DISCLAIMER!
I am not a health care professional. I do not have a degree on psychology, nor have I ever studied anything related to medicine. I am only someone who has a very long history with mental health struggles, who has had multiple different disorders diagnosed by doctors, and who has read way too much on their free-time just to get a better understanding on the human brain. The following text is a story told from a subjective perspective by someone who has borderline personality disorder; do not use this text as a diagnostic tool. If you think you might have BPD, you should talk to a professional.
---
Borderline personality disorder, also known as BPD, is one of the cluster B personality disorders. Along with BPD, the cluster B includes antisocial personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, and histrionic personality disorder. These disorders are characterized by inappropriate, volatile emotionality, and unpredictable behavior. Borderline personality disorder is marked by strong and uncontrollable emotional outbursts, frequent and very intense mood swings, chronic feelings of emptiness and meaninglessness, suicidal and self-harming behavior, unstable interpersonal relationships, fragmented sense of self and one's identity, impulsive and reckless behavior, and paranoid thought patterns. According to research, borderline personality disorder has a very strong connection with severe childhood trauma, especially prolonged abuse faced during a long period of time in one's childhood.
Trauma, especially childhood trauma, permanently changes the way our brains function. It changes the way we think, feel, and experience life in general. When it comes trauma people with BPD have gone through, it usually has a lot to do with being neglected, abandoned, and emotionally and physically abused. That is why people with BPD tend to struggle with attachment issues, trust issues, and the fear of being abandoned again.
There are multiple different versions of borderline personality disorder, and all of these have a lot in common, and they can coexist in one person at the same time. They have different combinations of BPD symptoms in different intensities, though. The four types of BPD are discouraged, petulant, self-destructive, and impulsive. One person could have all of the subtypes or just one of them, and all of them fall under the diagnostic label of borderline personality disorder.
Key factor in BPD is unstable and uncontrollable emotionality. People with BPD struggle with regulating their emotions, and they often experience massive emotional breakdowns that result in inappropriate behavior such as excessive crying, breaking things, and hurting oneself. BPD makes it hard for people to control how they react to emotional triggers and situations, which is why they experience all emotions very intensely. This results in rapid mood swings that can happen multiple times in a single day. The name 'borderline personality disorder' refers to constantly being "on the borderline" in terms of emotions: just one small thing can tip you over and cause an intense emotional breakdown.
People with BPD don't have a clear sense of self, and their identity is fragmented. They have a hard time defining who they are as a person, what they like, what they want to do, what their traits are, and what makes them unique. This is because the severe abuse they faced in their childhood prevented them from forming a sense of self, and now as an adult, defining their identity is much harder without a solid base to build the rest on. Trauma, especially recurring trauma, results in the brain entering a state called dissociation, which is when the brain shuts itself off and removes the person from the current situation because it is too stressful to cope with. Dissociation is a healthy coping mechanism that the brain develops to prevent any other major damage from happening. However, when dissociation becomes frequent and something the brain does constantly, in time that leads to the person feeling chronically detached from themself and their environment. This detachment is what essentially causes the problems with the development of identity in people with BPD.
---
Personally, I struggle with all of these symptoms in my everyday life as someone with borderline personality disorder. This blog is where I will be writing about my life but also about BPD in general. This page only serves as an introduction to the world of BPD. I welcome you on this journey with me.