CAUSE: Without childhood abuse and trauma?
MathCoreChick:
how people feel depends on their perception of the events at hand. in addition to the organic/ genetic causes, we also have to account for the fact that no two people will react the exact same way to the same stimulus... .who can say where we get our temperment? some babies are more fretful and clingy no matter what... .just like some children and adults have personalities that are more high strung and volatile then others.
not only your genes but your take on the outcome... .nature AND nurture as everyone else is saying.
working with young kids, some of whom are extremely spoiled, i wonder now to myself when they have a tantrum, are we cultivating a generation of BPD's (as a society as a whole, not us responsible as individuals)?
example. kid gets in trouble in school. kid texts mom from outside office, mom rides up to save the day for her precious, the teacher's word/ side is taken lightly, and the school, admin. and faculty are undermined by the parent refusing to believe the child could of possible done something... .this has happened even though there was actual hard evidence to prove the contrary... .what is that doing to a child that is already prone to having a manipulative nature?
sorry for the sidebar but think how differently kids today are being raised then 20, 30, 50 years ago, and how the focus has shifted to focus on the child's self esteem and ego, more then personal responsibility and respect for adults/elders.
kellykk:
My 15 year old daughter was put in the hospital for a month when she was 6 mos old. Could this be the reason for her problems? She had a tumor in her trachea, it was lasered out and she was kept on steroids for a couple of years. I have always wondered if this was part of the reason for her behavior.
Rose1:
There is some evidence too that bi polar illness and BPD may be related in some people. I wonder if we are actually dealing with two manifestations of the condition with two different causes - one abuse, and one childhood onset bipolar coupled with either emotional abuse, unstructured home life and BPD developing in response to the bad emotions and feelings often associated with bi polar/depression? These kids can be quite difficult (I've got one).
To further add to this, there is a familial aspect to bi polar as well as an inherited brain chemical imbalance, although with environmental factors - some theories around environmental factors (ie stress, drug abuse, alcohol abuse) switching genes on or off. Given that, there is then often indifferent or at least erratic parenting right up to outright full on BPD modelling going on as well. The child who has issues already, grows up in an environment where BPD behaviour is the norm, and models their responses on what they see. The behaviour is rarely moderated or as in the case of my BPDexh there were 2 extremes - an overindulgent but simultaneously emotionally distant BPD mother, and an overbearing, unvalidating co dependent father. I guess emotional abuse was there. Certainly it was disfunctional.
Now my bil (no relation) has a father with bi polar, not BPD. He was brought up by his grandparents. His sister on the other hand remained with parents who couldnt cope, were alcoholic, and at least one of them was seriously mentally ill with something (probably bi polar) as well as some nasty PD's of some type. His sister is seriously disordered. Her daughter is into drugs.
My personal feeling - seeing this side of BPD where there was no physical or sexual abuse involved, is that some form of brain chemical imbalance combined with a disordered childhood and a BPD role model can also cause the condition. It's not always the case - my D is not BPD for example but I believe may well have been if her BPD father had stayed around longer - she was 6 when he left.
Rose
Tweedledum:
Thank you so much for this post. As someone who is new to all this I wondered about this as my daughter had a good childhood, was validated, no neglect or abuse.
Pook075:
Just to add a different spin to this, my BPD wife grew up in a loving Christian household. She was the oldest of three and was not abused. However, her mom had strong post-mortem depression and easily folded under pressure. The mom's side of the family also had a history of depression. So I don't think it's always what we would characterize as "abuse".
Our oldest daughter was also BPD, which I assumed was genetic. However, my wife had bad post-mortem depression and would leave the baby with my mom most mornings/early afternoons for the first 18ish months. Once my wife got the baby, she'd go to her parents house for the rest of the day, often sleeping on their couch after already sleeping most of the day.
By the time my oldest was 5 or 6 years old, I knew something was very off. I'm mentioning that only to point out that there was a mood disorder present very early on (meaning, it didn't form from something that happened when she was 10 or 14...it was already there very early).
I always assumed that my wife's mom and her father passed this along, through 4 generations (neither of them were ever diagnosed with anything but depression). But now that I read this thread, it just as easily could have happened from environmental neglect.
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