Do I Have Boderline Personality Disorder?

I get asked this question many times a week in my psychotherapy practice. 

It's hard to give an easy answer to people who ask, since there are many parts to this disorder, and a lot of people do meet some of the criteria.

Most people who have borderline personality disorder suffer from:

  • Problems with regulating emotions and thoughts

  • Impulsive and destructive behavior

  • Unstable relationships with other people

According to the DSM, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR), to be diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, a person must show an enduring pattern of behavior that includes at least five of the following symptoms:

  • Extreme reactions—including panic, depression, rage, or frantic actions—to abandonment, whether real or perceived

  • A pattern of intense and stormy relationships with family, friends, and loved ones, often veering from extreme closeness and love (idealization) to extreme dislike or anger (devaluation)

  • Distorted and unstable self-image or sense of self, which can result in sudden changes in feelings, opinions, values, or plans and goals for the future (such as school or career choices)

  • Impulsive and often dangerous behaviors, such as spending sprees, unsafe sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, and binge eating

  • Recurring suicidal behaviors or threats or self-harming behavior, such as cutting

  • Intense and highly changeable moods, with each episode lasting from a few hours to a few days

  • Chronic feelings of emptiness and/or boredom

  • Inappropriate, intense anger or problems controlling anger

  • Having stress-related paranoid thoughts or severe dissociative symptoms, such as feeling cut off from oneself, observing oneself from outside the body, or losing touch with reality.

No single test can diagnose borderline personality disorder.

Scientists funded by NIMH are looking for ways to improve diagnosis of this disorder. One study found that adults with borderline personality disorder showed excessive emotional reactions when looking at words with unpleasant meanings, compared with healthy people. People with more severe borderline personality disorder showed a more intense emotional response than people who had less severe borderline personality disorder.

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/borderline-personality-disorder/index.shtml

 

Candace Smith