Borderline personality disorder (BPD) can cause a wide range of symptoms, which can be broadly grouped into 4 main areas:

1. emotional instability – the psychological term for this is “affective dysregulation”
2. disturbed patterns of thinking or perception – “cognitive distortions” or “perceptual distortions”
3. impulsive behaviour
4. intense but unstable relationships with others

The symptoms of a personality disorder may range from mild to severe, and you can have a wide range of differing symptoms. A BPD diagnosis requires the presence of 5 of the 9 main symptoms – this allows for 256 different combinations by which an individual could receive a diagnosis.