Borderline personality disorder is often misdiagnosed for other issues because of the complex ways that it manifests through the emotions.
Emotional Instability
Everyone is prone to becoming unraveled every now and then. For some people, the way they fall apart is healthy. It is healthy and normal to break down and cry and completely fall apart. It is less normal, and a sign that there is a deeper problem, to suffer a total nervous or mental breakdown and lose touch with reality. People who are living with borderline personality disorder are somewhere between the two, with complete unpredictability. People are typically able to trace the source of their stress. The source of stress in people with borderline is unending, like a bottomless black pit of emotional instability, insecurity, and other issues. They are prone to unraveling entirely at any moment about anything that seems triggering enough to them.
Emotional Volatility
To be volatile means to be “liable to change rapidly and unpredictably, especially for the worse”. People with borderline personality disorder are emotionally volatile. They are known for chronic irritability, being annoyed or bothered by everything about everyone, all of the time. People with borderline are also known for expressing their irritability through angry outbursts. Innocent bystanders like pharmacists, retail clerks, and others could be the victim of the borderline rage. Most often it is people who the borderline trusts and loves- the people who they are most afraid will abandon them- who get the brunt of their anger. Typically there’s no explanation and no warning sign. What will be a great conversation can quickly turn into a violent one.
Emotional Immaturity
A hallmark of borderline personality disorder is not being able to take any accountability or responsibility for emotions. The person with borderline has such a complicated relationship with themselves and their own thoughts that they don’t want to take responsibility for them. Crippled by insecurity of the deepest kind, taking responsibility for their own thoughts would mean, to them, having to admit the “wrongs” of their existence. In compensation, people with borderline tend to blame others and act in emotionally immature ways. They will be defensive, refuse to answer, shut down, use the silent treatment, be argumentative, and more.
If someone with borderline in your life can find the willingness to go to treatment, treatment can be transformational. Learning to identify and cope with their extreme emotions, people with borderline learn how to create more calm and healthy relationships in their life. Avalon By The Sea offers primary mental health treatment programs for borderline personality disorder, as one of California’s few certified primary mental health facilities. Call us today for a confidential assessment and more information: 888-958-7511
