What is Borderline Personality Disorder?
Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a personality disorder that affects 1%-2% of the Canadian population, of which the majority of the population affected is female. Usually diagnosed in adolescence, this mental health disorder can carry on to adulthood and last for an entire lifetime. People with this disorder can view situations in extremes (good or bad). They can have shifting opinions on people or situations (good one day, then bad the next day), which can ultimately lead to unstable relationships. Overall this mental health disorder impacts your perspective of the world and the way you perceive yourself and others.
Symptoms
Initiate intimate relationships or cut off communication with someone (due to fear of abandonment). Individuals will avoid being abandoned in real life or in their imagination.
Intense and unstable relationships with friends and family. Individuals could love someone or be so close to someone to the point that they idealize them. Or they could dislike someone so much to the point that they hate them and are angry with them.
Distorted/unstable self-image.
Impulsive & dangerous behaviour most of the time.
Self-harm, suicidal thoughts.
Mood swings lasting from a few hours to a few days.
Intense anger, and issues with controlling/managing anger.
Trust issues (fear of people’s intentions).
Interesting connection
Upon researching Borderline Personality Disorder, I noticed an interesting connection to a TV show called ‘Beyhadh’. In that TV show, there was a character named Maya. During my research, I noticed many similarities between patients with this disorder and Maya. In the TV show, they do not explicitly convey that Maya has this disorder, so it was interesting to see a connection between her behaviour and the behaviour of those that suffer from this disorder.
First of all, the show showed that Maya was at risk of developing the disorder since she was subject to her father’s abuse during her childhood. Childhood abuse is a risk factor for patients to develop the disease. Another sign of BPD is shown when she meets a guy and begins to idealize him. The show shows that she was obsessed with him, which is another characteristic of patients with BPD since forming intense and unstable relationships is a sign of the disorder. I thought that Maya specifically showed signs of Petulant BPD since she was very controlling and possessive of the guy (compared to other types of BPD).
She was also jealous of his loved ones, and she thought that all the guy’s loved ones were trying to take him away from her. This is another sign of BPD, as this situation was imagined by her and was not true. Some other signs she showed were that she had extreme anger issues. She was also prone to self-harm and was shown to hurt other characters in the show (such as her mom).
Another interesting thing I found was that, like in most TV shows, Maya was portrayed as the villain of the show. It specifically showed that she was a ‘crazy’ person that was willing to go to any limit to ‘be with her love.’ The characters in the show were scared of her and thought she was a psychopath and hence was incurable. This is quite ironic, considering that in the show, they actually took her to a mental asylum, and she was given medication (but in later episodes, we figure out that she was actually spitting them out once the doctors left). Nevertheless, according to my research and my knowledge of Maya’s character, I have come to the conclusion that she had Borderline Personality Disorder.
References
“Borderline Personality Disorder.” Mayo Clinic, Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 17 July 2019, https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/borderline-personality-disorder/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20370242
Article author: Twisha Bhatt
Article editors: Sherilyn Wen, Victoria Huang