Cases of Borderline Personality Disorders (BPD) have increased over the recent years with studies in the medical field indicating that the world stands in dire need of quick intervention. Notably, research has not yet established the exact cause for the disorders thus leaving room for speculation on the probable cause. The public has also become aware of the disorder as manifested through the care that they extend to individuals suffering from the problem. Research remains ongoing in the field with experts expecting a breakthrough regarding causes of the disorder to better organize themselves in managing the prevalence of the same. Overall, this study analyzes the emotional experiences as well as the social interactions of individuals suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder.
Emotional Experiences
Ideally, Borderline Personality Disorder denotes a mental illness that manifests through an ongoing pattern of unstable moods, behavior, and self-image. The symptoms mentioned above often cause impulsive actions and problems in maintaining relationships with people close to the individual with BPD. Human beings tend to avoid individuals who prove unreliable in their actions and the inconsistency as demonstrated by an individual with BPD. Relationships take time to build, which explains why people place a lot of premium in them and will thus look out for a person with mental stability before investing theirs ( Chu, Victor & Klonsky, 2016). The aspect of people exercising great caution is what isolates BPD victims from the rest of society. It is equally important to mention that individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder experience episodes of depression, anger, and anxiety that can stay for a few hours to days.
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It is noticeable that individuals with BPD will make deliberate efforts to try and avoid imagined or real abandonment by rapidly starting emotional or physical relationships with people around them or sometimes cutting off communication with people or someone in anticipation of facing neglect. Close study of individuals suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder also exhibit a series of unstable and intense relationships with their friends, family, and loved one that swings from extreme love and closeness (idealization) to extreme anger or dislike (devaluation) ( Linehan, 2018). It becomes challenging for people around the individual to maintain a good relationship with the person with the majority of them preferring to create a distance between patients and themselves, which explains why many individuals with BPD suffer from isolation.
Individuals with BPD also experience unstable and distorted sense of self or self-image. Whatever the individuals perceive themselves to stand far from what other people see. However, the most common behavior that people who experience BPD display border on the impulsive and in most cases dangerous behaviors that may include unsafe sex, spending sprees, reckless driving, substance abuse as well as binge eating ( Wright, Hopwood & Zanarini, 2015). Notably, one must take interest to realize that when the above behaviors occur majorly during moments of high energy or mood, they may indicate signs of a different mood disorder and not necessarily Borderline Personality Disorder. Individuals will also display self-harming behaviors that encompass cutting or piercing oneself. The individuals may use sharp objects to pierce through their skins or cut their skins using objects such as razor blades and appear to derive joy from doing the same.
Another typical behavior that individuals suffering from BPD will display entails experiencing habitual thoughts of suicide, or they may also be making suicide threats from time to time. Every minor disagreement with a family member or close friend will prompt the individual to issue suicide threats. The persons also use the threats to manipulate people around them to get the favors they desire. The suicide threat comes with highly changeable and intense moods, with every single episode lasting from several hours to a few days. Reasonably, the suicide threats often stem from chronic feelings of extreme emptiness and lack of control of their anger. The person experience anger bursts over minor disagreements between them and the people in their immediate environment ( Wright, Hopwood & Zanarini, 2015). Their reaction to minor disappointments stands disproportionate to their reactions in that they tend to overdo their reactions over matters.
Essentially, BPD victims demonstrate extreme difficulty in trusting other people. The reason for their unwillingness to trust other people stems from an irrational fear of the intentions that other people hold. The individuals believe that everyone around them carries ill intentions that aim at hurting them or causing them suffering in a way or the other and in a bid to avoid that, they tend to avoid trusting ( Wright, Hopwood & Zanarini, 2015). The individual might ask so many questions seeking clarity over a matter, and sometimes, even in situations where proof has been provided to demonstrate that some action or matter has a truth value, the person will still need time to evaluate the proof before accepting it, which make the situation even more complicated.
Moreover, the feelings of dissociation that results in one cutting off from self or viewing oneself from outside their body occur regularly. The individuals experience the feeling of unreality. It is important to note that not every person experiencing borderline personality disorder will demonstrate all the symptoms discussed above as some people display only a few of them while others may experience many. The above symptoms are triggered by ordinary occurrences that may include a person close to the individual with borderline personality disorder traveling for a business trip ( Wright, Hopwood & Zanarini, 2015). The individual might become distressed by such a trivial matter, and the duration that the symptom lasts depends on the person and their illness.
It is also imperative to note that individuals with BPD have difficulties in making a suitable social judgment concerning others using their faces. In a controlled study, 20 participants suffering from BPD alongside 21 healthy controls viewed a series of faces and then, later on, asked to give their judgment according to one of the provided six characteristics (distinctiveness, age, intelligence, attractiveness, approachability, and trustworthiness) ( Mitchell, Dickens & Picchioni, 2014). The number of mistake and direction of errors made in comparison to population norms was noted for analyses. The results indicated that that participant experiencing BPD displayed significant difficulties in making judgments from the provided faces.
Equally important, the BPD individuals judged faces as less trustworthy and less approachable than the controls. In addition, within The BPD samples, there was a connection between scores indicating Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and the favoritism towards labeling faces as unapproachable ( Mitchell, Dickens & Picchioni, 2014). It thus suffices to conclude from the results that individuals with BPD have extreme difficulty in making appropriate judgments concerning others by looking at their faces. Besides, judging many faces as untrustworthy and unapproachable indicates that the individuals experience a heightened sensitivity to recognizing the potential threat, which ought to provide insights into clinical management as well as treatment.
Broadly, in many societies people living with borderline personality disorders tend to live in isolation from other people, a behavior that researchers say stems from the deep sense of mistrust. BPD individuals do not trust anybody with their properties, emotions or even company ( Schulze, Schmahl & Niedtfeld, 2016). Isolation gives them the sense of security that they desire where they do not have to worry about someone interfering with the things that the individuals hold dearly to themselves. In a family setup, a child with a borderline personality disorder will tend to demand his or her personal space at home, for instance, demanding for personal room and if they have to share, then the child would want to occupy a whole bed by himself. The sole ownership of things such as rooms, beds, and even other personal effects tend to demonstrate that desire the individuals have of controlling odds in their lives. The children will tend to get very disappointed when they find that others have invaded their private space or intruded into their belongings. Overall, the desire to isolate and live in solitude serves to protect the individuals from establishing social relationships which they also find difficult to maintain.
It is noticeable that the divorce rate stands high among individuals with BPD since they experience challenges in maintaining relationships. Marriages tend to involve emotional investment from the two parties involved, and since individuals with BPD have difficulties establishing trust, it essentially means that their marriages become doomed from the onset. BPD victims exercise extreme caution before investing emotionally into other people, and the caution may take years, and even after they have made the emotional investment, they will remain on high alert and withdraw their emotional investment at the first sign of abandonment or perceived abandonment ( Mitchell, Dickens & Picchioni, 2014). In most cases, the individuals will be the first ones to quit the relationship. Studies indicate that the individuals have fragile self-esteem and prefer to be the first ones to hurt others since if other people do the same, they might not have the capacity to absorb the shock and the disappointment. Disappointments to individuals with BPD have repercussions that might even include taking their own lives or taking the lives of the individuals who have harmed them before taking their own.
Several remedial measures have been prescribed that may help individuals suffering from BPD deal with their situation and they include talk therapy and medication. Talk therapy entails the BPD individual opening up to a specialist in privacy where the individual opens up on matters that stress them or fears that they face in their lives from which the therapist advises on the way forward. Talking out issues has therapeutic value to the individuals as it relieves them of the negative emotions and sometimes of the unfounded fears that might have concerning various issues in their lives ( Wright, Hopwood & Zanarini, 2015). Medication applies in extreme situations where patients suffer from severe symptoms such as extreme anxiety. Medication helps the individuals to cool down and prevents them from causing further harm to themselves or others around them. Also, medication and talk therapy prevent the individuals from taking their own lives since it is during such moments that suicidal thoughts become even stronger to the individuals.
In conclusion, Borderline Personality Disorder as a mental illness causes various symptoms that include extreme and inappropriate emotional reactions as well as a history of unstable relationships. The feelings of worthlessness and insecurity may push the individual in self-harm practices such as cutting or piercing themselves using sharp objects while deriving joy from doing so. Several treatments may help in treating the disorder such as talk therapy. Medication and hospitalization help in situations where the individual demonstrates severe symptoms. Talk therapy; involve the individual with BPD talking to another person about their fears and concerns.
References
Chu, C., Victor, S. E., & Klonsky, E. D. (2016). Characterizing positive and negative emotional experiences in young adults with Borderline Personality Disorder symptoms. Journal of clinical psychology , 72 (9), 956-965.
Linehan, M. M. (2018). Cognitive-behavioral treatment of borderline personality disorder . Guilford Publications.
Mitchell, A. E., Dickens, G. L., & Picchioni, M. M. (2014). Facial emotion processing in borderline personality disorder: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Neuropsychology review , 24 (2), 166-184.
Schulze, L., Schmahl, C., & Niedtfeld, I. (2016). “Neural correlates of disturbed emotion processing in borderline personality disorder: A multimodal meta-analysis": Errata.
Wright, A. G., Hopwood, C. J., & Zanarini, M. C. (2015). Associations between changes in normal personality traits and borderline personality disorder symptoms over 16 years. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment , 6 (1), 1.
