Understanding borderline personality disorder

Here is a story of Priya. She is 31 years old, divorced, and diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD).

Priya’s childhood was very traumatized. When she was in class 4^th her parents chose to send her to her granny’s place. It was a difficult period for her. Priya’s teenage was also a difficult time for her. She used to keep fighting with her brother and with her parents too. Sometimes she heard voices of females and Priya used to call her “DIDI”. She gave her advice and emotional support when Priya felt lonely.

Here are some other traits that she had developed and later diagnosed as BPD.

• Fear of abonnement: Priya constantly felt lonely so she had that fear of rejection that people would leave her because her parents also left her during her childhood.
• Intense interpersonal relationship: Priya was a very emotional person so people around her chose words very wisely because she got hurt easily.
• Identity disturbance: Priya constantly used to ask herself ‘Who am I’. She kept doing tattoos on her body or different types of hair color or sometimes she kept different names of her as well.
• Impulsivity: Whatever comes to her mind Priya used to do that without thinking about the consequences, for example: problematic drinking, drugs, gambling, and shopping. It was also a way to escape from bad experiences.
• Recurrent self-harm or suicidal behavior: Priya constantly felt that her close one would leave her so she kept harming herself so that her close person always stays with her.
• Affective instability: Priya’s mood used to change constantly in an hour. She felt angry, sad, and happy. There was no stability in her mood.
• Chronic emptiness: As we have seen Priya’s childhood was really traumatised and because of that she felt emptiness which led to chronic depression and apathy.
• Inappropriate anger: Priya was struggling with emotional regulation. She was very sensitive so she used to get mad at other people very easily.
• Psychotic symptom: As we have seen Priya’s symptoms, she constantly hears the voices of females. This is a sign of hallucination, sometimes it starts with extreme stress.

 Priya’s medical condition was severe so it started with a psychiatrist’s medication. Along with that, she started taking psychotherapy which is cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). Which helped her rebuild her neuropathy way. It changed her unhealthy thought pattern into healthy thought. Of course, it need a lot of patience and practice and Priya did it well.

Here, the only message I want to convey is people like Priya stay around us we should not label them. We as a human should help them, support them, and guide them in the right direction.