Suffer The Little Children
How a parent with Borderline Personality Disorder shapes their offspring
Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is one of the Cluster-B disorders and although DSM-5 does not specify sub-divisions, therapists who specialize in this illness generally acknowledge there are four main categories within BPD: angry external, angry internal/depressive, impulsive, and petulant. That said, it’s common for someone who suffers from BPD to exhibit symptoms that bleed over from one form to the next, so a sufferer may exhibit a wide range of behaviors during dysregulation.
This article will focus on BPD of the petulant sub-type, and specifically on the impact this form of BPD has on children who grow up with a petulant sub-type parent.
BPD sufferers of the petulant sub-type are characterized by a few important traits. The first is that, provided all is going well, they can present as more-or-less normal functioning adults, albeit with some quirks. If BPD co-presents with another disorder such as obsessive compulsion (the requirement for things to be in a precise place, repetitive physical actions, etc.) it is often be mis-diagnosed as an Autism Spectrum ailment by therapists insufficiently experienced in Cluster-B disorders.
