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Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)

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Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a serious mental disorder that affects roughly 1.6% of the United States population. That is roughly 4 million people. Many more mostly likely suffer from BPD but go undiagnosed due to it often being miss diagnosed. More often than not, BPD gets mistaken for other illness like severe depression or bipolar disorder. BPD is not easy to treat, it usually takes combinations of multiple drugs or therapy to help suffers to cope with the symptoms of BPD. There is no cure for BPD, it is a life long disease. Over the years, the definition of BPD has changed. This paper will discuss the history or BPD, signs and symptoms, and some different treatments in hopes to shed some light on this disease. BPD has a long, …show more content…
This is due to the signs and symptoms of the illness often are similar to other mental illnesses. Although, there are some key signs and symptoms that are unique to BPD. Mental health professionals have nine categories that they look for when diagnosing BPD. To be accurately diagnosed with BPD, a person has to fall into at least five of the categories. The first sign is fear of abandonment. This is an irrational fear of loved ones leaving or abandoning the person with BPD. Things like a loved one getting home late, not responding to a text or call in a certain amount of time, or going away for a couple days could all trigger a person with BPD. The person with BPD will try to frantically keep the other person close, but ultimately end up driving them away. Next sign is unstable relationships. A person with BPD will “fall in love” quickly only to have the feeling burn out quickly and move on to the next person. They will actively seek the feeling of love to feel whole and secure. “Lovers, friends, or family members may feel like they have emotional whiplash from the rapid swings between idealization and devaluation, anger, and hate …show more content…
People with BPD will go from loving the way they looking to hating themselves very quickly. Due to this, people with BPD will often change jobs, friends, relationships, and so on (National). The major sign for BPD is impulsive and self-destructive behaviors. People with BPD commonly participate in destructive, sensation-seeking behaviors, especially when upset. They may thoughtlessly spend money, binge eat, drive recklessly, commit crimes, engage in risky sex, or overdo it with drugs or alcohol, according to Helpguide.org. Other symptoms include: self-harm, extreme mood swings, explosive anger, feeling of emptiness, and feeling out of touch with reality. As previously mentioned, BPD has common symptoms of other illness like depression, bipolar disorder, or mild schizophrenia. Although, using the list of nine symptoms stated above, accurate diagnosis have been improving over the

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