Symptoms

These are the symptoms that I can relate to as someone (non BPD) who have lived with a BPD person .

• Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. This is very clear later in the relationship when things got desperate. She will promise that she will change when I say I can't take it anymore.
• A pattern of unstable and intense characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation. This is the splitting part that really gets to me. If I am supportive, I am the best person in the world. If I say anything remotely negative, I am the DEVIL! BPD people are extremely sensitive. No matter how you try to explain and cushion your criticism, they will only hear the negative bit.
  
• Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self. To me this means she has low self esteem and she will behave differently depending on the social situation. If she is with children, she is condifent. If she is with her peers, she is "normal". If she is with people who are considered her superiors, she will be nervous and anxious.
• Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., promiscuous sex, eating disorders, substance abuse, reckless driving). The only thing I can relate to here is her decision making area. If she wants something, she has to get it.
  
• Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, threats or self-injuring behavior such as cutting, interfering with the healing of scars (excoriation) or picking at oneself. Only recently I've noticed that she picks on mosquito bites and skin rashes.
• Extreme mood swings. Can come and go in minutes.
• Chronic feelings of emptiness, worthlessness.
• Inappropriate anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights). This is the worst part of BPD, especially now that we have children. It is like being in a war zone sometimes.
• Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation, delusions or severe dissociative symptoms. Her reality is like an alternate world. It just doesn't make sense to me but seems perfectly logical to her.
  

There are more symptons that I will look at later.