The symptoms of BPD usually appear by early adulthood. They also occur as a pattern across a variety of life situations, rather than occurring solely in one area of life, such as only at the office, or only with a particular person. BPD should only be diagnosed by a professional therapist. While you might recognize a lot of the symptoms in yourself or someone you know, do not be tempted to diagnose yourself. Leave it to a professional. To be diagnosed as BPD you will be assessed against the following criteria. You are required to have at least 5 of the 9 DSM-IV Criteria:
- Frantic efforts to avoid adandonment, going to extremes to keep someone from leaving
- Frequent interpersonal conflict, unstable, stormy relationships. Black and white thinking known as splitting. Difficulty seeing the "gray" in situations or comprising.
- Unstable self image, shifting from feeling confident about who you are to feeling like you are evil or don't exist
- Self damaging, impulsive behaviour such as substance abuse, binge eating, anorexia-bulimia, reckless spending, gambling, reckless driving or other behaviours that can lead to serious consequences.
- Frequent suicidal thoughts, threats and attempts, or self-hurting, self-mutilating behaviour such as cutting or burning
- Intense emotional instalibility, rapidly changing short-term moods and anxiety.
- Chronic feelings of emptiness, sadness, boredom or depression
- Intense inappropriate anger that may lead to physical fights or destruction of property (e.g. domestic violence, child abuse)
- Stress related dissociative symptoms such as paranoia, feeling as if they are losing touch with reality, feeling victimized, unable to accept responsibility.
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