 - Last login: 8 hours agoElle-ba
- elle is a 41 year old woman from Scotland, UK.
- Likes 4,123 pages, 17 videos, 296 photos • 1,079 fans • Received 235 reviews
- Member since Dec 03, 2004
Treat every person with kindness and respect, even those who are rude to you. Remember that you show compassion to others not because of who they are but because of who you are.
~ Andrew T. Somers ~
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 An interview with Alexander L. Chapman, coauthor of The Borderline Personality Disorder Guide
New Harbinger Publications: What is borderline personality disorder?
Alexander L. Chapman: Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a disorder of instability in a variety of areas of life: relationships, emotions, behaviors, thoughts, and identity. People with BPD often feel like their relationships are a roller coaster ride, with many ups and downs. Their emotions tend to be intense and change very rapidly, and they often have great difficulty managing their emotions. As a result, they sometimes resort to self-harm, suicide attempts, drug use, or impulsive behaviours (over-spending, driving recklessly, binge eating) in order to manage and cope with their overwhelming emotions. People with BPD often suffer from an unstable sense of identity and chronic emptiness. In addition, some people with BPD dissociate ("check out" and become less aware of themselves and their surroundings) or have difficulty trusting other people when they are especially stressed out. Some researchers think that the main problem that drives all of the other symptoms of BPD is the combination of strong, overwhelming emotions with difficulty regulating or managing these emotions ("emotion dysregulation").
NHP: What causes BPD?
ALC: Although we have not yet isolated exactly what causes BPD, we do know that BPD seems to result from a combination of biology and the environment. Biological factors that contribute to BPD include a tendency toward having intense, long-lasting, and easily triggered emotional responses. It does not take much for a person with BPD to feel emotional distress (a slight look of annoyance on a friend's face might be enough). Some researchers have suggested that people with BPD are simply born more emotional than are people without BPD. Another biological factors is a hyperactive stress-response system. There is some evidence that people with BPD might be more likely to have increases in stress hormones and activity in emotional areas of the brain when they are upset. There is also some evidence that BPD might be heritable, suggesting that genes play a role as well. We do not yet know, however, what types of genes are involved in BPD.
The environment also plays a role in BPD. For instance, invalidating environments seem to play an important role. An invalidating environment is one that punishes, ignores, or dismisses the child when he or she is emotional. As a result, people with BPD often become afraid of their emotions, are unable to trust their emotions, or feel like they are very different from those around them. Dr. Marsha Linehan has proposed that BPD results from a combination of an invalidating environment and a tendency toward being strongly emotional. Other research suggests that, for some people, childhood trauma (physical, sexual, emotional abuse) might play a role in BPD. It is important to remember, however, that BPD is not caused by "bad parents", and a good number of people with BPD have never been abused. Finally, many of the behaviours that make up the symptoms of BPD (impulsive, self-damaging behaviors, drug use, self-harm, suicide attempts) actually work to help the individual manage emotions. As a result, these behaviors are incredibly hard to quit.
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