Having borderline personality disorder doesn’t mean there is something wrong with your personality. Personality disorders develop as a response to negative experiences that impact the way our emotions, thinking styles, and social skills evolve. But living with a personality disorder isn’t easy and without support, young people with BPD may struggle to navigate many aspects of daily life.
Borderline personality disorder is one of the more common types of personality disorder. It usually develops during late adolescence or early adulthood. BPD affects the way young people relate to themselves and the world around them and usually involves an incoherent sense of self, unstable interpersonal relationships, and intense emotions that are hard to soothe.
Relationships are a core dimension of BPD traits and experiences. Young people with BPD often experience a fear of abandonment that leads to intense, close partnerships and sudden breakups. They may switch between seeing a friend or romantic partner as ‘all good’ and ‘all bad’, creating volatility and instability.
Relationships also interact with other dimensions of BPD. For example, experiences of intense emotions and urges to self-harm are frequently triggered by interpersonal events. Equally, young people with BPD often take on the values and pursuits of close others as their own identity, contributing to an incoherent and changing sense of self.
Although BPD can make interpersonal relationships more difficult, this doesn’t mean that young people with the disorder cannot form close and stable relationships. With effective support, many people with BPD recover and live normal, fulfilling lives, closely connected to others.
This blog offers some more information about how and why borderline personality disorder affects young people’s relationships.
How Do the Core Traits and Symptoms of BPD Affect Young People’s Relationships?
The DSM-V (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition) characterises BPD with nine core symptoms. Several of these symptoms directly or indirectly relate to interpersonal relationships.
Importantly, these traits don’t appear from nowhere. Instead, they are thinking patterns and behaviours that develop as coping mechanisms for difficult life experiences but are harmful and maladaptive in everyday life.
Here, we offer some more information about symptoms 1, 2 and 8 from the DSM-V criteria.
1. Frantic efforts to avoid abandonment
Young people with borderline personality disorder often experience an intense fear of abandonment by friends, partners, and family members. They may perceive a threat of abandonment even when there is not a real threat, such as when someone doesn’t reply to a message or acts more distant than usual.
It’s normal for people with BPD to make frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. They may respond angrily or anxiously, sometimes using manipulative behaviours. In some cases, they may end relationships themselves to avoid possible abandonment. Sadly, this can cause many relationships to end prematurely.
The fear of abandonment that characterises BPD doesn’t just appear. It’s often rooted in childhood experiences such as patterns of unmet needs, neglect, or abandonment by caregivers. This might happen because of stressful social and economic circumstances, mental health problems among parents, emotionally unavailable parents, and cases of abuse or neglect.
Instead of trusting that a caregiver will not abandon them, children instead learn that abandonment is a very real possibility. As a child, abandonment is a threat to their survival, triggering a very strong psychological response. In some cases, young people continue to approach future relationships with the same emotional responses, leading to the development of BPD.
2. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships marked by alternating extremes of idealisation and devaluation
Young people with borderline personality disorder often experience a kind of dichotomous thinking known as splitting. Splitting happens when someone sees another person as either all good or all bad. Instead of having an integrated view of a friend, partner, or family member as having both positive and negative traits, they alternative between complete idealisation and total devaluation.
Splitting can cause dramatic instability in relationships. During periods of idealisation, a young person may seek closeness, intimacy, and dependence. At other times, they may seek distance from or experience intense anger towards the other person.
It’s still not clear exactly why young people with BPD experience splitting. It may develop from childhood experiences where a caregiver is at once a source of safety and security, but also harm or neglect. Splitting is common among young children but usually ceases when children learn that caregivers can have both good and bad qualities. However, when the harm experienced is too much, they may be unable to comprehend an integrated view and continue to see the world as all good or all bad.
Splitting may also be connected with an inability to mentalise: the capacity to understand the mental state (thoughts, intentions, and emotions) behind another person’s actions. Difficulties in mentalising are common among young people with BPD.
8. Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger
Young people with borderline personality disorder often experience feelings of intense anger that are hard to control. This can result in frequent displays of anger in relationships, fights, and conflicts.
Intense anger may be part of more general difficulties managing and soothing emotions, leading to lasting, intense emotional reactions. This is known as emotional dysregulation. Emotional dysregulation may be rooted in difficult childhood experiences and family environments that invalidate emotions. These experiences can prevent the usual processes of emotional development, making it harder to identify and understand emotions, control impulses, and accept feelings.
How Does BPD in Adolescence Affect Psychosocial Functioning?
Taken together, the core traits of borderline personality disorder can have a big impact on adolescents’ social lives. They may find it harder to build trusting friendships with other adolescents and spend more time alone. They may also experience more conflicts with family members.
A 2017 study compared the psychosocial functioning of adolescents with and without BPD. They found that adolescents with BPD:
- had less positive relationships with their parents
- engaged in more romantic relationships
- spent more time alone
- had more difficulties at school
- participated in fewer extra-curricular activities
Treating Adolescents with Borderline Personality Disorder
Borderline personality disorder is a mental health condition surrounded by stigma and misconceptions. One common misconception is that it’s difficult to treat or recover from BPD. In reality, BPD is treatable and many people recover from the disorder and live fulfilling, connected lives.
Treatment for borderline personality disorder in adolescence usually involves a diverse support team including psychotherapists, social workers, occupational therapists, and family interventions. Just as BPD has a big impact on interpersonal relationships, social networks play a key role in recovery from the disorder, providing the positive relationships necessary to acquire knowledge and skills. This means that a systems-based treatment approach is fundamental to BPD treatment.
Some treatment approaches for adolescents with BPD include:
- Dialectical behavioural therapy for adolescents (DBT-A)
- Adolescent identity treatment
- Mentalisation-based treatment
- Family therapy
The Wave Clinic: Specialist Mental Health Support for Young People
The Wave Clinic offers specialist treatment programs for children, teenagers, and young adults with borderline personality disorder, eating disorders, complex trauma, and other mental health concerns. We combine exceptional clinical care with education, enriching experiences, and community projects, supporting young people to build their sense of self and find their place in their world.
Our programs are family-centred and trauma-focused, appreciating the fundamental role that past experiences and social systems play in the way we think, feel, and behave. We’re recovery-orientated, promoting positive change with resilience and creativity.
If you’re interested in finding out more about our programs, get in touch today. We’re here to help.
