Are you always extremely sensitive to things? Do you sometimes feel different from others and alone? Are you left battling severely with your inner self for a place of identity? Do these feelings sometimes push you into dealing with hard drugs and the like in a bid to make you feel better?
If in any way these questions above describe your situation, then it might be a sign you grew up with ‘quiet borderline personality disorder.
Quiet Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a highly stigmatized and misunderstood mental illness because of its complexity. It affects mostly young people, but the symptoms come into play in their teenage or adult lives, hence its name, ‘quiet borderline personality disorder.
When it starts manifesting, most times the early signs are mistaken for bad behavior or juvenile delinquency, whereas in reality, there is an underlying condition that brought about those actions, even though the victim is battling it.
Matthew Gemma Karamozov shared this in his book, “When You Don’t Fit the ‘Classic’ Definition of Borderline Personality Disorder.”
“Quiet” BPD is acting in rather than acting out, internalizing all the emotions they feel. The fears of abandonment, mood swings, anxiety, self-injurious behaviors, impulsiveness, and even suicidal tendencies and black and white thinking (splitting) are all part of being a quiet borderline. But those emotions typically act against ourselves.”
The impulsiveness, recklessness, self-harming behaviors, and trouble maintaining healthy relationships are not basically your fault. These are signs you grew up with a ‘quiet borderline personality. Understanding your personality and deciphering ways to help or manage your condition is key to your freedom from this disorder. If you’re still confused as to the signs you grew up with quiet borderline personality disorder, we’re here to guide you through and ensure you thrive no matter the situation.
Read on for 18 Signs you grew up with ‘quiet borderline personality disorder.
18 Signs You Grew Up With Quiet Borderline Personality Disorder
1. Beating oneself up over failures
Encountering failures or disappointments in the course of life’s activities is something that is bound to happen always, not once or twice. It is a part of one’s success story and, as such, should be handled with positivity. No story, no glory Beating yourself up over failure can be a sign you grew up with ‘quiet borderline personality disorder.
This could be in the form of physically punishing yourself, excessively criticizing oneself, or feeling less of yourself when faced with setbacks or disappointment. It involves engaging in negative self-talk, dwelling on mistakes, and holding oneself to unrealistic standards of perfection.
While it is only natural for one to feel disappointed or frustrated when things don’t go as planned, continually berating Oneself over this can cause a downturn in one’s health. If you discover you excessively blame or beat yourself up over failures, then it’s one of the obvious 18 signs you grew up with ‘quiet borderline personality disorder.
2. Having high emotional swings
Experiencing emotional swings in response to people’s actions or statements can be normal to an extent, but they become too high when they are triggered by every surrounding human activity. When one is being too sensitive to every side talk, always too emotional, and ready to swing into action at any given time, it only goes to show that the person has personal issues.
Emotional swings could be linked to underlying mental conditions or past experiences that have shaped one’s emotional reactivity to things. Please note that experiencing emotional swings itself is not the major problem; rather, internalizing them and portraying amplified emotional responses is.
If, as an individual, you experience such heightened emotional swings, then it’s one of the 18 clear signs you grew up with borderline personality disorder. However, learning how to manage it properly and subdue your actions into conscious reactions is the key to overcoming this.
3. Crazy obsessions
We all have our obsessions. For some, it may be a certain celebrity; for others, it may be food or music. We love these people and things and don’t stop talking about them in our everyday lives. We love to meet and greet them at every occasion we find out they’re attending.
However, there’s a thin line between having an obsession with someone and being crazily obsessed over someone or something. If you find yourself so crazily obsessed over anything or anyone that you can’t seem to breathe well without them, then it could be a sign that you grew up with quiet borderline personality disorder.
4. People pleasing
When you live your life in a people-pleasing manner to avoid having conflicts with people, it is a clear sign you grew up with quiet borderline personality disorder. Avoiding having conflicts with people is a good habit, but pleasing people, even when you’re hurt in the process, shouldn’t be practiced at all. Your emotions matter a lot, and you should seek to protect them too.
5. Feeling of abandonment
Another clear sign you grew up with quiet borderline personality disorder is always having an intense sense of abandonment. Never feeling at home, relocating every now and then, and constantly feeling like they don’t fit in anywhere. They tend to adopt frequent relocations as a coping mechanism to escape the underlying emotional turmoil.
Relationships may also be affected, as they easily get bored when relating with others, causing them to push people away unintentionally. This can happen because they tend to be overly honest, revealing their vulnerability and fearing rejection as a result.
Alternatively, their boredom might be a defense mechanism to avoid getting too attached as they anticipate future abandonment.
6. Compulsive lying
A patient suffering from quiet borderline personality disorder, Marisa C, shared her experience so far, thus:
“Compulsive lying has been a pervasive part of my life, and it wasn’t until approximately a year ago that I came to understand its connection to BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder). Looking back, I recall how the lies began as innocuous, small fabrications during my younger years, only to escalate into more significant deceptions over time.
The realization of this pattern was a startling and eye-opening moment for me. As I’ve grown more self-aware, I’ve managed to gain better control over this tendency, but it hasn’t been an easy journey.
Coming to terms with my compulsive lying has been both humbling and challenging. However, it has allowed me to delve into the underlying emotional struggles that fuel this behavior. Now, I’m committed to addressing this aspect of myself in therapy and learning healthier ways to cope with my emotions and build more authentic connections with others.
The journey toward self-improvement continues, and I am hopeful that with dedication and support, I can overcome this aspect of myself and foster a more truthful and genuine life”.
7. Odd desire to always share feelings
Growing up with a quiet borderline personality disorder can lead to an overwhelming desire to share one’s deepest emotions and struggles with others. Most times, the need to disclose everything they feel and experience becomes almost compulsive.
They may hope that by opening up about their deep, dark emotional stories,” they will find understanding, empathy, and a connection with others. However, this intense emotional disclosure can have unintended consequences, as many people might find it off-putting.
8. No sense of belonging
Here’s what a patient with quiet BPD shared: “Always wanting to either fit in or totally not fit in. Never feeling like I belonged anywhere. No sense of self.
One minute I’d be into one activity, person, idea, or religion, and then, out of the blue, I’d lose all interest. I’d seek approval and happiness in relationships and do whatever I could to avoid myself and my feelings.” Nicole K.
This sign is a classic one because the patient can’t even make up their mind on what they stand for or believe in. Their intense mood shifts and splitting perspectives are responsible for their inability to stay consistent. They end up not being able to build and maintain relationships because they have a hard time fitting in.
9. Fear of showing emotions
Growing up with a quiet Borderline Personality, you’re more vulnerable to emotions than others, and this may likely stem from being in an environment where your feelings are ignored, so you never know how to act or handle your emotions, so you suppress them.
Here’s a clear perspective on that from Lucy L.
“Being submissive and holding it together when I’d feel emotional for totally legitimate reasons, just because I got the message that being emotional in front of others was unacceptable,”
10. Self loathing
Patients with quiet Borderline Personality Disorder experience self-loathing and intense shame. They feel sorry for things they didn’t do wrong and, by extension, apologize for things that weren’t even their fault because they don’t want anyone to get angry with them. Most times, they end up feeling regretful and stupid for trying to put other people’s feelings over their own.
Here’s the experience of a quiet BPD patient on self-loathing. “It was the realization that I said sorry all the time and still do. I apologize for everything and am always regretful, even if it’s not my fault. I think it was because I never wanted anyone to be upset with me or see me as a bad person.
The irony is that I saw myself as a horrible and bad person that no one would stay with.” Suraya M.
11. Fear of intimacy and obsessive emotional attachment
On the one hand, a BPD patient may fear emotional intimacy because of the fear of abandonment.
Here’s an example from what Steve B shared: “Breaking up good relationships because it was on my terms and also because of trust issues break up before they break up with me.”
Yet on the other hand, because of their low self-esteem, they become obsessed with attachment and feel the need for validation to feel good about themselves.
Here’s Kirsten A’s perspective:
“Attachment issues. My whole self-worth would be tightly knitted to everyone around me. My anxiety. I would watch out the window for hours for friends to come over and be seriously anxious.”
12. Splitting perspectives
This is one of the loudest signs of borderline personality disorder. Normally we have opinions about people and things, but with a quiet BPD patient, there is at first a likeness for a particular thing, and they ignore red flags and glaring mistakes.
However, their perspective can shift in an instant from liking a person or thing to suddenly growing to dislike it. This intense shift is caused by any kind of trigger—maybe a little emotion here or a very small mistake they notice—and that’s the end of them putting you on a high pedestal.
In an interview, a patient, Salmontha C., admitted that it felt like being split because, “I used to always, as a child, go from idolizing someone to thinking they were sent straight from hell.”
13. You avoid conflict and anger
If you’re always afraid of conflict or offending someone, so you cross-check yourself and your actions every time, that’s a clear sign you grew up with a quiet borderline personality disorder.
Steff F., in his experience, says that “Over-rationalizing my emotions makes me put up with what people put me through because I’ve learned that standing up for myself and my feelings backfires in the worst ways.”
14. The urge to control
Whenever things don’t go according to plan, you feel disconnected and thrown off balance. When pleasant things happen, you always feel suspicious because you can’t handle the situation switching from something pleasant to something unpleasant.
You become very uncomfortable with situations that don’t have guidelines because you won’t feel in control because you can’t bear to just do as you like. This makes you dislike spontaneity, and any task that was unplanned before being carried out makes you feel like a failure.
15. Self detachment
Arybella H. shared her thoughts on how quiet BPD made her feel dissociated from herself.
“Dissociative symptoms from a young age—not feeling like ‘me,’ and looking in the mirror and not always recognizing myself.”
A person with quiet Borderline Personality Disorder will frequently feel disconnected from themselves, as if they’re watching their lives play out in front of them and cannot do anything about it because they feel like a third party and an intruder in their own lives.
16. Fear of loneliness yet enjoy seclusion
This is a mixed sign of a quiet Borderline Personality. They’re scared of being lonely, so they do all they can to keep people around them by trying to please everyone. However, if such tactics go futile, they’ll switch to having nothing to do with such a person and stay secluded.
This is clear with an example from Rachel W.
“I was doing anything I could to make people not leave me. Of course they did, but even when they did, I would do what I could to get them back or just completely cut myself off from everyone. There was no in-between.”
17. You are hypersensitive
When your buttons are pushed, either intentionally or mistakenly, you easily feel ashamed or angry, but you won’t want to act because you feel everyone’s watching. It feels like constantly walking on eggshells around everybody, even when no one’s watching.
Melissa F. shares her experience.
“I was so scared to do something wrong. I avoided pushing boundaries, and everyone would always comment on what an ‘angel’ I was. I would never do anything that would make anyone mad at me.”
18. Self-sabotage and self-harming
Their inability to love themselves may migrate to something else—self-harm. Studies have roughly estimated that three-fourths of patients with quiet Borderline personalities have inflicted harm on themselves.
This may go from cutting, burning, and scratching oneself to thoughts of suicide, though they may not carry it out as they only want to feel pain as a reaction to keeping it all in. Since they don’t have an outlet to explode physically, they resort to self-harm.
Okay, so these are the 18 signs that you grew up with borderline personality disorder.
Due to the very nature of Quiet BPD, it can be very difficult to tell who might be suffering from it. Most psychologists misdiagnose because the symptoms are similar to those of other forms of personality disorder.
Quiet Borderline Personality has affected all kinds of people from all walks of life, and since most of them don’t know what’s wrong, they find it hard to move past it.
This article has broken down these few signs, so I hope you can come to terms with these symptoms and seek help where necessary.
