Living with Borderline Personality Disorder
"We hid all the knives in the house, locked up all the medications. But still, every time I leave her alone I'm afraid of what I'll find when I get home." These are the heartbreaking words of a mother whose teenage daughter suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder. Abby was just a regular kid up until the seventh grade when, after a series of unfortunate events, the symptoms of BPD started to make a constant appearance in her life.
“Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a serious mental disorder marked by a pattern of ongoing instability in moods, behavior, self-image, and functioning. These experiences often result in impulsive actions and unstable relationships. A person with BPD may experience intense episodes of anger, depression, and anxiety that may last from only a few hours to days.”(NIMH.com) Individuals with BPD often go undiagnosed for many years simply because either, they do not believe there is anything wrong with them, or because the people around them believe that the symptoms are simply part of their personality. BPD is especially hard to diagnose in teenagers. This is because the symptoms are oftentimes confused with the typical hormonal and emotional
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These symptoms give an insight as to why this mental illness is so hard to diagnose. These symptoms are thought to manifest in almost every teenager due to the fact that the frontal lobe is not completely developed before the age of 25 which, is to blame for the poor decisions and reckless behavior in adolescents and young adults. Although, yes, teenagers have mood swings and low self-esteem. Individual with BPD go to extremes. A minor inconvenience can lead to long episodes of anger, anxiety and