Whoa Nelly! 1 in 4 would really make relationships pretty risky.
According to the National Institute of Health they estimate about 1.6% of the adult US population. They've also reported gender and race didn't play a role in personality disorders.
Reported statistics in studies have been changing over the years as far as the gender disaprity. This may attributed to several factors... . Low rates of males to seek medical/psychological treatment historically. One thing remains pretty consistent is the extraordinarily high suicide rate among people suffering with the disorder.
The hall marks of BPD are hostility, wildly varying moods often within a day, splitting, fear of abandonment or rejection, poor coping skills that lead to self destructive behavior like drug use, gambling, etc., impulsivity, suicidal ideation or attempts and paranoia or dissociative episodes brought on by emotional stressors. What this looks like in real time, or manifests in behavior, varies person to person. Some people with BPD may engage in risky sex to self soothe while others don't ... . They may cut themselves instead.
This pattern is consistent. It isn't one off thing where someone has bad relationship with a person and there were breakups and heartache. It's a fairly profound level of interrelationship dysfunction.
Surely a person can be emo unstable and NOT have BPD?
absolutely... . people with depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety and other mood disorders can be emotionally unstable. People with BPD tend to be hypersensitive to real and imagined slights and have volatile reactions.
The tendency is extreme reactions. And it's the rule not the exception. The pattern is pervasive and longstanding beyond adolescence and into adulthood across many spectrums of the life like family, friends and work.
