There are four widely accepted types of borderline personality disorder (BPD): discouraged, impulsive, petulant, and self-destructive BPD. You can suffer more than one kind of BPD simultaneously or at different stages in your life. Similarly, it is also possible for your condition not to fit any of these types of BPD.
Practice mindfulness of your emotions. Notice the emotion you are having and let yourself experience it as a wave without trying to block it, suppress it, or hold onto it. Try to accept the emotion for what it is. Try to stay in the moment so you do not carry the past emotions along with it.
Focus on self-improvement. Focusing on self-improvement can help someone with BPD shift their focus from the favorite person to improving themselves. This can include setting goals, learning new skills, or taking up a hobby. The key is to find activities that promote self-growth and increase self-esteem.
Separations, disagreements, and rejections—real or perceived—are the most common triggers for symptoms. A person with BPD is highly sensitive to abandonment and being alone, which brings about intense feelings of anger, fear, suicidal thoughts and self-harm, and very impulsive decisions.
Those with BPD may form a strong, irrational opinion that characterizes people, places, things, or situations as all good or all bad. Splitting can lead to intense emotional swings, amplifying conflicts, and straining relationships. Find a supportive therapist that can help with BPD.
Maintaining a relationship with a friend or family member with BPD can be difficult. However, it's important to understand that people with BPD often engage in destructive behaviors not because they intend to hurt you but because their suffering is so intense that they feel they have no other way to survive.
People with a BPD diagnosis depend on a favorite person to meet both physical and emotional needs. It can be exhausting to always feel needed, leading to burnout. If you're the favorite person of a loved one or family member with BPD, they may show some of the following behaviors: Constantly asking for reassurance.
According to DSM-IV, the key features of borderline personality disorder are instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image and affect, combined with marked impulsivity beginning in early adulthood.
Borderline personality disorder is one of the most painful mental illnesses since individuals struggling with this disorder are constantly trying to cope with volatile and overwhelming emotions.
Suppressing Emotions
Many with quiet BPD, especially those who experienced childhood trauma, hide their feelings because that is what they learned to do to survive when they were younger. You might believe your emotions are only acceptable if you appear in good spirits.
Common anticonvulsants and mood stabilizers for BPD include: Depakote (valproate) Lamictal (lamotrigine) Lithobid (lithium)
People with BPD are often terrified that others will leave them. However, they can also shift suddenly to feeling smothered and fearful of intimacy, which leads them to withdraw from relationships. The result is a constant back-and-forth between demands for love or attention and sudden withdrawal or isolation.
Anger in people with BPD may represent one side of their feelings which can rapidly reverse so keeping this point in mind can help avoid taking the anger personally. Sit with them through it and remind them their feelings are valid and you are there to support them.
“People with BPD lie often, but it is not because they are pathological liars,” says Nikki Instone, Ph. D. “Lying is not a symptom of the disorder so much as a consequence of their internal battle.” Lying is really rooted in emotional dysregulation, which is one of the main symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder.
It is important to remember that while having a relationship with a person with BPD can be challenging, they are not intentionally trying to hurt you. Rather, they lack the ability to understand and cope with their emotional pain, which causes them to act in ways that hurt others.
This can be tremendously frustrating for friends and family members. It's important to understand that the person with BPD isn't consciously lying—he truly believes his viewpoint is correct even when it's blatantly false.
Looking after your own mental health
“It can be emotionally draining for everyone involved when working with someone who has BPD,” says Wenner. “Develop healthy coping strategies and find ways to relax without your loved one. Don't let your loved one control your life.”
Borderline splitting can burn bridges in relationships when they act in ways to make their partner pay for it or punish them, being spiteful when they perceive they are being hurt or mistreated. When they break up, they often forget the positive things about their partner, until the partner has gone.
Symptoms of BPD
Extreme fear of rejection and abandonment, both real and imagined. Stormy personal relationships swinging from idealization to devaluation. Unstable self-image. Inappropriate bouts of intense anger.