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The Pattern of Borderline Personality Disorder

A person who suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder has difficult interpersonal relationships characterized by instability. This pattern of interacting with others has persisted for years, and is usually very closely related to the person's self-image and early social interactions. The pattern is present in a variety of settings, not just at home and/or at work, and is often accompanied by a similar pattern of fluctuating back and forth, sometimes very quickly, in the person's behavior and/or emotions.

For the person with Borderline Personality Disorder, their affect (outward observable behavior) may often be characterized as being shallow. A person with the disorder may also exhibit impulsive behaviors and will exhibit a majority of the following symptoms:

• frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment
• a pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation
• identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self
• impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating)
• recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior
• affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days)
• chronic feelings of emptiness
• inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights)
• transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms 1

Often, people with Borderline Personality Disorder find it more difficult to distinguish between reality and their own (mis)perceptions of the world and their surrounding environment. This is not the same thing as the delusional thinking of people with other personality disorders – it is the result of the distortions in thinking which are typical of people who have Borderline Personality Disorder. This is actually related to the person’s difficulty with their emotions, which can sometimes overwhelm their thinking.

Although Borderline Personality Disorder is experienced in different people in different ways, they each seem to exhibit some of the same patterns of behavior. For example, people with Borderline Personality Disorder often see others in "black-and-white" terms, with no in-between. This is known as “splitting.” Depending upon the circumstances and situation, for example, a therapist can be seen as being very helpful and caring toward the client; but if some sort of difficulty arises in the therapy, or in the patient's life, the person might then begin characterizing the therapist as "bad" and not caring about them at all.

Another pattern found in people who have Borderline Personality Disorder is a strong fear of being abandoned by others in relationships. Unfortunately, because people with the disorder often have poor interpersonal skills, they ultimately tend to push away the very people that they care about. This situation results in a “self-fulfilling prophecy” in which they fear the person leaving them, so they engage in many extreme and confusing behaviors (i.e., possessiveness), which ultimately makes their partner leave them in the end anyway.

1. Criteria summarized from American Psychiatric Association. (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, fourth edition. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.

About the Author

David Oliver is the founder of BorderlineCentral.com a one stop source of information on how to cope and deal with borderline personality disorder.

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