Quiet BPD – The Lesser-Known Form Of BPD
BPD is one of the most difficult mental illnesses to diagnose. It’s often confused with similar mental illnesses, which can mean that patients don’t receive the direct care to help them find the best road to recovery. There are also a number of false assumptions linked with BPD – that it’s untreatable, that only women can have it, and that BPD is impossible to diagnose in teens – which can make the diagnosis process all the more difficult.
We have now, at least, reached a position where BPD is recognised enough that its symptoms are pretty consistent wherever you read up about the illness. Medical professionals seem to agree on the idea that BPD can cause explosive outbursts of emotion, like anger, fear or upset, as well as irrationality, unstable relationships, fear of abandonment and self-destructive behaviours.
While these symptoms do generally ring true for many BPD sufferers, we shouldn’t be so quick to assume that every person with BPD is going to behave the same. And, in fact, there is a far lesser-known form of BPD which may display very few of the “typical” BPD symptoms – but that’s not to say that it still doesn’t deserve recognition from doctors and scientists alike. It’s known as quiet BPD, and very few people know anything about it.
An Introduction To Quiet BPD
Quiet BPD is a form of BPD that isn’t yet medically recognised. You won’t find it in doctors’ handbooks, and yet many medical professionals will agree that there is a distinguishable difference between patients with quiet BPD and patients without.
What’s Different About Quiet BPD?
The main difference between quiet and regular BPD is that people with quiet BPD tend to focus their destructive and impulsive behaviours inwards, on themselves, rather than outwards, in emotional outbursts. While people with quiet BPD will still experience feelings of the same nature as people with regular BPD, they’ll be more likely to be self-destructive, and less aggressive on the outside.
The Future Of Quiet BPD
Unsurprisingly, quiet BPD is even more difficult to diagnose than regular BPD, because its symptoms do not present themselves so obviously. It’s common for quiet BPD to be misdiagnosed as other mental illnesses, including anxiety, Asperger’s, and bipolar disorder.
Hopefully, in the future, this will change. BPD is a mental illness that we’re still learning a lot about, and only with a better understanding of the illness will we ever be able to treat all of its forms entirely successfully.
