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Walking on Eggshells
Teens With Borderline Personality Disorder
By Gwen Morrison
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is one of the most controversial diagnoses in psychology today. According to BPD Central, one of the oldest and largest resources online, a personality disorder is described as "an enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectation of the individual's culture, is pervasive and inflexible, is stable over time and leads to distress or impairment in interpersonal relationships."
When a person suffers from borderline personality disorder, it causes distress for both the individual who has the disorder and all of the people who interact with him.
The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) based in Arlington, Va., says that BPD is characterized by impulsivity and instability in mood, self-image and personal relationships. Individuals who have BPD have several of the following symptoms:
- Marked mood swings with periods of intense depression, irritability and/or anxiety lasting a few hours to a few days.
- Inappropriate, intense or uncontrolled anger.
- Impulsiveness in spending, sex, substance use, shoplifting, reckless driving or binge eating.
- Recurring suicidal threats or self-injurious behavior.
- Unstable, intense personal relationships with extreme, black-and-white views of people and experiences, sometimes alternating between "all good" idealization and "all bad" devaluation.
- Chronic boredom or feelings of emptiness.
- Frantic efforts to avoid abandonment – real or imagined.
"Our daughter has ran the gamut as far as being diagnosed with so many things," says Joan Anderson of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. "She was diagnosed with ADD many years ago and has since been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and possible borderline personality disorder."