Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), is a mental health disorder diagnosed in roughly 6% of US citizens.
Due to similar traits, it’s often confused with other mental illnesses, and is usually paired with other psychological disorders.
The general signs of BPD are problems maintaining relationships, frequent mood changes, and impulsive actions that lead to reckless behavior.
Types of BPD — The Symptoms
In order to be diagnosed with BPD, you need to manifest at least five or six traits. Here are some most common ones.
Intense worry of being ignored or abandoned
This is the main trait of borderline personality disorder, and despite the differences between BPD types, they all experience this fear.
While other people experience events peacefully and consider them normal parts of interpersonal relationships, they have a hard time understanding why they produce fear in people with BPD.
But with the help of experts, these patients can learn to manage their fears and express them in a way that can help them get understood and understand the other side.
Emotional roller coasters that come and go
Being a patient who struggles with any of the different types of BPD does not necessarily mean that you feel different from others. It simply means that you feel things more intense than other people do and have stronger feelings in certain situations.
These patients feel certain emotions so intensely that they try to numb and normalize them in ways that can be self-harmful and destructive.
Mood shifts are common and are mostly triggered by events that even the patient isn’t aware of. When this happens, they only know they’re unsatisfied or angry.
In most cases, these feelings come and go quickly, while on different occasions can last up to several days. Because of this, BPD relationships can often feel exhausting and intense.
Insecure Sense of Self
People in their mid-teens and early 20s are preoccupied searching for their true identity. However, by the time of their late 20s or even 30s, many people have a clear image of who they are or who they want to be in the future.
Yet, patients with BPD never get to that image; in other words, they never feel or know who they are or what they want to be.
The image of oneself also isn’t stable. You may perceive yourself as a totally capable person when alone, but consider yourself incompetent while being around others.
A Persistent Sense of Emptiness
As many strong emotions felt by people with BPD come and go easily, there’s one feeling that keeps staying: the persistent sense of emptiness. This feeling is another trait of an unbalanced self-image.
Being surrounded by others, you easily merge into the image they create about yourself. Yet, when everyone leaves, there’s nothing left; you’re back to the same old you. The BPD person doesn’t have an image of oneself to rely on.
Having a Difficult Time Engaging in Enjoyable Activities
A person suffering from any of the different types of borderline personality disorder may experience a wide range of moods, ranging from euphoria to depression to numbness. Your ability to feel pleasure will be limited if you’re in a numb state of mind.
BPD is a persistent source of anxiety. In an effort to prevent rejection or feelings of abandonment, people with BPD put forth great effort to blend in. Instead of being joyful, these activities are stressful.
Subtypes of Borderline Personality Disorder
Theodore Million was an American psychologist who categorized four different BPD subtypes:
- discouraged BPD,
- impulsive BPD,
- petulant BPD (PBPD),
- and self-destructive BPD (SDBPD).
Experience to date has shown that some patients don’t exactly fall into any of these categories, while some fall into more than one.
While certain traits may remain constant, others may change over time.
What is Discouraged Borderline Personality Disorder?
DPBD patients manifest a codependent personality, best felt in romantic relationships.
When a discouraged borderline personality disorder patient becomes reliant on a newly met partner or friend they just met, codependency peaks.
People with this type of BPD are often depressed, and that can be easily noticed when compared to other subtypes of BDP. People with this subtype are often described as clingy and are passive followers in their way of thinking and acting.
Maybe they seem like they’re drowning in indecision and need to be pushed to do the things, and they often feel internal unrest about the problems they’re dealing with.
In most cases, those problems are insufficient leadership and anger towards the people they’re surrounded with.
What is Impulsive Borderline Personality Disorder?
People diagnosed with IBPD (impulsive borderline personality disorder) are often described as charismatic people full of energy.
Additionally, they might seem shallow, don’t want to get deeper into things, and are quite flirtatious. They tend to seek action all the time, otherwise, they get easily bored.
They get driven by action and excitement, which can easily lead them into trouble by their “act first, think later” type of character.
People who suffer from impulsive borderline personality disorder tend to use drugs and engage in self-harming behavior in order to gain approval from others around them.
These people are characterized by risky and aggressive behavior and have highly emotional reactions. There is a great lack of stability, and they’re constantly looking for new things that will make them feel alive and happy.
This instability can be easily noticed through actions such as constantly changing jobs, starting and ending a relationship with someone and immediately moving on, and so on.
What About Petulant Borderline Personality Disorder?
Even though this type of BPD is similar to the other types, it has its own traits that differ from others. For example, it’s manifested with frequent mood changes, grumpiness, passive-aggressive behavior, and defiance.
Also, like the other subtypes, people with Petulant BPD lack stability, both when it comes to their moods and self-esteem.
People diagnosed with this BPD type are noticeably negative and pessimistic, rather anxious and dissatisfied. Others can easily disappoint a person suffering from petulant borderline.
They’re always presented as victims who suffer from dissatisfaction and always receive inappropriate and insufficient treatment from others. In these cases, petulant people often vary between being very angry and feeling ashamed and useless.
They get closer to their partner, only to eventually push them away. Something that occurs very often is the idealization of close friends and family members.
What is Self-Destructive Borderline Personality Disorder?
People struggling with SDBPD (self-destructive borderline personality disorder) are quite self-loathing, bitter, and aren’t aware of their condition. They feel insecure and have no stable sense of self.
There are cases where self-destructive borderline PD patients would hurt themself just in order to gain attention from their partner or friends. This subtype manifests with risky and unpredictable behavior, leading to risky driving, substance abuse, and brutal sexual acts.
Grounds and Links
Like with every other personality disorder, it’s not that easy to find the exact cause of BPD.
Some of the reasons are related to PTSD and abuse early in life. Neural abnormalities, along with genetics and hormonal levels should also be considered.
Family and social stability are important environmental factors that shouldn’t be ignored when dealing with any kind of BPD.
BPD Treatment and Percentage of Remission
Every person suffering from any of the four borderline personality disorder subtypes needs to be taken seriously and treated without delay. Even though the process is difficult, fortunately, it’s possible.
Therefore, it is important to act on time and take the right steps so the patient can improve the quality of their life.
So far, studies have shown that 34.5% of people who got treatment for BPD got better within 2 years. Almost half of the respondents (precisely 49.4%) had successful remission within 4 years.
More than 68% reached remission of BPD after treating it for nearly 6 years. And lastly, 73.5% were proven to be successfully treated by the end of the study.
These results show that dealing with BPD promptly can show positive results. That busts every myth about BPD treatment and completely disproves the idea that people with BPD are doomed to a life of suffering.
FAQ
1. How do I know what type of BPD I have?
You can find lots of different tests and quizzes online that can give some results but you shouldn’t solely rely on these.
To get the most precise answer and explore the right treatment options, you should do an schedule a visit with a mental health professional.
2. What are the 4 types of borderline?
Theodore Millon categorized 4 subtypes of BPD:
- Discouraged BPD (DPBD).
- Impulsive BPD (IBPD).
- Petulant BPD PBPD).
- Self-destructive BPD (SDBPD).
3. Can you have all four types of BPD?
It’s possible to have more than one type of BPD at once, but you may not fall into any of these categories. BPD is a highly complex personality disorder, complicating both diagnosis and treatment, which is why it’s very important to give your therapist as many accurate details as you can.
Final Words
Borderline personality disorder is a complex condition that deserves to be taken seriously. If you suspect you or your loved one could be suffering from this disorder, it’s important to find a therapist you feel comfortable with and who will carefully examine your condition to provide you with best treatment options.