Could someone please explain to me in laymen's terms what Borderline Personality Disorder is?

Question:

I've looked at different websites for this, but they are all somewhat different, and all that I've found is in medical jargon. Thanks!

Answers:
I won't give you the diagnostic criteria because you already have that. I have worked with several people with BPD in the past 6 years. Here are some common traits I have seen:

Suicidal thoughts and gestures and parasuicidal behavior, like cutting and self-mutilation
Attention seeking, cries for help, suicidal threats
Catastrophizing, where everything is the end of the world. However, if anything nears resolution, they begin to get uncomfortable and sometimes seek out things that are wrong or horrible (sometimes leading to self-sustaining depression or refusal to get better)
Inability to be alone- These are the people that feel they are defined by their romantic relationships and will literally jump from one boyfriend to the other. Or they may be so afraid of being hurt, that they will never enter a relationship and just become promiscuous.
Drug and alcohol abuse- they often do not believe there is anything wrong with them and will self-medicate.
Anger and rage. Extreme irritability.

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) is designed specifically for the treatment of BPD.
"Clients receiving DBT were significantly less likely to drop out of therapy, were significantly less likely to engage in parasuicide, reported significantly fewer parasuicial behaviors and, when engaging in parasuicidal behaviors, had less medically severe behaviors. Further, clients receiving DBT were less likely to be hospitalized, had fewer days in hospital, and had higher scores on global and social adjustment."

Other Answers:
its were u cant handle reality and u blame ppl for things even if its not there fault

My ex-girlfriend has BPD.if u need someone to talk to contact me.scarllettesmail@yaho.com its a very difficult situation to deal with, and u often become victimized by people suffering from it.

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; or sense of long-term goals;
or career choices, types of friends desired or values
preferred.
4. Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially
self-damaging: for example; spending, sex, substance
abuse, and binge eating.
5. Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or
self-mutilating behavior.
6. Affective instability: marked shifts from baseline mood to depression, 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; frequent displays of temper.
9. Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe
dissociative symptoms.

Historically, the borderline personality disorder includes all those disorders which aren't clearly neurotical or psychotical ones, but nowadays, it's something different by itself too, depending on the theoretical model you use.
In a very simple and non rigourous way, I would say it is a condition where the pacient is:

1) very impulsive in his/her behaviour
2) very unstable on how he/she feels: loving and hating the same thing in a short span of time
3) a constant feeling of emptiness inside
4) self mutilation behaviour

It's the explanation of how those symptoms relate to one another which is tricky. and probably different according to what model you use.
Source(s):
DSM - IV - TR

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/bpd.cfm.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/borderl.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/.
http://www.aamft.org/families/consumer_u.
http://www.borderlinepersonali.

BPD's are tricky. It's very strange but the vast majority of BPD's are female.

They're typically intensely afraid of abandonment and will do anything to avoid it. They have very unstable relationships with everyone including friends, family, and others due to their own volatility. They rarely have a stable self image and are constantly trying to define themselves in one way or another. They are impulsive in ways that are damaging on top of suicidal talk, gestures, and sometimes self-mutilation. Their moods are constantly changing and rarely are they in the same mood for longer than a couple of days. They have a lot of difficulty containing anger and appropriately displaying it. They will get into fights both physical and verbal at what would seemingly be considered "nothing". They are often times paranoid and tend not to acknowledge anxiety-provoking thoughts and emotions, blaming situations on others.

They don't always exhibit all of these symptoms and honestly, this is just what the DSM has as their diagnostic criteria. Obviously you can have different mixes of these symptoms.
That's just put into plain English what to expect from BPD.
Source(s):
DSM IV-TR put into normal English, worked with BPD patients.

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Could someone please explain to me in laymen's terms what Borderline Personality Disorder is?

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