What Happens To Emotions In Borderline Personality Disorder?

One of the traits that characterize people who suffer from a borderline personality disorder is the difficulty in managing their emotions. Emotions are always “on the surface” and emotional stability is difficult to find. They can experience many emotional ups and downs that make it difficult and, in some cases, compromise their relationships with the outside world. Therefore, they will need specialized help to provide them with useful tools related to social behavior.

To place ourselves, we need to understand that a borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by a way of being rigid and inflexible. We are talking about people who have difficulty relating, socially maladjusted, with great emotional instability and a very negative self-image. But why is emotional management so complicated for people who suffer from this disorder?

The biosocial theory of borderline personality disorder

Biosocial theory holds that the main problem with BPD is lack of emotional control. Furthermore, this difficulty can have different origins: a certain biological predisposition, an environmental context of invalidation and the interaction of these two factors. According to this theory, emotional imbalances would be a consequence of emotional vulnerability and the lack of effective strategies to control emotions.

Emotional vulnerability is defined as hypersensitivity to any emotion, regardless of whether it is positive, negative or neutral. This hypersensitivity usually results in a very intense and variable response from the person with TLP. This intensity produces such an imbalance that these people find it very difficult to regain their emotional balance.

On the other hand, instability and lack of emotional control, according to biosocial theory, have a biological basis, which does not mean that it is hereditary. This biological predisposition can be different for each person. Therefore, a common biological factor that is present in all cases of borderline personality disorder has not yet been found.

A crippling family environment affects emotional control

One of the factors that affect the difficulty in regulating the emotions of people with BPD, and also of people who do not suffer from this disorder, is the family and social environment where they grew up. Generally, we find families in the office who have not validated their children’s emotional needs. Emotions are seen as unimportant expressions by the environment in which they lived.

A crippling family can do a lot of damage to a person’s self-esteem as it is shaped in childhood. If parents ignore the child’s needs or respond with criticism, the child will grow up feeling rejected and misunderstood. A very critical environment turns children into frustrated, angry, sad and fearful people.

For example, if the child cries and, instead of trying to find out what is wrong, he is told that he is a crybaby and that he should stop crying, he learns that it is not good for him to show his emotions and to express them. “takes a scolding”. The child also learns to express their emotions in an extreme way: it inhibits them or completely disinhibits them. As it grows, this dysfunctional expression becomes more pronounced.

How do people with BPD react to their emotions?

Extreme emotional intensity and sensitivity

People with borderline personality disorder are very sensitive to external experiences because they are afraid of abandonment. Therefore, they respond with great intensity to any emotion, be it anger or joy. They suffer from emotional instability that is difficult to control. For example, they often experience episodes of intense anxiety and frustration that they project onto other people through disrespectful behavior.

difficulty to calm down

Returning to calm, after the intensity with which they experience emotions, is not easy. People with BPD can be very impulsive and find it difficult to modulate their emotions in the face of something that upsets them. So much so that, on many occasions, they involuntarily delegate control of their actions to their own emotions.

Furthermore, these people have opinions that are reckless, radical and very fickle. Instability, in this sense, also harms the circle of social support they have. They usually have few friends and the people who stick with them are the ones who understand that many of their impulsive behaviors are a consequence of their illness.

Emptiness and deep sadness

The feeling of emptiness is a very common feeling among people who suffer from borderline personality disorder. Nothing is enough to fill this great non-specific void and this causes a sadness that, many times, they cannot explain or express. In this way, in their emotional backpack they carry a melancholy that they don’t know how to deal with.

Restrained anger and self-harm

They have a hard time controlling their anger. Therefore, they either explode out of control, or they inhibit anger until they become self-aggressive. Self-harm is a way of expressing anger that you don’t know how to express otherwise.

In these cases, it is important that they learn to control their anger by consciously choosing how to use the energy that accompanies the emotion. Expressing anger through excessive impulse can have serious consequences that you may later regret.

How to control emotions in borderline personality disorders?

The first step is to learn to accept and understand your emotions as they present themselves. Identify and accept the emotions that exist on your horizon before they flood you, without denying reality. In this sense, it will be important for them to learn to tolerate their emotional suffering with emotional control strategies.

One of the therapies that has shown good results is the TDC (Behavioral Dialectic Therapy) by Marsha Linehan. This therapy is based on teaching social and motivational skills to reduce impulsive behavior and suicidal ideas, so that they can see the world as a place where there is also space for them.

Developing the emotional skills of people with borderline personality disorder will be a very important aspect of improving their social and personal adaptation. Individual therapy, therapeutic groups and the tasks they can perform at home will be essential, as long as they are guided and supervised by a specialist.