Lots of stigmas are attached to Borderline Personality Disorder. There is a wide array of symptoms of BPD and all of those are rarely present in one individual. BPD also overlaps with other disorders like bi-polar disorder, eating disorder, anxiety disorder, substance abuse disorder and depressive disorders. 

Need of understanding towards people suffering from BPD 

Borderline Personality Disorder is more prevalent in women. Research finds that it’s the third largest cause of death in females between the age group of 15 – 24. People with this disorder commit suicide at an alarming rate. There is a need for BPD awareness so that stigma around it can be removed, and people suffering from it are able to seek help resulting in lesser self-harm or suicidal tendencies. This disorder gets diagnosed after a mental health professional does a comprehensive evaluation of the individual’s physical, mental and family’s psychological well-being. 

How do people with BPD experience life? 

• Unstable relationships due to idealization of extreme intimacy or love
• Impulsive behaviours that include binge eating, shopping sprees, reckless driving, gambling, substance abuse
• Frantic efforts to stop abandonment – this can be real but sometimes imagined too 
• Unstable self-image 
• Emptiness In life
• Stress 
• Paranoia 
• Suicidal thoughts and self-harming behaviours 
• Mood swings 

Triggers of Bipolar Personality Disorder 

Environmental factors – people suffering from BPD have often suffered from either sexual, physical or emotional abuse or have experienced conflicts or any kind of violence or difficult childhoods

Neurological factors – It might happen that there are functional or structural changes in the emotions regulating and impulse controlling areas of the brain. 

Genetics – A close family member like sibling or parent has the tendencies of BPD

According to experts more research is required to understand other and definite causes of this disorder so that accordingly it is easier to work upon getting rid of this mental condition.

People with Borderline Personality Disorder require different levels of support

Mental health professionals underline a number of different ways to help people suffering from it deal with this disorder. The significant ones are family and peer support, medication, and psychotherapeutic approach.

Family and peer support – There are extreme feelings of loneliness, depression and great fears of abandonment in such people. As a result the relationships are unstable. If the partners of such people are able to keep up with such volatile personalities, then there is nothing like it or else at least family and friends should display support to such individuals as their condition is not in their control and they need love and understanding to sail through their fears and sense of abandonments. 

Therapies – There are certain therapies like dialectical behavioral therapy, mentalization based therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy that prove to be helpful in patients with BPD. 

Medication – There are no medications as such to treat BPD but there are certain depressants, anti-anxiety medications, mood stabilizers that might get prescribed to reduce the symptoms like differension, mood swings, anxiety, anger etc. 

With the above three remedies, life of people suffering from borderline personality disorder becomes a lot more easier. On a common scale efforts like observance of Borderline Personality Disorder awareness week or month with programs and other initiatives in social groups help people realize how much patients of this disorder suffer. Awareness would go a long way in making others understand how to be supportive of such people if they are any in the family, friends’ circle or local communities.