or inappropriate anger, and transient, stress-related paranoia or 📝dissociation. This framework is widely used by clinicians to identify BPD and differentiate it from other disorders, guiding treatment plans that may include 📝Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), medication, and support networks.

Borderline personality disorder is a disorder of stability. It's instability in personal relationships, it's instability in their emotions, it's instability in their behavior, and it's instability in their sense of self and their identity. That instability is really driven by this underlying terror of abandonment when somebody is afraid of being abandoned by their partner or by anybody else in their environment.

When somebody has this disorder, they can react violently, and they can react aggressively. They will often physically prevent their partner from trying to leave if their partner wants to get space from all of this intense emotion. Also, people with borderline personality disorder seem to be a predictive factor for women who implement violence against their partner. One of the most common tactics that they'll use is actually saying that they'll make threats using the legal system. They might say that they are going to file a restraining order or claim 📝abuse, or they might do these things to essentially try to keep their partner from leaving.

In the moment, again, they're not consciously thinking, "I'm going to keep my partner from leaving right now." They're just thinking, "I can't stand this. I hate my partner." They went from idealizing to suddenly devaluing because of the hurt, and they'll do anything to express that big emotion of anger.

People with borderline personality disorder can be very caring in their relationships. As long as their needs are being met, they feel that their needs should be met when they want them met at a specific level. If they're not, then that anger, that sense of harm, causes them to react.

When I was describing personality earlier, I was talking a little bit about those traits we have that help us know who we are. When you have borderline personality disorder, that actually is not something you understand. People with this disorder actually take on the identity of the people they're spending time with because it's comforting. It's very uncomfortable to not know who you are.

Some people with this disorder will describe a feeling of emptiness when they feel like they've been abandoned because now they don't know who they are in the world. When somebody with this disorder is going through that initial enmeshment phase with new people and they're idealizing them, they often will take on the identities of those people. They may mimic them in a lot of ways. They might mimic the way they dress, their interests, the way they talk. For this reason, the people around somebody with this disorder, kind of from the outside, may feel like, "Wait, I thought you were this. Now you're advocating for this, and this is your new main interest in life, or the thing you're throwing yourself into all completely." Music tastes might change, hobbies will change, the way they dress, borderline person

If you are encountering an individual that you believe is exhibiting borderline behaviors, I recommend reading 📝Loving Someone with Borderline Personality Disorder and 📝I Hate You, Don't Leave Me.

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