So, what are the chances that someone you love has this disorder? After visiting www.psychcentral.com I found another website with a “collection of resources for people who care about someone with borderline personality disorder” (P. Central). According to www.bpdcentral.com, BPs comprise:

·      2% of the general population

·      10% of all mental health outpatients

·      20% of psychiatric inpatients

·      75% of those diagnosed are women

·      75% have been physically or sexually abused

Before coming to the conclusion that said loved one is afflicted with borderline personality disorder take into account that “there is no ‘pure’ BPD; it coexists with other illnesses” (B. Central). The most common are:

·      Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

·      Mood disorders

·      Panic/anxiety disorders

·      Substance abuse (54% of BPs also have a problem with substance abuse)

·      Gender identity disorder

·      Attention deficit disorder

·      Eating disorders

·      Multiple personality disorders

·      Obsessive-compulsive disorder

Also to be considered is the difficulty in diagnosing this disorder and the many disorders that it can be confused with.

            My main disclaimer is this: symptoms can be misleading. Take any knowledge you may have gotten from this blog worth a grain of salt. Instead, try reading any of the books I’ve recommended at the bottom of my page or visit the afore mentioned website. Better yet, visit a psychiatrist or psychologist that most likely know a lot more about this disorder than I do. Everyone’s experience with borderline mothers won’t be the same but take my word for it when I say “YOU ARE NOT ALONE.”

 

Central, BPD. What is Borderline Personality Disorder? 2005. 18 August 2010 .

Central, Psych. Psych Central: BPD Central. 17 August 2010. 18 August 2010 .

Sia "Breathe Me" from phil tidy on Vimeo.

Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night. –Bette Davis

After countless hours of research regarding BPD I stumbled across a book by Paul T. Mason, MS and Randi Kreger called Stop Walking on Eggshells (2nd Ed.). The book is long, informative, and quite honestly tear-jerking. The way that everything gets broken down makes one feel like they are not alone. Right off the bat the book brakes down the fact that “people with BPD feel the same emotions other people do [and] do many of the same things that other people do; the difference is that they:

• feel things more intensely

• act in ways that seem more extreme

• have difficulty regulating their emotions and behavior (Mason and Kreger 13).

This is a simple yet undoubtedly complex explanation for the inner workings of a BPDs emotional mind. The issue is, however, that many people can and will feel the same symptoms a borderline individual experiences at some point or another. Subsequently the ability to diagnose this disorder makes for a daunting task despite its prevalence. “[T]he [recent] rise in borderline diagnoses[, however,] may illustrate something about our particular historical moment” (Cloud 46).

John Cloud wrote in his compelling article Minds on the Edge that “Culturally speaking, many ages have their signature crack-up illness. In the 1950s, an era of postwar trauma, nuclear fear and the self-medicating three-martini lunch, it was anxiety. During the ‘60s and ‘70s, an age of suspicion and Watergate, schizophrenics of the One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest sort captured the imagination—mental patients as paranoid heroes.”

“So, is borderline the illness of our age? When so many of us are clawing to keep homes and paychecks, might we have become more sensitized to other kinds of desperation?

In a world so uncertain, maybe it’s natural to lose one’s emotional skin” (Cloud 46).

http://www.democraticunderground.com/

Mason, Paul T. and Randi Kreger. Stop Walking on Eggshells. Oakland: New Harbringer Publications, Inc., 2010. Print.

Cloud, John. "Minds on the Edge." TIME Your Brain: A User's Guide October 2010: 44-47. Print.

"Lucy." We offered some affordable health care services outside today's Palin/Bachmann rally in Minneapolis. Web. 16 Aug 2010.

Mankiewicz, Joseph, Script. All About Eve. Dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz." Perf. Davis, Bette. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation: Film.

The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I ever had..

visionpoweredcoaching.com

Upon reading Andrea Lamont's Mothers with Borderline Personality Disorder I found validation: "It is hypothesized that children of mothers with BPD will suffer a myriad of psychosocial problems resulting from the mother's borderline symptomatology...." These psychological problems are not just hypothesized findings in some book. They wreak havoc on my mind and body on a daily basis. Although diagnosis has been turbulent to say the least, multiple psychiatrists have come to a prognosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), Bi-Polar Disorder, and my favorite Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD). Is it not obvious the negative ramifications BPD mothers pose for the developing child? By the very nature of the disorder, [mothers] display low levels of warmth, and high levels of intrusiveness and hostility; in this way, mothers with BPD are often classified as "high risk" parents (Newman & Stevenson,  2005), at risk of child abuse and/or drastically over protective behaviors (Lamont, 41). Theses behaviors are defined by the borderline-mother's perception of the child as either "all good," who needs to be saved, or "all bad," who needs to be reprimanded (Glickhauf-Hughes & Mehlman, 1998). My own experiences with "unresolved traumas" continue to torment me in spite of all the psychiatric treatment I've received. It does make one question those in charge of making not only my mother but also myself well again.

Andrews, Michael.  "Mad World."  Lyrics.  Donnie Darko.  Enjoy Records, 2002.

Newman, L., & Stevenson, C. (2005). Parenting and borderline personality disorder: ghosts in the nursery. Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 10, 385-394. Print.

Glickhauf-Hughes, C., & Mehlman, E. (1998). Non-borderline patients with mothers who manifest borderline pathology. British Journal of Psychotherapy, 14, 294-302. Print.

Lamont, Andrea. "Mothers with Borderline Personality Disorder." Graduate Student Journal of Psychology. 8. (2006): 39-44. Print.

"An Unknown Sad Child." Vision Powered Coaching Visitors Center. Web. 12 Aug 2010.

Welcome to Hell

According to the DSM-IV Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is as follows:

Diagnostic criteria for 301.83 Borderline Personality Disorder

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. 
Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5.

(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). 
Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5.

(5) recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior

(6) affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days)

(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.

Although there is a diagnostic criterion for borderline patients themselves, the people they afflict throughout their lifetimes remain hidden from the light. Children of borderline mothers fall into this group of "see no evil; hear no evil." I have chosen to write this blog to further enlighten not only myself but also others who may suffer from the same circumstances I have only just escaped. For instance, the day my mother informed me how much she loved me involved my initials (along with the initials of my siblings and father) being carved into her skin with a razor blade. I did not witness the act but I was summoned shortly after she had successfully engraved her love into her arms, waist and legs. In a hushed tone she asked, "Adrienne, do you know why I do this?" to which I replied no. She set down the razor, dripping with every movement. As she leaned in the words "Because I love you" trickled into the air and destroyed my feeble 10-year-old mind.

This is a borderline mother. This is hell. Welcome to it.

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth Edition. Copyright 1994 American Psychiatric Association, "Borderline Personality Disorder". BehaveNet® Clinical Capsule™. August 10, 2010 .