Borderline Personality Disorder

The Many Faces of Being Borderline

People with BPD are highly tuned into their environment. Hypervigilance is another hallmark of BPD.

The Many Faces of Being Borderline
By SONIA NEALE

Misreading neutral facial expressions as hostile is reported to be what distinguishes BPD from other mental illness disorders according to this article from US News Health

Rolling the eyes, the extended blink, the nose wrinkle, the eyebrow rise, the lip twitch; all these can be erroneously interpreted as provocative, insulting and combative and cause huge ruptures in relationships. However, sometimes these interpretations are spot on. We can display our deepest prejudices in our facial expressions and not even know it.

The eyebrow rise can display surprise, the nose wrinkle can portray disgust and the extended blink, an indication that the person is either bored to death or that you have tapped into some shameful secret or synchronous event or both. I’ve been eerily accurate on several occasions with my therapist through the extended blink and the nose wrinkle; all confirmed by subsequent personal interrogation, just short of thumb screws, to extract a confession. But the hotter my mood, the less accurate I am. Depending on my internal state, misinterpretation is also possible.

People with BPD are highly tuned into their environment. Hypervigilance is another hallmark of BPD. This is a learned survival skill, where accurately interpreting the finer nuances of another’s intentions can save one’s life. Getting it right albeit half the time means you can go on to live another day. It means you will survive long enough to pass your genes onto the next generation. This makes perfectly logical evolutionary sense.

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One Comment

  • Will

    So causing hell to break loose and rake someone over the coals for something like a slightly annoyed sigh is something you want to pass on and encourage to your offspring?

    You’d think evolution would be to be able to handle things in stride and let people be and not be intolerant of every little movement and breath someone makes while playing the battered victim over it.

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