Criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder

A pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, andmarked impulsivity beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicatedby five (or more) of the following:

1. frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. Note: Do not include suicidal orself-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5.

2. a pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternatingbetween extremes of idealization and devaluation

3. identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self

4. impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex,substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating). Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilatingbehavior covered in Criterion 5.

5. recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior

6. affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria,irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days)

7. chronic feelings of emptiness

8. inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper,constant anger, recurrent physical fights)

9. transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms


Diagnostic Features

The essential feature of Borderline Personality Disorder is a pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity that begins by early adulthood and is present in a variety of contexts. Individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder make frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment (Criterion 1). The perception of impending separation or rejection, or the loss of external structure, can lead to profound changes in self-image, affect, cognition, and behavior. These individuals are very sensitive to environmental circumstances. They experience intense abandonment fears and inappropriate anger even when faced with a realistic time-limited separation or when there are unavoidable changes in plans (e.g. sudden despair in reaction to a clinician’s announcing the end of the hour; panic of fury when someone important to them is just a few minutes late or must cancel an appointment). They may believe that this "abandonment" implies they are "bad." These abandonment fears are related to an intolerance of being alone and a need to have other people with them. Their frantic efforts to avoid abandonment may include impulsive actions such as self-mutilating or suicidal behaviors, which are described separately in Criterion 5.

Individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder have a pattern of unstable and intense relationships (Criterion 2). They may idealize potential caregivers or lovers at the first or second meeting, demand to spend a lot of time together, and share the most intimate details early in a relationship. However, they may switch quickly from idealizing other people to devaluing them, feeling that the other person does not care enough, does not give enough, is not "there" enough. These individuals can empathize with and nurture other people, but only with the expectation that the other person will "be there" in return to meet their own needs on demand. These individuals are prone to sudden and dramatic shifts in their view of others, who may alternately be seen as beneficent supportsor as cruelly punitive. Suck shifts often reflect disillusionment with a caregiver who nurturing qualities had been idealized or whose rejection or abandonment is expected. There may be an identity disturbance characterized by markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self (Criterion 3).

There are sudden and dramatic shifts in self-image, characterized by shifting goals, values, and vocational aspirations. There may be sudden changes in opinions and plans about career, sexual identity, values, and types of friends. These individuals may suddenly change from the role of a needy supplicant for help to a righteous avenger of past mistreatment. Although they usually have a self-image that is based on being bad or evil, individuals with this disorder may at times have feelings that they do not exist at all. Such experiences usually occur in situations in which the individual feels a lack of meaningful relationship, nurturing and support. These individuals may show worse performance in unstructured work or school situations.


Individuals with this disorder display impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (Criterion 4). They may gamble, spend money irresponsibly, binge eat, abuse substances, engage in unsafe sex, or drive recklessly. Individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder display recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior (Criterion 5). Completed suicide occurs in 8%-10% of such individuals, and self-mutilative acts (e.g., cutting or burning) and suicide threats and attempts are very common. Recurrent suicidality is often the reason that these individuals present for help.

These self-destructive acts are usually precipitated by threats of separation or rejection or by expectations that they assume increased responsibility.Self-mutilation may occur during dissociative experiences and often brings relief by reaffirming the ability to feel or expiating the individual’s sense of being evil. Individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder may display affective instability that is due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days) (Criterion 6).

The basic dysphoric mood of those with Borderline Personality Disorder is often disrupted by periods of anger, panic, or despair and is rarely relieved by periods of well-being or satisfaction.These episodes may reflect the individual’s extreme reactivity troubled by chronic feelings of emptiness (Criterion 7). Easily bored, they may constantly seek something to do. Individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder frequently express inappropriate, intense anger or have difficulty controlling their anger (Criterion 8). They may display extreme sarcasm, enduring bitterness, or verbal outbursts. The anger is often elicited when a caregiver or lover is seen as neglectful, withholding, uncaring, or abandoning. Such expressions of anger are often followed by shame and guilt and contribute to the feeling they have of being evil.

During periods of extreme stress, transient paranoid ideation or dissociative symptoms (e.g., depersonalization) may occur (Criterion 9), but these are generally of insufficient severity or duration to warrant an additional diagnosis. These episodes occur most frequently in response to a real or imagined abandonment. Symptoms tend to be transient, lasting minutes or hours.The real or perceived return of the caregiver’s nurturance may result in a remission of symptoms.

Associated Features and Disorders Individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder may have a pattern of undermining themselves at the moment a goal is about to be realized (e.g., dropping out of school just before graduation; regressing severely after a discussion of how well therapy is going; destroying a good relationship just when it is clear that the relationship could last). Some individuals develop psychotic-like symptoms (e.g., hallucinations, body-image distortions, ideas of reference, and hypnagogic phenomena) during times of stress. Individuals with this disorder may feel more securewith transitional objects (i.e., a pet or inanimate possession) than in interpersonal relationships. Premature death from suicide may occur in individuals with this disorder, especially in those with co-occurring Mood Disorders or Substance-Related Disorders. Physical handicaps may result from self-inflicted abuse behaviors or failed suicide attempts. Recurrent job losses, interrupted education, and broken marriages are common. Physical and sexual abuse, neglect, hostile conflict, and early parental loss or separation are more common in the childhood histories of those with Borderline Personality Disorder. Common co-occurring Axis I disorders include Mood Disorders, Substance-Related Disorders, Eating Disorders (notably Bulimia), Posttramatic Stress Disorder, and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Borderline Personality Disorder also frequently co-occurs with the other Personality Disorders.


i need help.

Article 1:
Dumbass of the Week? Man Burned When He Uses Lighter to Check Fuel Tank - So, the dump truck you drive for the construction company has a faulty fuel gauge. How do you check to see how full your tank is? Look inside, right? What if it's dark down there? No flashlight, no problem! That's what police say Scott Allen, 38, did before accidentally lighting himself on fire last week. According to police, Allen suffered second-degree burns to his face, chest and right arm when he used his cigarette lighter to look into the tank, but the lighter ignited the fumes. Ssaid Det. Raymond Thomas of the Arson/Bomb Squad, "For whatever reason he couldn't find a flashlight so he used a cigarette lighter. The vapors caught fire and lit him on fire." (Newsday)


Article 2:
Sep 27, 3:52 PM EDT
Cuffed Man Jumps in River, Then Swims Back
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) -- A man arrested for allegedly breaking into a Cross Lanes store broke free from deputies and jumped into the Kanawha River, only to come back when he apparently realized he would not get far because his hands were handcuffed behind his back.
Deputies waited for him on the riverbank and took him into custody again, according to a criminal complaint filed by Kanawha County Sheriff's Deputy J.R. Powell.
David Douglas Griffy II, 23, of Cross Lanes was arrested around midnight Sunday. Police believe he smashed the Dollar General store window with a tire tool so another man could steal cold medicine used to make methamphetamine.
He was charged with breaking and entering and fleeing deputies, both felonies. He was being held in the South Central Regional Jail on Tuesday on a $45,000 bond.


Information from: The Charleston Gazette, http://www.wvgazette.com

i had an interesting nite on MSN tonight. an uncalled for argument with a good friend and a session with another friend who had just broken up with his girlfriend who apparently broke up because her parents don't think he's good enough for her, when in actual fact, she'd found someone else two weeks before. go figure. anyway, came up with some pretty good points. well i reckon..you know i'm pretty delusioned into thinking i'm so-called deep and profound..so just layan la ok ;)

1) the thing about guys that i don't get. guys are always going on about oh i'm gonna be rich and then all the girls will want me. but then when they actually do get girls, they start bitching about how they're all materialistic and shit. or she doesn't really love me, she just loves my money. oh suck it up loser. you get a good girl who isnt materialistic..somehow she's just not good enough for you right? just a thought.

lets just say i've had the "privilege" of going out with a few so-called high society boys (or so they'd like to think *rolls eyes*) and yeah at first they're all like oh you're so nice and unmaterialistic like some girls i know.

but lets face it..

high society boys like showing off

and if you have a high maintenance gf, all the more reason to show off right? "oh i had to spend this much on her bday present.."

"complaining" to make others go..oooh...he's got the luxury of spending that much dosh. so you see, the world isn't fair. but hey, what you gonna do about it right?

2) i know a lot of people dont get me, and i dont blame them either. but its exactly the reason why i'm not the most social of people (for most of the time anyway) and choose not to be concerned with keeping up with the joneses. it's a question of how you view the world, and i find a lot of people just dont have the capability of thinking outside the box. everyone's so self involved, it's sad really. not to mention the wealth of unoriginality - every other person the replica of the next. so apparently malaysia has the most amount of beautiful women per area based on some claim prolly made by some perve of a tourist sometime last year. so yeah pretty girls aplenty, but personality zilch? c'mon people, where's the sense of individuality? there's more to life than the next party, the next shopping spree and the color pink.

look. the purpose of this blog is not to offend, but it is, after all, what is is - a bitchin' blog in every sense of the word. angry at the world and screaming it out to make a difference, only to come up as more of a muffle than anything else.

do not take offense, and do not take me seriously.


..after all, why listen to a walking contradiction?


There is an alchemy in sorrow. It can be transmited into wisdom, which, if it does not bring joy, can yet bring happiness.

Pearl Buck (1892-1973)

it's been awhile, hasn't it? and boy have things changed since the last time i blogged back at xanga. new blog, new leaf? nah to be honest i just got tired of the old layout.

so how has turning 22 changed me? amazingly, i think it's safe to say that i've grown up tremendously in the past year. the non-existent relationship, the array of nonsensical boys that i've gone out with, the 4-month internship at OgilvyPR, the new friends i've made, the new hobby, the new outlook on life, the ability to feel comfortable with the person that i have become.

aiyo i sound so deep fried kan? :)

do i know what i want to do in life just yet? nope. my "life-long plans" and "ambitions" change faster than you can say chattanaoogachoochoo. but that's the exciting part isn't it? venturing into the unknown.

had this discussion with mom a few nights back. i was mentioning something along the lines of how PR didn't give me the self-satisfaction i'd expected. i mean i figure, you put so much effort into an event, often times multiple events at the same time, and i swear you work 25 hours a day, 8 times a week just to make sure everything runs smoothly right. so you'd think once your event finishes without major glitches, and you generate all that publicity..you'd get that buzz..like oh, i was responsible for that and feel all schmaltzy in the end. and i guess to a certain extent i did, but it sure didn't blow me away like i thought it would. and that's just four months in the industry. do i really see myself doing this for a living?

i've come to the conclusion that people in PR either

i) do it for the "glamness" of it all (trust me, its not very. yeah you get to go for the fancy events you organize. but novelty wears off after awhile. especially when it comes to me, i get bored..and fast)

ii) seem pretty content with the life they're stuck in. like they don't see the bigger picture. but you know i think this applies to most people anyways. well heck, they seem happier than i do..so they must be doing something right no?

which leads me to my next point. a friend of mine mentioned to me once ( after a bitching session about how miserable & depressed i was - with good reason naturally ;p ), the smartest people are often the most unhappy. amen to that! i wish to God i didn't think too much about everything. and sometimes i can't help but think..a simple mind isn't a bad thing to have at all!

think about it (here i go..*exhale*) simple minds, take things as they come. and not like a day to day thing, more like minute to minute. they go to work, come back to their loved ones - end of day 1. tomorrow's another day. it's routine, but heck they're not complaining? steady income, security..i mean really, the necessities.

the problem is when you think. mix that with pride (something which i think i have a little too much of, it's gotta be bad for me somehow) and that's a recipe for sleepless nights, headaches, heartaches..you get the idea.

my dilemma:

working in a PR/corporate firm? the hours are crazy, the stress and pressure is immense, 80% of the people in the industry are horrible. corporate KL = not for me. yet why is it that when i envision myself 10 years from now, all i see is me in that sleek black gucci suit. driving that oh-so-sexy beemer. and i think..that's it dammit!

then you have the core of me. i'm supposed to save the world, y'see. i'm all about volunteering and saving the children and animals. why children you say? why not men and women? well my friend, because women are bitches and men are sluts..so i figure lets save the kids before it's too late, no? So the plan is to work in the UN/Unicef. Bye cavalli, hermes and ungaro.

Then of course there was the genius of a plan to..get this..join the Ministry for Arts, Culture & Heritage..and some day run for minister. The scary part? Everyone seemed to take me pretty seriously when I proposed it. I mean c’mon, that has got to be delusional on my behalf at some level right? Sure I love arts..i definitely appreciate culture..but politics? *shakes head*

mom was saying if i was so unhappy, it still wasn't too late to start off in a totally new direction, and go back to one of my childhood dreams of becoming a marine biologist. ah. the sun, the sea and sand. extremely tempting. i'd be doing something i love, away from ignorant city folk, i get to swim with manta rays..life is good right? wrong. i'd prolly miss the city life after awhile. not to mention by the time i start work, my peers would all be halfway (or almost, or something) to making their first million (ringgit or otherwise!).

help!


The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.

Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)