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- Hey, everybody.
My name is Kati Morton,
and I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist.
And today we're gonna talk about
the four types of borderline personality disorder.
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So let's jump into those four types.
A member of our community recently asked me
my thoughts on these four types of BPD.
And to be honest, I hadn't heard of these before,
and I didn't know that there were more than one type of BPD.
But I did some research,
and I found out that there was a book written in 1995
by Theodore Millon.
I assume I'm saying that right; probably not.
Called "Disorders of Personality DSM-IV and Beyond."
And in this book, he identifies four types
of borderline personality disorder, or BPD.
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Now, I'm gonna be referencing my notes
so that I don't forget,
but the first type of BPD that he talks about
is called discouraged.
Now, people who are discouraged
have this intense fear of abandonment,
which we know is part of the diagnosis of BPD.
And if you want to go through
the entire diagnostic criteria,
I will link my video about BPD in the description
and that can help walk you through.
This intense fear of abandonment can be real or imagined,
which I always think is a really important thing
to think about.
It doesn't have to be happening.
It could be something that we think might happen.
Also, people with the discouraged type of BPD
can be clingy and more people-pleasing,
meaning that we're gonna do things
to make other people happy,
often over our own happiness.
We can also go along with whatever's happening,
even if we don't agree or it feels like it might be wrong.
We'll just go along,
again because we can be people-pleasing
and we want other people to be happy
because we don't want them to leave us.
And kind of as a result of all of these symptoms,
we can find ourselves codependent or enmeshed.
Now, being codependent means that we have an excessive
psychological or emotional reliance on someone,
meaning that their mood or experience can affect us,
so we don't really have like this secure sense of self.
Now moving on to enmeshment,
enmeshment is when we don't have any boundaries;
therefore, it's not me thinking about things, it's us.
And I can struggle to be independent,
make decisions on my own.
All the time, I'm thinking of this other person, right,
of the us, and making decisions for us as a unit.
Those of us with this discouraged type
can also struggle with self-worth,
and we can feel empty a lot
and struggle to really know who we truly are.
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And I think we can all understand
that if we're enmeshed or codependent,
it can be really difficult for us
to think of ourselves on our own
and figure out who we really are
when we're relying on other people
or busy people-pleasing and doing all these things,
almost like keeping all these plates spinning,
so that we're not abandoned.
And this is the type of BPD
where I think the quote/unquote quiet borderline would fall.
And if you don't know what I mean by quiet borderline,
it's when instead of our borderline traits,
like impulsivity or emotional reactivity,
instead of them being outwardly expressed
towards other people, affecting our relationships,
we turn all of those feelings and emotions inward,
and we can have things
like suicide attempts or suicidal thoughts,
self-injury, intense depressive episodes,
and things like that.
Let's move on to the second type of BPD,
and that is called impulsive.
And you can already kind of see where this is going, right?
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Someone with this type would do things
without giving it much thought.
This can lead to us spending a lot of money.
We could struggle with gambling, binge eating.
We can be involved in sexually dangerous behavior,
meaning like sleeping with people we don't know,
unprotected sex, having multiple sexual partners at once.
And I'm not saying there's anything wrong
with exploring your sexuality.
This is just done as a symptom of our BPD
without giving it any thought at all.
These impulsive behaviors that we take part in
are really risky.
I think that's the key there.
It's not that we're just acting on impulse
and not giving it much thought,
it's also that these things could be dangerous, right?
We could spend all of our savings
and not be able to pay our rent,
or we could get an STD
from having unprotected sex with someone.
There's some risk involved in these impulsive behaviors.
And people with this type
also tend to be incredibly outgoing and charismatic,
which I don't think we often consider
when it comes to a diagnosis of BPD.
But if we think about it,
if we're really impulsive and living in that kind of space
of excitement and reactivity,
that can make us really fun to be around.
We've all had that friend, right,
that's like a walking party just in and of themselves.
They get you excited.
They're always up for something.
That would be this type of person.
This type can also be really, really high energy.
They can get bored easily,
again kind of leaning into
that charismatic, exciting part, right?
We're always wanting to change things up.
We can be really impulsive, which can cause us to,
if we're not feeling happy and good, we can start fights.
We can get really angry and lash out
and even sometimes harm other people.
We can be kind of dangerous because if we think about it,
the impulsivity factor, that lack of critical thought
or making a decision on something, just doing it,
can be good or bad depending on how we're feeling.
The third type of BPD is self-destructive.
And this means we can sabotage our own career
and goals and path or our relationships.
And this may be something that we're aware of,
but most likely we're not.
And this self-destructive type can come out
of kind of our self-loathing,
our suicidal thoughts and behaviors, our self-injury,
our feelings of emptiness, and our lack of self-worth.
You can see how all of that,
kind of what I'd call the ick of BPD,
can lead us to act in self-destructive ways.
Those of us in this self-destructive type
tend to focus on more demeaning or long-term hurtful things,
like doing illicit drugs,
engaging in risky sexual behaviors,
picking a fight with our boss, right?
That can all lead down the line
to more harmful and upsetting situations.
We can also find ourselves self-injuring a lot,
kind of as a way to just feel something.
A lot of people in this self-destructive type
feel really numbed out,
almost completely disconnected
from themselves and their life,
and so we can act in certain ways
that may be harmful or hurtful
just as a way to kind of feel alive.
And because we're doing
all of these demeaning and destructive behaviors,
we can feel really bad about our life.
We can think that everything is just falling apart.
We can have a really pessimistic outlook on our life,
short-term and long-term.
And the fourth type of BPD is known as petulant.
And this is really, I feel like,
the type that encompasses the mood dysregulation
that we can experience when we have BPD.
That means that we can feel excited and happy one minute
and bitter and rage-filled the next.
And these mood shifts can last
for seconds or sometimes days,
and for many even weeks.
We can even show inappropriate and intense anger
and find ourselves lashing out at those we love.
This type would also be where splitting behavior happens.
And if you don't know what splitting behavior is,
it's believing people are all good or all bad.
Often when we struggle with BPD
and someone comes into our lives,
at the beginning we think they're perfect and amazing.
And we put them up on this pedestal.
"Look this person, they're so lovely to me.
I love them so much.
They're so perfect. Amazing."
It's almost like that love-bombing sensation.
We can get that at the beginning,
"(gasps) So amazing."
And then maybe they're not available one day,
or they do something that kind of hurts our feelings.
I always like to think of people with BPD
as emotional burn victims.
Any slight is incredibly painful,
and it's really hard for us to get over it.
And so when someone that we think is amazing and perfect
does something that is hurtful to us in some way,
then we immediately, because of our fear of abandonment,
wanna throw 'em out the door.
We're like you, "I can't trust you, you're horrible,
and you're all bad."
We go from all good to all bad, hence the term splitting.
And, this the petulant type,
is where splitting would occur the most often.
Those of us in this petulant type
can also complain a lot, right?
If we're having these mood swings
and feeling really dysregulated,
nothing's gonna feel good and we probably hate everything.
So we can be that kind of whiny type person.
And we can also be incredibly stubborn,
not wanting to give at all,
again because we feel so dysregulated.
And finally, we can feel torn
between wanting to be left alone
and wanting a lot of people around.
We can want people around
for their love and support and attention,
and all the things that we all need,
but then we're afraid if we let them in
that they're gonna hurt us.
And so we can't deal with that, that fear of abandonment.
And so we're like,
"Maybe I'd be better off if I was left alone."
And we can kind of find ourselves
doing this push/pull in relationships,
maybe making plans, canceling them,
wanting people around, not wanting them around,
enjoying our time alone,
feeling really suicidal and down because we're alone.
And again, it can be really uncomfortable.
Overall, I think these four types
don't need to be broken up like this.
I mean, that's just my opinion.
I think they're all kind of key components
of an entire diagnosis that is BPD.
And I'd love to hear from you,
any of you with this diagnosis or with traits,
did you feel like you hit more than one type?
Because I feel like all of my patients would've.
And not to mention, I felt like this author's description
or symptoms for each type
felt even more incredibly stigmatizing.
We all know that BPD is already something
that's stigmatized in the mental health space
and in our world online,
and I just felt like it perpetuated some of those things
that I don't believe to be true
and I don't like to see out there in the world.
And so I really think that overall,
BPD is a diagnosis
and each and every person
is going to experience it differently.
And that's okay.
And I made a note here that I don't wanna forget,
because with DBT, or dialectical behavior therapy,
we can better manage our symptoms of BPD.
Just trust me when I tell you it can and will get better.
But I made a little note
because I feel like each type listed here from this book
would apply to a different module within DBT.
If you didn't know, there's different modules in it.
For example, like if we're impulsive,
we may wanna focus on the emotion regulation component.
Or if we're discouraged or petulant,
we may wanna focus more on distress tolerance.
Although obviously all four modules of DBT
are gonna be beneficial,
but I just wanted put that out there
that if you felt like some of these symptoms
rang true for you,
and they were all in this one type,
you may wanna cater your DBT work to fit around that
because then you'll have more tools and techniques
that you can use to feel better today.
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