Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a mental health condition marked by intense, fast-changing emotions. Relationships swing between closeness and conflict, your sense of who you are can feel unsteady, and impulsive acts and self-harm are common. It usually starts in the teens or early adulthood, and most people improve with treatment and time.

Also called: emotionally unstable personality disorder (EUPD). ICD-11 records it as a personality disorder with a “borderline pattern”. “Quiet BPD” is an informal name for distress turned inward.

Our article Borderline Personality Disorder, Explained goes deeper.

Signs and symptoms

• Emotions: intense anger, shame, panic or emptiness, with fast mood swings.
• Relationships: fear of being abandoned, and seeing people as wonderful one day and terrible the next.
• Impulses: self-harm, binge drinking, drug use, overspending or risky sex.
• Thinking: harsh thoughts about yourself and, under stress, brief experiences such as hearing voices.

Causes

Genes play a part, and so do early experiences: many people with BPD lived through abuse, neglect or long-term fear as children, though not all. One leading model sees it as an emotionally sensitive child growing up where feelings were often dismissed.

Treatment

Talking therapy is the main treatment. Dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT), designed for BPD, teaches skills for managing emotions and distress; mentalisation-based therapy (MBT) is another option. In a Cochrane review of 75 trials, therapies built for BPD beat usual care, though the evidence is mostly weak. Medicines don’t treat BPD itself, though a doctor may treat depression or anxiety alongside it. In a 24-year study, most people’s symptoms eased; fewer regained full stability in work and relationships.

In Nigeria

Personality disorders are rarely discussed here, and Nigerian research on BPD is scarce. Intense emotion and self-harm in a young person are easily read as bad behaviour or a spiritual problem. “Personality” can sound like a verdict on who someone is, but BPD is a pattern that formed for reasons, and it can change.

BPD vs bipolar disorder

In BPD, moods shift within hours, often after a clash with someone. In bipolar disorder, highs and lows last days or weeks, and the treatments differ.

When to get help

If you’re thinking about suicide or have hurt yourself, get help now: call 112 (or 767 in Lagos), or Safe Place Nigeria on 0800 800 2000. The full list is on our helplines page.

Otherwise, reach out if emotions, relationships or impulses keep causing pain. Adults can book a licensed therapist on Mytherapist.ng who works with personality disorders; ask about DBT skills. If you’re worried about a teenager, start with a family doctor.

Read next

• Borderline Personality Disorder, Explained
• Personality disorder therapy
• Self-harm and getting help
• Dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT)

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This entry is awaiting clinical review. It’s based on published research and health guidelines, and we’ll update it once a clinician has reviewed it.