Dubai, United Arab Emirates (CNN) — Borderline personality disorder is a mental illness that severely affects a person’s ability to control their emotions. Loss of emotional control can lead to increased impulsivity, affect how a person feels about themselves and negatively affect their relationships with others.

These abnormal changes in feelings can lead people to tense, unstable relationships and serious emotional problems.

Although the inability of people with BPD to maintain stable relationships is widely recognized, empirical evidence regarding this instability and how it manifests over time is limited.

A study conducted by the National Center for Biotechnology Information in the United States assessing the stability of social relationships and key aspects of relationships (satisfaction, support, closeness, conflict, and criticism) for women diagnosed with borderline personality disorder found that over a 6-month period, women diagnosed with borderline personality disorder suffered from social instability relative to the health of their social relationships.

The World Health Organization states that BPD is associated with personal distress and social distress; It usually appears in childhood or adolescence and continues throughout adulthood.

The US National Institute of Psychiatry has classified some other characteristics of patients with borderline personality disorder, and the symptoms of borderline personality include:

• Seeing things in extremes: For example, people with BPD see everything as good or everything as bad.
• Their interests and values ​​can change quickly, and they can act impulsively.
• Fear of abandonment and losing relationships drives the urge to build and end relationships at the same pace.
• A pattern of unstable relationships with family, friends and loved ones.
• A distorted and unstable self-image.
• Impulsive and often risky behaviors such as overspending, reckless driving, and overeating.
• Frequent or threatened suicidal thoughts.
• Emotions change greatly and violently.
• Problems controlling or controlling anger.

Not everyone with BPD will have all of these symptoms. The severity, frequency and duration of symptoms depend on the person and the extent of the disease.