BPD specific personality traits

[virtualfriday]

BPD specific personality traits
I am familiar with the "9"
But doesn't everyone have minor indications of these traits from time to time? Is it just that BPD is some or all of these 9 traits but to a complete unmanageable extreme state? It seems to leave a lot of grey area to diagnosing and understanding.

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[AskingWhy]

As BPD isa spectral disorder, ranging from high-functioning to low, it's really hard to describe a full set of traits.

You know about dysregulating and splitting.

All I can think of are manifestations of the criteria.

For me, off the top of my head, are tantrums, name-calling and divorce threats.

[isilme]

Every tells lies from time to time, this does not mean we are all pathological liars.  Everyone overeats time to time, but this does not mean we are all facing a food compulsion.  Everyone can feel down time to time, or nervous about public speaking but this does not mean you have chronic depression or social anxiety. 

BPD, and other disorders are when the behaviors both fit at least a few BPD traits as well as hit a point that interferes with interpersonal relationships and even everyday life, depending on how high or low functioning the person is.  This can mean someone drives off love interests, has a turbulent relationship with some or all family, can't maintain friendships, or wears lots of faces and can't reconcile when family, friends, and coworkers all meet.  BPD is often tied to shame avoidance and projections, with feelings mattering more than objective facts, and those closest are more often the recipients of the worst, most overt bad behavior. 

Everyone has bad days and can act out under certain conditions, but BPD tends to amplify these reactions, to where the anger and the outbursts don't feel like they match the catalyst.  Simply missing a phone call from a pwBPD can be blown up in their mind to be a form of abandonment and become a reason to break up/divorce and can lead to an increasing level of anger and rage that can go on for days. 

Few people causing us to find this site have been officially diagnosed, but my H (and parents) fit many of the criteria enough times to make BPD a logical conclusion, and BPD can also exist alongside (comorbid) with other conditions.  My father was diagnosed manic depressive, my mother was diagnosed bipolar, but both fit more than just those profiles - BPD fits them well.

H has issues with depression and social anxiety.  But his reactions to these, and other stimuli fit BPD and the tools for helping with BOD seem to be pretty effective with him. 

BPD traits can also shift with the seasons, stress levels, illnesses, and other factors.  H may be fine in July, but come October, he may be on the edge of a rage event every darn day.  It's very subjective condition - also, our reactions as their closest person emotionally and physically can increase or decrease the poor behavior.

[Frankee]

I really like what isilme had to say.  It is very true.  I find my H amplifies reactions.  We've been discussing Thanksgiving.  Next thing I know, he was talking about a meal from the local butchery, but you need somehow to warm it up.  That blew up into a serious rage about how we can't warm it up because we don't have a stove, he hates turkey, last year turkey from the smoker was horrible, we are putting all of this pressure him, he's not going to pay for food he's not going to eat, how most of the time he doesn't like my cooking and he's tired of being nice about it, if we want to play Master Chef, not to do it on expensive meat, what's the point of celebrating Thanksgiving all of a sudden when it was never a big deal before, what are we thankful for, what are celebrating, a bunch of ungrateful football players who disrespect the flag.  The whole time I'm sitting there, feeling like my jaw should be hanging open.  Came out of nowhere and totally blindsided me.

Isilme was right that we all exhibit these traits from time to time.  If I lied about letting the dogs out, I'm a pathological liar.  If there isn't anything to eat that he wants, we're all a bunch of selfish pigs.  When things don't go exactly as he pictured, we're all a bunch of worthless a**holes who can't do anything right.  See where I'm going.  Dealing with just regular disturbances or bumps in the road turn into we are going to be homeless, I'm putting the children at risk, I can't do anything right, I don't clean.  Things that most people would brush off or deal with and move on, don't happen with him.  I still get stuff thrown in my face from weeks, months, or even years ago(depending on his mood).  Things that sometimes I've forgotten about because that's how little of a deal it was.

I wasn't feeling well last couple days.  I told my H.  That I was tired, not feeling great, stressed out from lack of sleep and work related issues.  I got short with him a couple time within a two day period.  I apologized for snapping and taking out everything on him.  I was expecting an "it's okay babe, I know you haven't been feeling well" or something like that.  I got a "I'm trying to work on my stuff, I'm trying to talk to you in a calm manner and you're just getting an attitude, do you want me to go back to yelling and screaming, it's work, it's hard, I have bad days every day, suck it up, I don't want to hear about you putting your job in jeopardy because you are stressed, I'm not going to support this family alone if you lose your job".  It got completely twisted around to make it all about him and how I was treating him so bad.

I am by no means perfect, but some of the things that he says, take me completely off guard, sometimes I'm not even sure how to respond in that moment.  He has very bad past, emotional/physical abuse by alcoholic father, abandonment by mother, juvenille, mental hospitals, jail, foster homes, shock therapy.  I understand that anyone that goes through those things would have problems, even I would.  Doesn't excuse him for the emotional and verbal abuse he likes to bombard me with at times.  I'm not the one who did all of that to him.

[virtualfriday]

How about "no sense of self"?
That seems to be the least ambiguous of the 9 common traits
How common is it to find a BPD individual with a functioning sense of self intact and working?

[isilme]

How about "no sense of self"?
That seems to be the least ambiguous of the 9 common traits
How common is it to find a BPD individual with a functioning sense of self intact and working?

Intact and working... .I can't even verify I have a working sense of self, let alone H does :P

Ok, lemme see if I can tackle this a bit. 

H used to always be reinventing himself, to avoid feeling bad about past decisions, to not need to feel shame about who is/was.  He HAS improved, but I think being 40 "may" have been some sort of major point that seems to have solidified him a bit.  We've been together since we were 19, so I've watched him grow through some pretty rough periods.  He would take on the aspects of anyone he like, and emulate them to a high degree.  We all do this a bit, but a pwBPD is likely to go out a do drastic things, spend the rent money to buy a brand new wardrobe to reinvent who they are, or buy lots of things for a brand new hobby to fit in with new friends.

A pwBPD ultimately has a lot of pain inside they cannot face.  They need to disavow it, ignore it, or make it someone else's fault when nothing else works to avoid it. 

2Stongs' husband could not separate her feeling ill and begin stressed from him feeling stressed.  He can't have her share her feelings as a separate entity - they are ONE UNIT and she must feel and cater to HIS emotions, as his emotions have to be hers, regardless of her own feelings.  Boundaries are weak and nonexistent with BPD - there is no division between a pwBPD and their spouse and sometimes their children.  In my head, it's almost like the movie monster The Blob, where everything is sucked in and absorbed int one unit.  My BPD mother could not separate herself from me, and did not appreciate me being a different person from her. 

A pwBPD also seems to avoid actual, honest introspection.  Another analogy, the Neverending Story where Atreyu is passing the tests and looks into the mirror and see Bastian.  The movie described that as the worst test, because all of us have trouble looking inside and being honest about who lives there.  But something the at is uncomfortable for me is unbearable for H.