Personality Disorder

BPD is one of many personality disorders listed by doctors when they are giving someone a psychiatric diagnosis.

Below are the symptoms of borderline personality disorder, a doctor may diognose you with BPD if you have five or more of these symptoms and if the symptoms have a significant impact on your day to day life.

1. Emotions that are up or down (confident one day then despair the next)

2. Find it difficult to make maintain or relationships

3. Feelings of emptiness and anger

4. Take risk without considering the consequences

5. Unstable sense of identity thinking differently about yourself amongst different people

6. Harm yourself or think about harming yourself

7. Feeling abandoned or rejected or feeling alone

8. Having hallucinations or delusions

You may experience other mental health related problems such as depression, anxiety and eating disorders.

If you have BPD you may have had a series of unstable and intense relationships, or felt the need to cling on for too long to damaging relationships. This may be becouse you feel insecure, alone or lack of self worth.

It is unclear but most researches think BPD develops through a combination of factors, including temperament, childhood and adolescence experiences. Difficult life events such as loss of parents, childhood neglect, sexual or physical abuse are common with people diagnosed with BPD. Stressful events, relationship break ups and job loss are high triggers of borderline personality disorder.

Medication – Ask support from your GP, Many people find that medication helps to manage the symptoms.

Talking treatments – Including counselling and psychotherapy, Talking treatments can help you understand why you feel as you do and change the way you feel and think. It will also help to reduce the risk of further episodes.