Emotions[edit] People with BPD feel emotions more easily, more deeply and for longer than others do.[10][11] Emotions may repeatedly resurge and persist a long time.[11] Consequently it may take longer than normal for people with BPD to return to a stable emotional baseline following an intense emotional experience.[12] In Marsha Linehans view, the sensitivity, intensity and duration with which people with BPD feel emotions have both positive and negative effects.[12] People with BPD are often exceptionally idealistic, joyful and loving.[13] However they may feel overwhelmed by negative emotions, experiencing intense grief instead of sadness, shame and humiliation instead of mild embarrassment, rage instead of annoyance and panic instead of nervousness.[13] People with BPD are especially sensitive to feelings of rejection, isolation and perceived failure.[14] Before learning other coping mechanisms, their efforts to manage or escape from their intense negative emotions may lead to self-injury or suicidal behavior.[15] They are often aware of the intensity of their negative emotional reactions and, since they cannot regulate them, they shut them down entirely.[12] This can be harmful to people with BPD, since negative emotions alert people to the presence of a problematic situation and move them to address it.[12] While people with BPD feel joy intensely, they are especially prone to dysphoria, or feelings of mental and emotional distress. Zanarini et al. recognize four categories of dysphoria that are typical of this condition: extreme emotions; destructiveness or self-destructiveness; feeling fragmented or lacking identity; and feelings of victimization.[16] Within these categories, a BPD diagnosis is strongly associated with a combination of three specific states: 1) feeling betrayed, 2) feeling like hurting myself and 3) feeling out of control.[16] Since there is great variety in the types of dysphoria experienced by people with BPD, the amplitude of the distress is a helpful indicator of borderline personality disorder.[16] In addition to intense emotions, people with BPD experience emotional lability, or changeability. Although the term suggests rapid changes between depression and elation, the mood swings in people with this condition actually occur more frequently between anger and anxiety and between depression and anxiety.[17]
Posted on: Fri, 26 Dec 2014 15:51:38 +0000
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