What is the difference between Borderline Personality Disorder and Bipolar Disorder? Which is worse?

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Bipolar Disorder
Extreme mood swings punctuated by periods of generally even-keeled behavior characterize this disorder. Bipolar disorder tends to run in families. This disorder typically begins in the mid-twenties and continues throughout life. Without treatment, people who have bipolar disorder often go through devastating life events such as marital breakups, job loss, substance abuse, and suicide.
Borderline Personality Disorder
Symptoms of borderline personality disorder, a serious mental illness, include pervasive instability in moods, interpersonal relationships, self-image, and behavior. The instability can affect family and work life, long-term planning, and the individual's sense of self-identity.

Other Answers:
Borderline Personality Disorder is a personality problem. Bi-polar Disorder is a mental illness. Both disorders can be equally bad. It all depends on the severity of the disorder. BPD often time requires talk therapy and medication(s) may not help. Bi-Polars usually need medication as well as therapy to cope with the distructive nature of the illness.

My brother has Bipolar 1, so I'm familiar with the symptoms. To me it seems like there are some similarities, but with Bipolar 1 there is more mania, extreme highs and lows and the behavior is more extravagant.

I'm not too familiar with BPD but this link below should be helpful.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borderline_personality_disorder

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipolar_disorder

borderline personality disorder is a personality disorder. Personality disorders can be identified as really deep and consistent patterns of persona (inner)l experiences and behaviors that lead to distress, unhappiness, and really interfere with the person's everyday life in the sense that impair functioning (in family life, work, school and the such). There is no brain chemical imbalance associated with personality disorders.

Bipolar disorder is a mood disorder. As the classification states, for these conditions a disturbance in mood is the identifying symptom. Bipolar disorder is also associated with the chemical called serotonin. It is called bipolar, because the person experiencing it, swings between two extremes (sadness and a sort of "top of the world" kind of feeling).
I don't think anybody can say which one is the worse, as they can both impair the individual gravely. They both respond to therapy, however.

hope this helps.

Having been acquainted with people with both, I would say that Borderline is probably worse, because it seems to be an entrenched set of behaviors that are quite resistant to therapy, whereas bipolar disorder tends to be based mostly in one's biology, and a person who is treated with effective medications can be, for all intents and purposes, "normal" and lead a relatively unimpaired life (as long as they continue to take medications and do the things that it takes to continue to be well).

I see Bipolar more as a medical illness, Borderline as a "soul sickness."

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What is the difference between Borderline Personality Disorder and Bipolar Disorder? Which is worse?

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