Borderline personality disorder is a mental health condition that affects the way people feel about themselves and others, making it hard to function in everyday life (mayoclinic.org)
It's a personality disorder, meaning it's a lasting pattern of behavior starting before adulthood and visibly out of socially accepted norms.
Borderline personality disorder is characterized by:
• identity disturbance - core values, world view, self-representation etc can be fluid
• frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment and extreme reactions to being abandoned
• black and white thinking (thinking in extremes)
• impulsivity - for example reckless drinking, unsafe sex, substance abuse, uncontrollable spending
• self-harming behavior
• chronic feelings of inner emptiness and low self-worth
• dissociation
• intense and uncontrollable emotional outbursts, intense mood swings
• a pattern of unstable, intense relationships, such as believing someone is perfect one moment and then suddenly believing the person doesn't care enough or is cruel (called splitting; mayoclinic.org)
This illness is caused by:
• history of childhood abuse or neglect
• genetics + hereditary predisposition
→ this illness is often accompanied by other mental illnesses, such as CPTSD, anxiety, depression, substance abuse, bipolar disorder etc.
→ up to 10% of individuals with BPD die by suicide, which is higher than for those with other personality disorders.
A character with borderline personality disorder...
→ will most likely have intense feelings of emptiness, self-hatred or feeling broken on daily basis
→ will overthink their relationships and analyze the other person in depth, often believing they hate them or are angry even when they're not
→ will have tendency to not take great care of themselves or even harm themselves deliberately
→ may deal with challenges by substance abuse or self-harm
→ may blow-up in anger if someone triggers them (intentionally or not!) and they won't be able to control their reactions
→ will be huge people-pleasers, doing whatever it takes to keep their loved ones close, often accepting abuse and neglect
→ may impulsively quit their job or decide to move out without thinking about the consequences
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