Borderline Spectrum Test

Impulsivity/Capriciousness: Individuals on the borderline spectrum may engage in spontaneous excitement-seeking behaviors such as shopping sprees, gambling, binge-eating, reckless driving, and the like. Many people on the borderline spectrum are especially susceptible to such behaviors when they feel upset or confused, turning to these excitements as a subconscious way of easing out these bad feelings.

Feelings of Emptiness: A central symptom on the borderline spectrum, especially in people with borderline personality disorder, is struggling with recurring feelings of emptiness. People who are high in this symptom often feel as if there is a hole inside of them and that they will amount to nothing. They may attempt to counteract these feelings by turning to risky sex, drugs, or other impulsive activities.

Fear of Abandonment: Many people on the borderline spectrum are terrified of being abandoned or left alone. As a result, they may make frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment, often turning to rage, self-harm, or emotional breakdowns to avoid being abandoned. Nor is it unheard of for individuals high in this symptom to physically cling to the other person to avoid abandonment. The inner voice of many such people tells them that they are bad, and the prospect of being abandoned then looms over them as the threatening confirmation that they are indeed unlovable.

Unstable/Intense Relationships: One feature evinced by many people high in borderline elements is the tendency toward having (or having had) many short-lived and intense relationships (romantic or otherwise). People high in this symptom may quickly become attracted to someone, believing that each new person is all-good and benevolent; the one and their soulmate, who can make them feel whole and complete. However, many people on the borderline spectrum invariably become disappointed when it turns out their newest infatuation has both selfish and altruistic motivations (as most people do), and the borderline cycle shifts from idealization to devaluation.

Self-Harming Behavior: Individuals on the borderline spectrum are at increased risk of engaging in deliberate self-harm such as cutting, overeating or not eating, threatening to commit suicide, or ultimately actually trying to commit suicide. Such people often engage in these behaviors as a way to regulate their intense and contradictory emotional life, which may seem just as incomprehensible to themselves as it does to others. Others specifically harm themselves as a form of self-punishment for being or to reduce feelings of anxiety or depression by the presence of concrete pain (Zanarini et al., 2013).

Emotional Instability: It is often difficult for people on the borderline spectrum to regulate their emotions, as their mood can change from happiness to despair in a matter of minutes. On a deeper level, some psychiatrists and psychologists have theorized that this symptom is the result of increased susceptibility to irritation, anger, and anxiety, which in connection with the Impulsivity/Capriciousness symptom may account for the tendency of many people with this symptom to go from feeling exhilarated to feeling hopeless at a moment’s notice (Choir-Kain et al., 2015).

Paranoid Ideation: Many people on the borderline spectrum find that their stressed and frantic internal states may render them vulnerable to transient paranoia. This symptom is often related to other borderline elements such as fear of abandonment, identity disturbance, affective instability, and feelings of emptiness. Individuals high in paranoid ideation tend to be suspicious of others’ motives, and they may feel that they are being threatened or conspired against when in fact they are not.

Dissociation: When the stress level of people on the borderline spectrum gets too intense, some may zone out from reality, feeling as if they are separated from their bodies, that reality is like a dream, or that they are not really there. During such episodes, they may feel as if they have no agency over, or interest in, what happens to them, and even familiar people or things may be perceived as strange or unreal. Some psychologists speculate that dissociation is especially common among individuals on the borderline spectrum who have experienced trauma earlier in their lives.

Splitting: Many individuals on the borderline spectrum struggle to make sense of the world around them. They are poorly equipped to do so since, on account of their capriciousness, they have trouble holding opposing judgments in their head, leading many with this condition to perceive the world in overly black and white terms, perceiving people and things to be “all good” or “all bad.” As such, they often find themselves unable to relate to the negative qualities of something or someone they have deemed “good” or the positive qualities of something or someone they have deemed “bad.” Again, this leads to further instability and the erosion of cohesion in the lives of such individuals, as their judgments invariably fail to accord with a nuanced view of reality.

Identity Diffusion: Due to their contrasting internal percepts and tumultuous lives, people on the borderline spectrum often struggle with their identity or sense of self. People high in this symptom may often feel as if the expectations of others define who they are as they confusedly struggle to attempt to live up to them. Conversely, individuals high in this symptom may also attempt to rebel against the expectations of others, as social remarks and enmeshments that others consider commonplace are experienced as a violation of the borderline individual’s autonomy.