A mental disease called borderline personality disorder is frequently misunderstood in society. People make scary connections between BPD symptoms in women self-harming suicidal behavior, and hard-to-maintain relationships with others. Although these behaviors are among the many BPD symptoms, most people are unaware that they result from intense anxieties and pains. Be kind to yourself and keep in mind that there is assistance as you determine whether you could have a borderline personality disorder. Even if the condition impacts you, you are not defined by it.
What is Borderline Personality Disorder?
An illness known as borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by a persistent pattern of extreme emotions, shifting self-perceptions, and erratic behaviors, including impulsive actions, abrupt shifts to intense sadness or anger, depression, anxiety, problems in relationships, and even violence.
Symptoms of BPD in Females
Females with borderline personality disorder, or BPD, frequently have telltale symptoms, but it can be challenging to spot them because of other more pressing problems.
Although it makes sense, most therapists and families would concentrate on drinking, which is a symptom of BPD. While it’s crucial to concentrate on staying sober, many therapists do so at the expense of the problem’s true cause, BPD.
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This is not meant to imply that females who drink have BPD; rather, it is meant to emphasize the significance of therapists’ doing a thorough examination for all symptoms, not only sobriety.
Females with BPD display the following symptoms:
You experience a strong fear of being abandoned and rejected.
Fear of abandonment and rejection is a defining feature of borderline personality disorder. Although it is not always the case, post-traumatic stress disorder linked to abandonment, such as adoption, is common in people with BPD.
Your boyfriend going out for drinks with his pals after work; and a friend wanting to change your dinner plans to the next night because she doesn’t feel well; could serve as triggers for these anxieties.
Others probably view them as reasonable, benign occurrences and find it difficult to comprehend how they could have harmed you. Your relationship may suffer as a result, and you might feel more alone and misunderstood.
Swings between intense emotions and unstable moods
Borderline personality disorder simply implies that you occasionally experience greater or more intense emotions than many other individuals. It does not suggest that you experience distinct emotions from everyone else. They could be so strong that you resort to self-mutilation; or other damaging activities to block them out or control them.
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Your moods can change at any time, brought on by an incident that was so unobtrusive; that you might not even be aware of what caused it. You just know that your current emotions are either overly happy, sad, or angry. These feelings may continue for a few days, but they will most likely pass just as fast as they arrived. People close to you can become perplexed as a result.
Inconsistent self-image
One of the key challenges of being a teen or young adult is searching for identity. Most people know who they are by the time they are in their late 20s or early 30s, but BPD sufferers might never feel fully self-aware. Self-discovery frequently takes a backseat to the desire to please others; depending on who you’re with or what you’re doing at the time, your perception of yourself may shift. You might think you’re incredibly smart and invincible while thinking the opposite of others. You feel disoriented, lonely, and empty within because of your flawed self-image.
A persistent sense of emptiness
While many of the strong feelings that BPD sufferers experience come and go, one emotion—the sense of emptiness—tends to persist. Another sign of an unstable or skewed self-image is probably this. You change into the person you believe people want you to be when you are around them. You don’t have a true feeling of self to rely on. This could make you feel hollow and make your anxiety about being alone worse.
Having a hard time engaging in enjoyable activities
You may feel emotional highs, lows, or complete numbness as a result of the mood fluctuations associated with this mental disease. You will find it difficult to feel anything, even pleasant experiences if you are numb.
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Another persistent stressor is a borderline personality disorder. You urgently try to fit in and feel “good enough” while trying to prevent rejection and abandonment. Instead of being joyful, these activities are stressful. Because you’re anxious about appearing to be a decent person and being liked by the people you’re with, you can’t enjoy the moment.
Separation challenges for work, school, or other commitments
While you may understand cognitively that going to work or school each day is important, the dread of being abandoned might be so powerful that you may struggle to let go of a loved one. If this anxiety is particularly strong, you can resent a loved one for choosing a job; or school over spending time with you. Those with borderline personality disorder frequently go through this.
Difficult to relax.
Do you frequently hear instructions to “calm down” or “get over it”? People who don’t understand your emotions can assume you’re overreacting and want you to get over it immediately. Others may find it challenging to comprehend why your emotions are so heightened, and why it takes you longer than others to regain your composure.
Splitting: thinking in stark black and white
Consideration of others as either all good or all terrible is one of the typical BPD symptoms in females. A person you care about could be idolized one day and hated the next. Everyone always has good and bad traits, yet it can be difficult to perceive both sides of a person.
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There is nothing wrong with her if you are content with the person you care about. However, when you are upset with someone, you ignore all of their admirable qualities and notice the negative. You probably feel the same way about yourself; one day, you may feel unstoppable, and the next, worthless.
High expectations of both yourself and others.
High, sometimes irrational expectations of others and oneself are typical among BPD patients. When these expectations aren’t met, you can temporarily see yourself or the other person; as “all awful” if they didn’t live up to your standards. You could punish yourself by indulging in self-destructive activities when you don’t meet your own unrealistically high expectations. You might momentarily distance yourself from a relationship with someone if they fall short of your expectations.
Severe depressive episodes
Bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder are occasionally mistaken for each other. Even though the two conditions are not the same, BPD symptoms in females, such as fluctuating emotions and severe melancholy, can be mistaken for bipolar illness. One significant distinction between the two is that a bipolar person’s episodes of severe melancholy typically continue longer (at least a few days) and appear out of nowhere. On the other hand, acute grief for someone with BPD may fluctuate quickly; and it frequently has a relational problem as its root cause.
Tolerant to criticism
Under the BPD symptoms and behaviors in females, there is a great deal of grief and a sense of hopelessness, worthlessness, and never being enough for others. So it makes sense that criticism hurts a borderline person, especially when they hear it. If you have a borderline personality disorder, a straightforward criticism intended to help you get better could come off as more of a personal attack.
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Easily annoyed
Borderline personality disorder can make it easy for you to become irritated with individuals close to you, especially those you care about the most. You could feel frustrated when things in your relationship don’t go according to plan. Your rage is most likely how you’re expressing your displeasure.
Angry and aggressive outbursts
You might occasionally go through periods of extreme rage and perhaps act violently. But you won’t likely experience prolonged mood fluctuations. You experience intense shame for what you said or did as the fury subsides. As shame turns into self-hatred, you might cut yourself as a way to punish yourself.
Lacking in self-control
A person with BPD may act impulsively in several contexts, such as excessive spending, drug use, or unsafe driving. An individual with BPD who struggles with impulsive conduct will exhibit impulsivity throughout various behaviors. You might overeat, talk too much, or act in a way that harms yourself.
Poor judgment and thinking
The capacity for logical thought is frequently lost when a person with BPD allows their powerful emotions to take control. In disagreements, if you discover that you can’t understand the other person’s logic, this could indicate that you have BPD.
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Sensing miscommunication
People with BPD may behave strangely toward others because of emotions such as intense rage, instability in one’s self-image, and fear of abandonment. What people see as manipulation in you is a profound, desperate pain that occasionally manifests itself in ineffectual ways. Years of feeling misunderstood by those close to you can result from this gap; between what motivates acts and how others interpret them.
Self-destructive conduct
Many people internalize their suffering as a result of the powerful emotions associated with BPD. Self-destructive actions are an unhelpful way to achieve a variety of goals. You may self-harm to punish yourself or someone else; numb emotional anguish, feel in control of your pain, physically demonstrate your emotions to others; or for any number of other reasons.
These are only a handful of the various causes of the drive to injure oneself. Self-harm frequently offers a momentary solace, followed by increased guilt and self-hatred. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, about 75% of BPD patients may attempt to harm themselves at some point.
Push-pull actions
One of the most well-known symptoms of BPD in females is the tendency to repeatedly pull someone into a close relationship and then push that person away. As a result, the affected person becomes uncertain of their position in the relationship. According to a popular idea, if you have BPD, you might engage in this conduct because you seek intimacy in your relationships but prefer to reject this person before they can reject you out of fear of abandonment.
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The tragedy of this pattern is that the person you care about can finally decide to terminate the unstable relationship because they are so confused, annoyed, and emotionally worn out by these acts. Your erroneous negative beliefs—that you are worthless, unworthy of relationships, and that everyone will eventually leave you—are fulfilled by this. The painful cycle so goes on.
Recovery Is Possible With the Right Help
Females with BPD and their loved ones experience excruciating anguish due to the illness’ symptoms. The idea that someone with BPD would never be able to overcome their personality disorder is one of the scariest fallacies surrounding this mental health condition. This myth is entirely incorrect and is based on out-of-date facts.
Females with BPD symptoms can get the support they need from loved ones and help from a mental health expert to get past their painful emotions and destructive behavior. Building and maintaining a strong interpersonal relationship becomes possible and even natural once you know how to ask for help and express what’s going on for you.
Treatment for Borderline Personality Disorder
It can be challenging to treat borderline personality disorder, which typically calls for a combination of medication and psychotherapy.
The initial course of treatment for those with borderline personality disorder is psychotherapy. Treatment for borderline personality disorder is done with many psychotherapies, including:
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- Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), emphasizes tolerance without impulsivity while emphasizing principles of mindfulness and attention to one’s own experience, interpersonal effectiveness, managing emotions, and
- Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which assists individuals in recognizing and altering underlying assumptions and patterns of behavior, may lessen depressive and anxiety symptoms and the frequency of suicidal or self-destructive acts.
How can you tell if a female has BPD?
Wide-ranging mood fluctuations can last anywhere from a few hours to a few days and include extreme happiness, irritation, guilt, or anxiety. ongoing emptiness of sensation. Extreme, inappropriate anger, such as acting out physically, being caustic or spiteful, or constantly losing your temper.
What can be mistaken for BPD?
People with BPD frequently also fit the criteria for several other diagnoses, such as bipolar illness, substance use disorders, eating disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, and depression.
What do BPD episodes look like?
Impulsive and frequently risky actions include shopping binges, unsafe sex, drug usage, careless driving, and binge eating: recurring suicidal thoughts, threats, or self-destructive actions like cutting. Intense and quickly fluctuating moods that last anywhere from a few hours to a few days every episode.
What age does BPD usually start?
The time between puberty and the age of majority. Some definitions include the teen years, which range from 13 to 19 or even earlier. Now, doctors emphasize that treating BPD early improves long-term outcomes and reduces the risk of risky or suicidal behavior.
What does untreated BPD look like?
A person with BPD may engage in lavish spending, substance misuse, binge eating, risky driving, and indiscriminate sex if their condition is not treated. Usually, impulsive conduct is connected to the low self-esteem that many BPD patients experience.
What Is the Biggest Symptom of BPD?
The most frequent causes of BPD symptoms are real or perceived rejections, conflicts, and separations. Being abandoned or left alone can trigger severe feelings of rage, terror, suicidal thoughts, self-harm, and very impulsive behavior in someone with BPD.
What Does BPD Anxiety Look Like?
Unstable, quick fluctuating moods. A shaky sense of one’s identity in the world. There are ongoing issues in interpersonal interactions. Good/bad, black/white thinking.
What Does a Borderline Episode Look Like?
Impulsively taking risky actions include shopping binges, unsafe sex, drug usage, careless driving, and binge eating. Recurring suicidal thoughts, threats, or self-destructive actions like cutting. Intense and easily fluctuating moods that last anywhere from a few hours to a few days every episode.
Conclusion
A qualified and experienced therapist is required to treat borderline personality disorder. Girls displaying borderline symptoms and females suffering from BPD are our areas of expertise at One By One.
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