Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Borderline Personality Disorder

Borderline Personality Disorder
Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a pervasive pattern of instability in interpersonal relationships, self-image, emotional adjustments, and marked impulsivity demonstrated in a variety of contexts. These irresistible thoughts must be are acted out physically (as compulsions) because the person feels that something bad will happen if they don't.  Such people are often pathologically attached to persons, places, and things so much that they sometimes block out any other person's right to an opinion or thoughts of their own. As with all personality disorders, there's a disinheriting of violence, and sometimes violence may be directed toward another person. That's usually when they come to the attention of criminal justice authorities.  The vast majority of people with BPD are law-abiding, however.  It's the anxiety disorder most people are thinking of when they characterize obsessive-compulsiveness as irrational rituals (repetitive housecleaning, hand washing, book organizing, etc.) People with an anxiety disorder know they have a problem, but are helpless to control it. People with a personality disorder don't know they have a problem, and deny there is anything they need to control
Borderline Personality Disorder was officially recognized as a diagnosis in 1980. It is so widely used that 20% of psychiatric patients have it (it's one of the most common co-occurring psychopathologies), and it's estimated that 3-5% of the general population has it, 66% of all known borderlines are females. Borderlines Personality Disorders will love you one minute and hate you the next. They seem to wish for a clinging, dependent, and exclusive relationship with you, then almost the next minute they are putting you down, discrediting your achievements, accomplishments, and personal significance. To manipulate you, they will use anger, threats, sadness, or complaints about physical ailments. They always fail, however, to see the "big picture" and focus in on details such as being able to reach you by phone at all times.
Aileen Wournos an American woman serial killer suffered a tragic, abusive upbringing, which resulted in a borderline personality disorders. She was born in Michigan where her mother abandoned her at the age of four, and her father served time in mental hospitals in several states as a deranged child molester. Her grandparents took custody of her and her brother at the age of four and had abused them as well. Her grandfather would molest her and beat her. Eventually, her father, like her grandfather, committed suicide, and her grandmother died of liver failure from alcoholism. Wournos suffered from physical abuse as a child, and later told police she had sex with her brother at a very early age. Wournos killed and murdered seven men while she was a prostitute. Wournos would be put to death on October 9, 2002. A film based on her life and the events up to her death was called Monster. I liked this film and one that I would recommend all to check out for themselves.



3 comments:

  1. I'm surprised that we are not more familiar with this type of disorder especially since it is so common. It always amazes me that people can be so calm talking about killing people such as Aileen in the video. Here is a video that helps to explain the video in more depth

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOphgCJX1FY

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  2. I had no idea she was the inspiration for Monster. Learned something new today. Good article and video but I have a hard time wrapping my mind around this disorder. No doubt, Aileen is crazy and there are people in the world with real mental problems. Still, this particular disorder seems to be "over-diagnosis." Obviously, the vast majority of individuals with this disorder are not serial killers. Many of the qualities or symptoms described for the disorder are normal emotions. Granted they are not ideal emotions, but they are things that can be worked on without clinical diagnosis. Too many disorders out there.

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  3. She definitely had BPD. I would bet she was a sociopath and possibly a psychopath as well. She was a nasty lady and the more jail interviews you see of her, the more you can almost see into her thoughts as she becomes irritated and her voice gets louder and more accusatory. Very interesting case study. Great blog.

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