A good list of behaviors, most of which are common, which may help to better understand or improve awareness of what may be taking place.  The majority of these are behaviors that anybody may engage in, some are very unlikely unless the individual suffers from a personality disorder. Those with Borderline Personality Disorder are likely to engage in more of these than somebody without a personality disorder would. Somebody suffering from BPD is likely to engage in these more often than somebody without a personality disorder would. Somebody suffering from a personality disorder is likely to engage in these despite the behaviors being obviously to the individuals detriment. By her own admissions, “Alex”, the person who wrote this list, engages in all of these behaviors.

Recognizing and identifying these behaviors may help in dealing with the individual calmly and with compassion. These are not people who necessarily intend to do harm.

 

 

A more exhaustive list with explanations and recommendations is available on this blog and can be found here : Attribute List

 

 

Common Traits in a Borderline to Help you Identify Behaviors:

Alienation – Alienation means interfering or cutting a person off from relationships with others. This can be done by manipulating the attitudes and behaviors of the victim or of the people with whom they come in contact. The victim’s relationships with others may be sabotaged through verbal pressure, threats, diversions, distortion campaigns and systems of rewards and punishments.

“Always” & “Never” Statements – “Always” & “Never” Statements are declarations containing the words “always” or “never”. They are commonly used but rarely true.

Anger – People who suffer from personality disorders often feel a sense of unresolved anger and a heightened or exaggerated perception that they have been wronged, invalidated, neglected or abused.

Baiting and Picking Fights – Baiting and Picking Fights is the practice of generating a provocative action or statement for the purpose of obtaining an angry, aggressive or emotional response from another person.

Blaming – Blaming is the practice of identifying a person or people responsible for creating a problem, rather than identifying ways of dealing with the problem.

Bullying – Bullying is any systematic action of hurting a person from a position of relative physical, social, economic or emotional strength.

Catastrophizing – Catastrophizing is the habit of automatically assuming a “worst case scenario” and inappropriately characterizing minor or moderate problems or issues as catastrophic events.

Chaos Manufacture – Chaos Manufacture is the practice of unnecessarily creating or maintaining an environment of risk, destruction, confusion or mess.

Cheating – Cheating is sharing a romantic or intimate relationship with somebody when you are already committed to a monogamous relationship with someone else.

Circular Conversations – Circular Conversations are arguments which go on almost endlessly, repeating the same patterns with no real resolution.

Cognitive Dissonance – Cognitive Dissonance is a psychological term for the discomfort that most people feel when they encounter information which contradicts their existing set of beliefs or values. People who suffer from
personality disorders often experience cognitive dissonance when they are confronted with evidence that their actions have hurt others or have contradicted their stated morals.

“Control-Me” Syndrome – “Control-Me” Syndrome describes a tendency that some people have to foster relationships with people who have a controlling narcissistic, antisocial or “acting-out” nature.

Denial – Denial is the practice of believing or imagining that some painful or traumatic circumstance, event or memory does not exist or did not happen.

Dependency – Dependency is an inappropriate and chronic reliance by an adult individual on another individual for their health, subsistence, decision making or personal and emotional well-being.

Depression – When you feel sadder than you think you should, for longer than you think you should – but still can’t seem to break out of it – that’s depression. People who suffer from personality disorders are often also diagnosed with depression resulting from mistreatment at the hands of others, low self-worth and the results of their own poor choices.

Dissociation – Dissociation is a psychological term used to describe a mental departure from reality.

Divide and Conquer – Divide and Conquer is a method of gaining an advantage over perceived rivals by manipulating them into conflicts with each other.

Domestic Theft – Domestic theft is consuming or taking control of a resource or asset belonging to (or shared with) a family member, partner or spouse without first obtaining their approval.

Emotional Blackmail – Emotional Blackmail describes the use of a system of threats and punishments on a person by someone close to them in an attempt to control their behaviors.

Engulfment – Engulfment is an unhealthy and overwhelming level of attention and dependency on a family member or partner, which comes from imagining or believing that one exists only within the context of that relationship.

Entitlement – Entitlement or a ‘Sense of Entitlement’ is an unrealistic, unmerited or inappropriate expectation of favorable living conditions and favorable treatment at the hands of others.

False Accusations – False accusations, distortion campaigns & smear campaigns are patterns of unwarranted or exaggerated criticisms which occur when a personality disordered individual tries to feel better about themselves by putting down someone else – usually a family member, spouse, partner, friend or colleague.

Favoritism – Favoritism is the practice of systematically giving positive, preferential treatment to one child, subordinate or associate among a group of peers.

Fear of Abandonment – Fear of abandonment is a pattern of irrational thought exhibited by some personality-disordered individuals, which causes them to occasionally think that they are in imminent danger of being rejected, discarded or replaced by someone close to them.

Frivolous Litigation and Frivolous Lawsuits – Frivolous Litigation and Frivolous Lawsuits are methods of withholding support, harassing or prolonging conflict by bringing unsubstantiated accusations, meritless appeals or diversionary process into a relationship or a former relationship using the court system as a proxy.

Gaslighting – Gaslighting is the practice of systematically convincing an individual that their understanding of reality is mistaken or false. The term “Gaslighting” is taken from the 1944 MGM movie “Gaslight”.

Harassment – Harassment is any sustained or chronic pattern of unwelcome behavior from one individual to another.

High and Low-Functioning – A High-Functioning Personality-Disordered Individual is one who is able to conceal their dysfunctional behavior in certain public settings and maintain a positive public or professional profile while exposing their negative traits to family members behind closed doors. A Low-Functioning Personality-Disordered Individual is one who is unable to conceal their dysfunctional behavior from public view or maintain a positive
public or professional profile.

Hoovers & Hoovering – A Hoover is a metaphor, taken from the popular brand of vacuum cleaners, to describe how an abuse victim, trying to assert their own rights by leaving or limiting contact in a dysfunctional relationship gets “sucked back in” when the perpetrator temporarily exhibits improved or desirable behavior.

Hysteria – Hysteria is inappropriate over-reaction to bad news or disappointments, which diverts attention away from the problem and towards the person who is having the reaction.

Identity Disturbance – Identity disturbance is a psychological term used to describe a distorted or inconsistent self-view.

Impulsiveness and Impulsivity – Impulsiveness – or Impulsivity – is the tendency to act or speak based on current feelings rather than logical reasoning.

Infantilization – Infantilization is the practice of treating a child as if they are much younger than their actual age.

Invalidation – Invalidation is the creation or promotion of an environment which encourages an individual to believe that their thoughts, beliefs, values or physical presence are inferior, flawed, problematic or worthless.

Lack of Object Constancy – A lack of object constancy is a symptom of some personality disorders. Lack of object constancy is the inability to remember that people or objects are consistent, trustworthy and reliable, especially when they are out of your immediate field of vision. Object constancy is a developmental skill which most children do not develop until 2 or 3 years of age.

Learned Helplessness – Learned helplessness is when a person begins to believe that they have no control over a situation, even when they do.

Moments of Clarity – Moments of Clarity are spontaneous, temporary periods when a person with a personality disorder is able to see beyond their own world view and can, for a brief period, understand, acknowledge, articulate and begin to make amends for their dysfunctional behavior.

Mood Swings – Mood swings are unpredictable, rapid, dramatic emotional cycles which cannot be readily explained by changes in external circumstances.

Neglect – Neglect is a passive form of abuse in which the physical or emotional needs of a dependent are disregarded or ignored by the person responsible for them.

Normalizing – Normalizing is a tactic used to desensitize an individual to abusive, coercive or inappropriate behaviors. In essence, normalizing is the manipulation of another human being to get them to agree to, or accept something that is in conflict with the law, social norms or their own basic code of behavior.

No-Win Scenarios – No-Win Scenarios and Lose-Lose Scenarios are situations commonly created by people who suffer from personality disorders where they present two bad options to someone close to them and pressure them into choosing between the two. This usually leaves the non-personality-disordered person with a “damned if you do and damned if you don’t” feeling.

Panic Attacks – Panic Attacks are short intense episodes of fear or anxiety, often accompanied by physical symptoms, such as hyperventilating, shaking, sweating and chills.

Parentification – Parentification is a form of role reversal, in which a child of a personality-disordered parent is inappropriately given the role of meeting the emotional or physical needs of the parent or of the other children.

Passive-Aggressive Behavior – Passive Aggressive behavior is the expression of negative feelings, resentment, and aggression in an unassertive, passive way (such as through procrastination and stubbornness).

Pathological Lying – Pathological lying is persistent deception to serve one’s own interests with little or no regard to the needs and concerns of others. A pathological liar is a person who habitually lies to serve their own needs.

Projection – Projection is the act of attributing one’s own feelings or traits onto another person and imagining or believing that the other person has those same feelings or traits.

Proxy Recruitment – Proxy Recruitment is a way of controlling or abusing another person by manipulating other people into unwittingly backing you up, speaking for you or “doing your dirty work” for you.

Push-Pull – Push-Pull, is a chronic pattern of sabotaging and re-establishing closeness in a primary relationship without appropriate (or apparent) cause or reason.

Raging, Violence and Impulsive Aggression – Raging, Violence and Uncontrolled Impulsive Aggression are explosive verbal, physical or emotional elevations of a dispute that are disproportionate to the situation at hand.

Sabotage – Sabotage is the spontaneous disruption of calm or status quo in order to serve a personal interest, provoke a conflict or draw attention.

Scapegoating – Scapegoating is the practice of singling out one child, employee or member of a group of peers for unmerited negative treatment or blame.

Selective Competence – Selective Competence is the practice of demonstrating different levels of intelligence, resourcefulness, strength or competence depending on the situation or environment.

Selective Memory and Selective Amnesia – Selective Memory and Selective Amnesia is the use of memory, or a lack of memory, which is selective to the point of reinforcing a bias, belief or desired outcome.

Self-Harm – Self Harm, also known as self-mutilation, self-injury or self-abuse is any form of deliberate, premeditated injury inflicted on oneself, common among adolescents and among people who suffer from Borderline Personality Disorder. Most common forms are cutting and poisoning/overdosing.

Self-Loathing – Self-Loathing is an extreme self-hatred of one’s own self, actions or one’s ethnic or demographic background.

Self-Victimization – Self-Victimization or “playing the victim” is the act of casting oneself as a victim in order to control others by soliciting a sympathetic response from them or diverting their attention away from abusive behavior.

Shaming – The difference between blaming and shaming is that in blaming someone tells you that you did something bad, in shaming someone tells you that you are something bad.

Situational Ethics – Situational Ethics is a philosophy which promotes the idea that, when dealing with a crisis, the end justifies the means and that a rigid interpretation of rules and laws can be temporarily set aside if a greater good or lesser evil is served by doing so. However, situational ethics can be dangerous when combined with the distorted, crisis-prone thinking of those who suffer from personality disorders.

Splitting – Splitting is a psychological term used to describe the practice of thinking about people and situations in extremes and regarding them as completely “good” or “bad”.

Thought Policing – Thought Policing is any process of trying to question, control, or unduly influence another person’s thoughts or feelings.

Threats – Threats are written or verbal warnings of intentional, inappropriate, destructive actions or consequences.

Triggering -Triggers are small, insignificant or minor actions, statements or events that produce a dramatic or inappropriate response.

Tunnel Vision – Tunnel Vision is the habit or tendency to only see or focus on a single priority while neglecting or ignoring other important priorities.