The month of may is known to bring awareness to many mental health disorders — one being borderline personality disorder, known as BPD.
Between 1.4% and 2.7% of the world’s population is affected by BPD. It tends to affect more women than men on a ratio of 3:1 and is most likely seen to develop in early adulthood, but that is not the only time it can develop. For many students in high school who are going through several changes in life and just the day-to-day of being a teenager, it feels as if you never quite know how you’re feeling. While all of these emotions get tossed aside as a symptom of being a teenager, some studies suggest 0.9% to 3% of the adolescent population is affected by BPD.
What exactly is BPD? Borderline personality disorder is a diagnosis that is characterized by unstable relationships, moods, and behaviors. The reason why this is so hard to diagnose in adolescence is because a lot of it is disregarded as simply being teenage mood swings or going through different phases. Personality is seen to develop at adulthood, so it’s harder to pinpoint in teens if BPD is the cause behind this effect on personality.
The symptoms of borderline personality disorder can also very likely overlap with other underlying mental issues and disorders such as bipolar disorder, depression, generalized anxiety disorder, and many others. It’s also very common for a person who has BPD to be at great risk of also developing these disorders on top of what they already have.
The importance of this month is to help educate people on how borderline personality disorder affects the people who have it and how those people affect the people around them. It’s to raise awareness that if an individual or someone around them seems to be really struggling with their emotions and is exhibiting symptoms of BPD, or any other mental disorder, they can seek out professional help.
This month also helps to take down the stigma of what a person who has BPD has to deal with in society. A lot of people who have this disorder face a lot of judgment from other people in their lives. People can tend to distance themselves out of fear that they are too unstable or will blame them for their condition or even see the condition as an excuse for actions they do. A lot of people who have BPD find it hard to form these close relationships with others.
What May signifies for people who have BPD is that there needs to be more awareness so people can understand how to be there for them or how to form close relationships without the stigma that comes with being close to someone with this disorder. However, one of the most important things that May does is it shows us that there is really a lack of help and outreach that people with BPD deal with.
There can be limitations in what mental health professionals know about this disorder or the push to take medication even if the patient wants to look at other options. There needs to be more support and more research in order to truly understand and support others with this disorder, so the month of May is an incredibly important month to bring awareness to borderline personality disorder.
