10 Borderline Personality Disorder Symptoms
A borderline personality disorder is the most commonly recognized personality disorder that happens to cause severe instability in the mood, interpersonal relationships, self-image and behavior of the patient. This instability often causes problems in everyday life, work, social relationships and the identity of the patient itself.
The term borderline is used because these patients are thought to be on the border of psychosis and neurosis. Affecting almost 2% of the adult population worldwide, with women being more commonly diagnosed than men, a borderline personality disorder is a condition that requires early diagnosis and treatment. Although the exact cause is unknown, it has been suggested that it is the combination of environmental and genetic factors that are to be blamed for the development of the characteristic symptoms of the borderline personality disorder. Psychotherapy and medicaments have proven beneficial when it comes to controlling the symptoms of the borderline personality disorder.
Symptom #1: Impulsivity
Patients diagnosed with a borderline personality disorder often show marked impulsivity as one of the most common traits associated with their condition. This sign begins early in adulthood or it may even be present in their late teenage years. Even though everyone can be impulsive from time to time, in borderline patients, this feature is something that is constant and affects their life in a very important way.
Symptom #2: Changes in Social Interactions
A person with a borderline personality disorder who has been classified as an introvert might be found to now pose as an extreme extrovert, feeling overly excited to meet new people, engage in big social gatherings and feeling the need to mingle with people.
As for extroverts, they will find themselves experiencing social withdrawal, feeling the need to be left alone, away from people, and any social gatherings. Once again, we are talking about atypical social behavior that can be easily noticed.
Symptom #3: Unstable Self-image
You might find the person with borderline personality disorder now acting with a high dose of arrogance or narcissism. You might also find them dealing with a lot of self-loathing. A person with borderline personality disorder might find themselves feeling good about themselves one day and feeling extreme hate toward themselves the next day.
This symptom is also recognizable if you look more deeply into the patient’s life - he or she might often change jobs, religion, friends, lovers and so on because of their unstable self-image and the inability to recognize themselves.
Symptom #4: Self-harm
A person with a borderline personality disorder is prone to self-harming. Suicidal behavior and deliberate self-harming are quite common among these patients. The patient finds himself/herself thinking about self-harming and suicide most of the time, making threats to act on these thoughts and even carrying out a suicide attempt.
Cutting and burning marks can be found on the bodies of these patients. It is of vital importance to recognize the presence of the symptoms of the borderline personality disorder before these patients engage in a suicidal attempt.
Symptom #5: Severe Emotional Swings
A person with borderline personality disorder might find themselves experiencing extreme anger, depression or anxiety that might last for a few hours or days. Then they might find themselves feeling overly happy and ecstatic in the next hour.
These mood swings are highly common and cause these patients to engage in the atypical activities that we have mentioned before. Because these emotional swings are so severe, they put these patients in actual danger for their lives which is why it is essential for this condition to be diagnosed as soon as possible.
Symptom #6: Paranoia
People with a borderline personality disorder often struggle with extreme fear and paranoia. They are often acting paranoid and suspicious about everything and everyone around them thinking that somehow everyone is out to get them and cause them harm.
This symptom often causes patients to engage in fights with their friends and family members causing them to problems in their social interactions with people. Losing touch with reality and feeling foggy is also quite the common symptom with it comes to borderline personality disorder.
Symptom #7: Chronic Feeling of Emptiness
For patients with borderline personality disorder, it is quite common for them to find themselves feeling a huge hole of emptiness in their lives. These patients often report feeling like a nobody in the world. In most cases, this symptom causes the patients to try and fill the hole by using drugs, alcohol, and sex with various partners, but it also seems as if nothing helps.
They are, despite everything, left off feeling as if they have a massive void of emptiness in their bodies and live with the constant need to fill it with anything that they might find.
Symptom #8: Intense Anger
Short temper and intense, explosive anger is another symptom of the borderline personality disorder. Patients find themselves unable to control their behavior when struggling with a problem of any kind.
A lot of the patients with borderline personality disorder have reported on feeling completely consumed with anger and rage even when there is no real problem to cause such a behavior. These patients usually tend to yell and throw things when engaging in such behavior.
Symptom #9: Fear of Abandonment
Whenever a family member or a friend is late to a meeting with the patient or late from work, or even going away for a day or two can cause severe feelings of abandonment in the patient’s life. They might think that the friend/family member/lover is leaving them behind, forgetting about them and abandoning them forever when the case is nothing like that.
This sort of behavior might cause the extreme anger and rage to develop quite easily whenever the patient confronts with the other person.
Symptom #10: Altered Sleeping Habits
For patients with borderline personality disorder, it is quite easy to develop altered sleeping habits as well. You might find these patients sleeping too much or too little all of a sudden. They might have insomnia or be unable to get enough sleep and get out of bed despite the fact that they have spent over 10 hours of quality sleep the previous night.
They might also feel more sleepy during the day and more active during the night or experience inability to fall asleep at specific room temperature, the presence of foreign surroundings or even the person that is sleeping next to the patient.
