Are you living in a personal hell where your intense emotions are interfering with your life?

Build a life worth living!

Do you find yourself struggling to hang onto interpersonal relationships as well as having a healthy relationship with yourself?

Have people told you they walk on eggshells around you because your reactions are very intense, exaggerated and over the top?

If you answered “yes” to these questions, you may be suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), a term that describes people who border on neurotic as well as psychotic thinking and behavior. These individuals also may experience intense episodes of anger, depression or anxiety that may last a few hours or even a few days.

The end result: they destroy relationships and themselves.

Around 80 percent of people with BPD display suicidal behaviors that may include suicide attempts, cutting themselves, burning themselves, and other self-destructive acts.

Here are a few symptoms of borderline personality disorder:

  • inappropriate or extreme emotional reactions
  • highly impulsive behaviors
  • a history of unstable relationships
  • having a dysfunctional self-image or a distorted sense of self
  • difficulty feeling empathy for others
  • a persistent fear of abandonment and rejection
  • intense, highly changeable moods that can last for a few hours or several days
  • strong feelings of anxiety, worry and depression
  • impulsive, risky, self-destructive and dangerous behaviors
  • hostility

Many people will experience some of these symptoms, but, a person diagnosed with BPD will experience most of these characteristics, which are debilitating their life.

One of the ironies of this disorder is that people with BPD may crave closeness, but their intense and unstable emotional responses tend to alienate others, causing long-term feelings of isolation.

You can get help for borderline personality disorder

Living with borderline personality disorder, or being in a relationship with someone who has BPD, can be very difficult to acknowledge and accept, but there is help.

I work with clients who have BPD, and, even though the process of healing is a long-term commitment, clients will begin seeing progress.

My job is to help clients identify their mood swings and unstable behaviors so they can reduce impulsive and self-destructive behaviors. I educate them on their condition. I help them find themselves again.

Through treatment, it is possible for those with BPD to learn how to manage feelings better and find ways to have healthier and more rewarding relationships. With a commitment to long-term treatment, these individuals can begin a life of positive and healthy change.

BPD is a complex condition, but it is treatable and change is within reach!

Find your own life; embrace it; live it! Find time for yourself; take time for you. Live your life! Build a life worth living.

Are you concerned that you, or a loved one, may have borderline personality disorder?

Ask yourself these questions. It will help determine if you may benefit from further diagnosis or treatment.

  1. TRUE of FALSE: My relationships are very intense, unstable, and alternate between the extremes of over idealizing and undervaluing people who are important to me.
  2. TRUE of FALSE: My emotions change very quickly, and I experience intense episodes of sadness, irritability, and anxiety or panic attacks.
  3. TRUE of FALSE: My level of anger is often inappropriate, intense, and difficult to control.
  4. TRUE of FALSE: Now, or in the past, when upset, I have engaged in recurrent suicidal behaviors, gestures, threats, or self-injurious behavior such as cutting, burning, or hitting myself.
  5. TRUE of FALSE: I have a significant and persistently unstable image or sense of myself, or of who I am or what I truly believe in.
  6. TRUE of FALSE: I have very suspicious ideas, and am even paranoid (falsely believe that others are plotting to cause me harm) at times; or I experience episodes under stress when I feel that I, other people, or the situation is somewhat unreal.
  7. TRUE of FALSE: I engage in two or more self-damaging acts such as excessive spending, unsafe and inappropriate sexual conduct, substance abuse, reckless driving, and binge eating.
  8. TRUE of FALSE: I engage in frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment by people who are close to me.
  9. TRUE of FALSE: I suffer from chronic feelings of emptiness and boredom.

If you answered “true” to most of these questions, you may want to seek some help.