 Mental illness awareness has been high in 2017, as people open up about their personal battles. There has been so much progress, but we still have a far way to go. There's still a stigma surrounding different types of illnesses, and a long way to go in understanding them. Out of all the mental illnesses, personality disorders are the least talked about. Most people think of those who suffer from a personality disorder as crazy or dangerous. Today, we will be shedding light on one personality disorder in particular. BPD, or Borderline Personality Disorder, is a personality disorder marked by unstable and inconsistent moods, behavior, and functioning. This often results in unstable relationships, impulsivity, anger, depression, and anxiety. BPD is a personality disorder where you feel as though you lack control, creating frustration. It is thought to be triggered by a traumatic event in early childhood, though there is no direct correlation. Researchers believe that those with BPD, due to the possible traumatic event, experience different structural changes in the part of the brain that controls emotions and impulses. However, it should be noted that this shows up in people who do not have BPD, which makes BPD even more mysterious and unknown. BPD can be hard to detect, as it so often overlaps with other mental illnesses. One might talk about depression, but not talk about or be aware of their other symptoms. This results in one being wrongfully diagnosed with depression, and not BPD. The list of symptoms of BPD includes frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment, a pattern of intense and unstable relationships with family, friends, and loved ones, often swinging from extreme closeness and love or idealization, to extreme dislike or anger or devaluation, distorted and unstable self-image or sense of self, impulsive and often dangerous behaviors such as spending sprees, unsafe sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, and binge eating, reoccurring suicidal behaviors or threats or self-harming behavior, intense and highly changeable moods, chronic feelings of emptiness, inappropriate and intense anger or problems controlling anger, stress-related paranoid thoughts, severe dissociative symptoms such as feeling cut off from oneself, observing oneself from outside the body or losing touch with reality. Interpersonal relationships are quite difficult, but DBT, or Dialectical Behavior Therapy, can offer skills to not only cope with, but successfully live with, BPD. Since its creation, DBT has been used to help not only BPD, but other mental illnesses as well. Borderline Personality Disorder is a personality disorder not much spoken about, as many are afraid of it, but it is important to remember that those with BPD are still people and deserve to be heard and loved. Remember to subscribe for more facts on personality disorders. Thank you for watching Psych2Go!