Master Marc asked me a few days ago how i knew something i was feeling was Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and not Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). i described it this way. When a trigger event happens, with PTSD you suddenly find yourself dealing with something that has happened to you in the past. But with BPD you find yourself dealing not with a specific event in your past, but a whole array of feelings and events that occurred. There’s nothing to pinpoint, no specific thing, you’re suddenly in a maze with no clues about how to get out.

Before i jump into talking about what BPD is, i want to relate a little personal history. i don’t suffer from every mental disorder on this site, but BPD is one that i can talk about from personal experience.

This post is a general introduction to BPD. More of my personal story is HERE and we talk about BPD and BDSM in a separate post HERE.

BOYDENON’S STORY – BPD IN CHILDHOOD

when i was young i slept during the day time, and stayed up in the night time (so i could avoid my angry father) and I masturbated whenever i felt anxious. i lived constantly with a feeling that i was hated and could easily be abandoned. Every hour of every day, i worried about how people would look at me, to the extent that i would simulate possible future conversations with everyone in my head.

 

When friends looked away, or walked away a conversation, i felt like i was being abandoned or they hated me. i know now that in fact, they were just walking away.

 

BPD causes that twist in perception. i lived a life worrying that i was going to annoy people all the time and that the world was hostile.

 

As i further journeyed into adulthood, that “lost sense of self” became enormous. i remember in school how i struggled with a burning need to search for identity so immense that noone understood why. While everyone around me seemed to have an easy time, my mind was stuggling with questions like “What’s the meaning of life?” “Who am i?” and “What do i want to be?”. i had no understanding of how the questions might be answered slowly over time. For me, it was as if these were life threatening questions, and i needed to either find the answers or die.

 

It was a rollercoaster ride of emotions every day.

 

I used a lot of techniques to alleviate myself from mental stress. i slept when i got home from school, woke up when my parents slept, gulped a lot of coffee to stay awake and wanked whenever i felt unsteady (from both ADHD and BPD).

 

Those techniques helped a lot to alleviate the feeling of “the edge”, but also harmed me biologically. Eventually it resulted in Bell Palsy. A virus attacked my ear, then it moved to the lymph node which swelled up and pressed on my facial nerve system. The doctor prescribed steroids and vitamin B to quicken the nerve healing process, but the steroids messed up my hormone system even further. Along with that chain reaction, i became more and more sex addicted. Every time i felt stress or panic, i wanked.

 

There’s a separate post with more details of my personal story HERE.

WHAT IS BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER?

Mental health professionals also call BPD “emotionally unstable personality disorder”. It’s difficult to diagnose, and the root cause is still not really known, so it is not something that can be concluded from examining someone’s history.

BPD is often misdiagnosed as another disorder. The symptoms can appear very similar to PTSD and antisocial, narcissistic and histrionic disorders, and quite often BPD isn’t an isolated disorder but exists in combination with other mental health issues. It’s very common for people with BPD to also have eating disorders, major depression and anxiety disorders, and the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports studies that show that up to 60% of people with BPD also have PTSD.

Another complication is that the diagnosis takes time, up to 5 years, as it is based on patterns of behaviour.

Coni Kalinowski, a psychiatrist with the University of Nevada School of Medicine described BPD to the Las Vegas Review Journal by saying “People with borderline personality disorder want to be connected with others, and often get very anxious if they feel someone is leaving them. The borderline personality person seems to have very volatile emotions, lots of highs and lows, take a lot of risks, and be suicidal and self-loathing. They may overdose, cut or carve themselves in various ways. They need to get back into their body and get a feeling of control. Many turn to self-medicating with alcohol and drugs to cope with the disorder, and that is what gets them in trouble.

The journal also quotes Perry Hoffman, president of the National Education Alliance for BPD, who says “We think there is a biological piece and an environmental piece, and when they come together it lays fertile ground for the development of the disorder,” says Hoffman. “The biological piece is partially genetic and the social-environment piece is something that happens in the home, at school — bullying, sometimes from abuse. People with BPD are born with an emotional vulnerability, so they tend to react more intensely and quickly and it takes them longer to cool down and return to a baseline of stability.”

WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS?

NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, lists the (DSM IV) diagnostic criteria as follows:

A pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self image and affects, and marked impulsivity beginning by early adulthood, and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.
2. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between  extremes of idealization and devaluation.
3. Identity disturbance:  markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.
4. Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating).
5. Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior***.
6. Affective [mood] instability.
7. Chronic feelings of emptiness.
8. Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights).
9. Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms.

A VIDEO INTRODUCTION

FURTHER RESOURCES

• FetLife – Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)
• FetLife – Kinksters with BPD
• Wikipedia – Borderline Personality Disorder
• Broken Toys (submissives with mental illness) – When Your Bottom Has Borderline Personality Disorder
• Broken Toys (submissives with mental illness) – When Your Submissive Has Borderline Personality Disorder
• PsychCentral – Borderline Personality Disorder Symptoms