| The fact that the Borderline personality disorder is | | | | constant narcissistic supply (attention, affirmation, |
| often found among women makes it a controversial | | | | adulation, approval) to regulate her gyrating sense of |
| mental health diagnosis. | | | | self-worth and her chaotic self-image, to shore up |
| Some scholars say that it is a culture-bound | | | | serious, marked, persistent, and ubiquitous deficits in |
| pseudo-syndrome invented by men to serve a | | | | self-esteem and Ego functions, and to counter the |
| patriarchal and misogynistic society. Others point to | | | | gnawing emptiness at her core. |
| the fact the lives of patients diagnosed with the | | | | The Borderline Personality Disorder is often |
| disorder are chaotic and that the relationships they | | | | co-diagnosed (is comorbid) with mood and affect |
| form are stormy, short-lived, and unstable. Moreover, | | | | disorders. But all borderlines suffer from mood |
| not unlike compensatory narcissists, people with the | | | | reactivity. |
| Borderline Personality Disorder often display labile | | | | From an entry I wrote for the Open Site |
| (wildly fluctuating) sense of self-worth, self-image and | | | | Encyclopedia: |
| affect (expressed emotions). | | | | "(Borderlines) shift dizzyingly between dysphoria |
| Like both narcissists and psychopaths, borderlines are | | | | (sadness or depression) and euphoria, manic |
| impulsive and reckless. Like histrionics, their sexual | | | | self-confidence and paralyzing anxiety, irritability and |
| conduct is promiscuous, driven, and unsafe. Many | | | | indifference. This is reminiscent of the mood swings |
| borderlines binge eat, gamble, drive, and shop | | | | of Bipolar Disorder patients. But Borderlines are much |
| carelessly, and are substance abusers. Lack of | | | | angrier and more violent. They usually get into |
| impulse control is joined with self-destructive and | | | | physical fights, throw temper tantrums, and have |
| self-defeating behaviors, such as suicidal ideation, | | | | frightening rage attacks. |
| suicide attempts, gestures, or threats, and | | | | When stressed, many Borderlines become psychotic, |
| self-mutilation or self-injury. | | | | though only briefly (psychotic micro-episodes), or |
| The main dynamic in the Borderline Personality | | | | develop transient paranoid ideation and ideas of |
| Disorder is abandonment anxiety. Like codependents, | | | | reference (the erroneous conviction that one is the |
| borderlines attempt to preempt or prevent | | | | focus of derision and malicious gossip). Dissociative |
| abandonment (both real and imagined) by their | | | | symptoms are not uncommon ("losing" stretches of |
| nearest and dearest. They cling frantically and | | | | time, or objects, and forgetting events or facts with |
| counterproductively to their partners, mates, | | | | emotional content)." |
| spouses, friends, children, or even neighbors. This | | | | Hence the term "borderline" (first coined by Otto F. |
| fierce attachment is coupled with idealization and then | | | | Kernberg). The Borderline Personality Disorder is on |
| swift and merciless devaluation of the borderline's | | | | the thin (border) line separating neurosis from |
| target. | | | | psychosis. |
| Exactly like the narcissist, the borderline patient elicits | | | | |