Borderline Personality Disorder

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a personality disorder whose essential features are a pattern of marked impulsiveness and instability of affects, interpersonal relationships, and self image. An 'affect' is a key part of the process of a person's interaction with stimuli. The word also refers sometimes to affect display, which is "a facial, vocal, or gestural behavior that serves as an indicator of the affect.

The pattern is present by early adulthood and occurs across a variety of situations and contexts. Other symptoms may include intense fears of abandonment and intense anger and irritability that others have difficulty understanding the reason for. People with BPD often engage in idealizing or denigrating of others, alternating between high positive regard and great disappointment. Self-mutilation and suicidal behavior are common.  Much of this is emotional re-enactment of the trauma situation.

This disorder is recognized by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Because a personality disorder is a pervasive, enduring and inflexible pattern of maladaptive inner experience and pathological behavior, there is a general reluctance to diagnose this personality disorder before adolescence or early adulthood. Some emphasize, however, that without early treatment, symptoms may worsen. Further traumas may stack up on the first.

The World Health Organization's ICD-10 defines the disorder as Emotionally unstable personality disorder. Its two subtypes are described below.

F60.30 Impulsive type

At least three of the following must be present, one of which must be (2):

1. marked tendency to act unexpectedly and without consideration of the consequences;
2. marked tendency to engage in quarrelsome behavior and to have conflicts with others, especially when impulsive acts are thwarted or criticized;
3. liability to outbursts of anger or violence, with inability to control the resulting behavioral explosions;
4. difficulty in maintaining any course of action that offers no immediate reward;
5. unstable and capricious (impulsive, whimsical) mood.
   

F60.31 Borderline type

At least three of the symptoms mentioned in F60.30 Impulsive type must be present, with at least two of the following in addition:

1. disturbances in and uncertainty about self-image, aims, and internal preferences;
2. liability to become involved in intense and unstable relationships, often leading to emotional crisis;
3. excessive efforts to avoid abandonment;
4. recurrent threats or acts of self-harm;
5. chronic feelings of emptiness.
6. demonstrates impulsive behavior, e.g., speeding, substance abuse

This is halfway between PTSD and MPD personalities.  In PTSD, the person's subconscious is the container of stuffed trauma, causing all sorts of emotional problems.  In MPD, fragments of the conscious mind are dissociated from the original conscious mind to contain the extreme trauma.  In BPD, the conscious mind is still together, barely, but can't restrain the emotions. BPD is caused by child abuse (especially sexual abuse), incest and loss of caregivers in early childhood when their conscious mind has not fully formed. Caregivers deny the validity of what they think or feel.  That's because the caregivers failed to provide protection and physical care.  This can likely be a generational problem being passed down from Satan.

Solution

In James 5:14-16 "Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working." (The sins may be actions done TO them rather than BY them.)

John 15:3 "Already you are cleansed and pruned because of the word that I have spoken to you."

The Christian's brain has been rewired so the mental processes automatically think in destructive and sinful ways.  We need to pray for their brain to be rewired to the fruit of the Holy Spirit frequently.  When this warped thinking is backed out, they are able to think with righteous judgment.  

This person needs love from a group of Christians who can give a caring, supportive environment with plenty of prayer.  When the person feels safe to talk about a trauma of the past, this can be healed by asking the true Lord Jesus to speak His Word into that incident. Likely, they will start with a milder one, to see if they are safe to share bigger ones leading up to the ultimate incident or theme.  After all, an additional big disappointment may bring suicide.

 

last edited: April 19, 2017             orderofsaintpatrick.org/relations/border-pd.htm