Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a profound and often misunderstood personality trait that especially challenges interpersonal relationships. Terms like “Borderliner relationship,” “relationship with someone who has borderline personality,” or “when a Borderliner cries” frequently appear in testimonials, self-help forums, and conversations with relatives. In this blog post, we aim to illuminate the complex dynamics of this disorder, clarify the diagnostic criteria, explore its origins, and explain how psychological therapy can help. A special focus lies on how individuals with BPD behave in friendships and romantic relationships.

Borderline: Psychiatric Illness vs. Personality Disorder

Borderline Personality Disorder is not an acute psychiatric condition like psychosis or severe depression but belongs to the group of personality disorders. This means the symptoms are deeply embedded in the personality structure and usually manifest chronically. People with BPD experience intense fluctuations in mood, self-image and interpersonal relationships.

Diagnostic Criteria According to DSM‑5

According to the DSM‑5, at least five of the following nine criteria must be met:

1. Desperate efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment
2. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships
3. Identity disturbance: Instability in self-image or sense of self
4. Impulsivity in at least two potentially self-damaging areas
5. Recurrent suicidal behaviors or self-harm
6. Affective instability due to reactivity of mood
7. Chronic feelings of emptiness
8. Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger
9. Transient, stress-related paranoid thoughts or severe dissociative symptoms

Many individuals eventually wonder: “Could this apply to me?” and look for a Borderline self-test. Such online quizzes can offer hints about a potential disorder—but they do not replace professional clinical assessment.

How Does Borderline Develop?

The causes are complex. It involves a combination of genetic predisposition, neurobiological vulnerability, and early adverse relationship experiences. Many affected individuals report emotional neglect, abuse, or unstable attachments in childhood. These traumatic events can lead to impaired emotional regulation and an unstable sense of self.

Borderline in Relationships: Friendships & Love

A relationship with someone who has BPD can be intensely passionate yet extremely demanding. Common patterns include:

• Idealization followed by sudden devaluation (black-and-white thinking)
• Fear of abandonment and clinginess
• Impulsive breakups followed by quick reunions
• Emotional flooding, intense jealousy, anger
• Self-harm as an expression of inner pain

Partners often describe feeling torn between extreme closeness and radical rejection. The question “Why are Borderliners so exhausting?” shouldn’t be taken as blame but rather as a reflection of helplessness—because the behavior stems from deep emotional turmoil.

How Partners Can Help

If you’re in a relationship with a Borderline woman or man, you need understanding, patience, and clear personal boundaries. Practical advice:

• Set loving but firm boundaries. Don’t assume a savior role.
• Don’t take mood swings personally—they are not targeted attacks.
• Support therapy—even attend couple’s counseling together.
• Practice self-care and protect your own resources.
• Take crises seriously. If there is self-harm or suicidal thoughts, seek immediate help.

In a relationship with a Borderline woman or man, emotional stability from both sides is essential. What do Borderliners dislike? While triggers vary, they can be highly sensitive to rejection, emotional coldness, invalidation, or losing control, often prompting intense reactions.

Borderline in Friendships

Friendships can also be challenging for someone with BPD. If your friend has borderline traits, you may experience deep connection but also periods of withdrawal, mistrust, or emotional overload. Honest communication and clear boundaries can help sustain the friendship.

Respecting Boundaries—While Maintaining Connection

Whether you are a friend, partner, or family member of someone with BPD, educate yourself, respect your own limits, and stay connected. A stable and loving relationship is possible—with effort and understanding.

Psychological Therapy for Borderline

Therapy for BPD is not only possible but effective. The most widely used approach is Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) developed by Marsha Linehan. Other helpful treatments include Schema Therapy and Mentalization-Based Therapy. In specialized Borderline clinics, individuals learn how to better manage emotions, develop stable relationships, and regulate themselves.

People with Borderline clinic experiences often report that the combination of individual and group therapy plus mindfulness techniques can lead to lasting change.

Mindfulness & Skills Training

People with BPD often experience emotions as overwhelming—inner tension can escalate within seconds, resulting in self-harm, anger outbursts, or impulsive acts. This emotional flooding is difficult to control without effective regulation strategies. That’s where mindfulness and skills training—central components of DBT—come into play.

1. Recognizing and rating tension levels

Therapy teaches individuals to rate inner tension on a scale from 0–10. This self-rating helps intervene before crises escalate:

• 0–4: Normal tension – stable perception and coping
• 5–7: Growing overload – early signs like inner unrest
• 8–10: Acute high tension – risk of loss of control and dissociation

Early intervention at moderate tension is key to preventing escalation.

2. Mindfulness: Staying in the present moment

Mindfulness means observing the current moment without judgment. For people with BPD, who often get lost in spirals of thoughts, guilt, or fear, daily mindfulness practices like breath awareness, body scan, or the “5-4-3-2-1” sensory technique can foster self-regulation and prevent dissociation.

3. Skills training: Coping tools for emotional flooding

“Skills” are strategies or actions to quickly reduce tension without harm. They fall into “strong” (e.g. ice water, snap rubber band) and “gentle” (e.g. movement, music, scented oil). Skills training helps individuals:

• Select effective, non-destructive strategies
• Test and maintain a personal skills toolbox (emergency kit)
• Reflect after tension: What worked? What didn’t?

Conclusion

People with Borderline can learn to manage their emotions, build healthier relationships, and live more stable lives—especially when supported through therapy and skill-based training. A Borderline relationship may be different—but it is not impossible. Psychological therapy for borderline can help you learn to deal with your individual personality through emotion regulation strategies, mindfulness and skills training.

Do you suspect you have a borderline personality or are you in a relationship with a borderliner? Would you like to learn how to deal with typical borderline behavior? Let’s talk about it in a free initial session!

References:

Selbsthilfegruppen: https://www.borderline-trialog.de

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie, Psychosomatik und Nervenheilkunde (DGPPN): https://www.dgppn.de

Borderline-Netzwerk: https://www.borderline-plattform.de

Marsha Linehan: Dialektisch-Behaviorale Therapie (DBT)

DSM-5 Diagnosekriterien: https://www.psychiatrie.de/diagnostik/dsm-5

Erfahrungsberichte: https://www.psychic.de

Informationen zur Schematherapie: https://www.schematherapie.de