Borderline Personality Disorder symptoms are on a spectrum. None of us experience the same
symptoms, the same way. The DSM-V lists nine symptoms of BPD, and to be diagnosed, you
need to have five of the nine. Over the past few years, having so many border lines in the same
place at the same time, I noticed at least 20 symptoms, not mentioned in the DSM-V. I gave the
list of questions to a Facebook group of Borderlines, 500 people took the quiz and were asked
how many of the 20 symptoms listed that they have experienced. The results were surprising,
especially since culture did not change the number. I listed 20 symptoms and the average
number of symptoms that the tested group claimed to experience out of the 20 was 18.5.
Of those who scored lower numbers, I asked them if there was a time in their life that the
number would have been higher? They all said yes, it was higher before treatment but the
treatment had brought down the number of symptoms experienced. The results were the same
regardless of age or location.
Borderlines often feel so alone, so to know that almost everyone with BPD was experiencing
a lot of the same things as I was, made me feel less alone. DBT treatment, also known as
Dialectical Behavior Therapy, reduced the number of symptoms I experienced, and the results
showed others also had lower numbers after receiving effective treatment. The 20 symptoms
that I noticed most borderlines have, I will list below, and you can take the quiz to see how many
of the 20 you have experienced.

1. You have experienced an eating disorder, or you have an unhealthy relationship with
   food.
2. You have issues with your parents (normally the mother)
3. You catastrophize. Meaning you make a mountain out of a molehill.
4. You experience intrusive thoughts. (Thoughts involuntary generated, often disturbing)
5. You are an addict
6. You have an FP also known as a favorite person or a fixated person
7. You are self-loathing or (hate yourself)
8. You feel like you are too much to deal with
9. You experience age regression meaning: there are times where you revert to acting
   younger or you feel younger than you are
10. You may feel like you have known the age you're going to die or (impending doom)
11. You tend to overshare when talking about your trauma
12. You forget a lot and have memory problems in general
13. You have attachment issues either insecure and anxious or avoidant
14. You are very empathetic
15. You really enjoy helping others out
16. You struggle with paranoia
17. You feel like you're feelings were never validated and still seek validation
18. You have tattoos or piercings. I think they may correlate with self harm.
19. You have sensory perceptions not based in reality. Meaning you have visual
    hallucinations, or auditory hallucinations, you may smell things that aren't there or even
    feel things on your body that aren't there.
20. You have body dysmorphia, meaning: you see yourself differently than others see you
    If you took this sample quiz, I'm sure you found that you have experienced several of these
    symptoms, if you struggle with BPD. Borderlines, being less than 2% of the population, have
    always been spaced out and not in close contact. Now that we have the internet and borderline
    sites, you may have several thousands of borderlines in the same place at the same time. With
    so many of us communicating with one another we have begun to find many commonalities that
    we have not previously documented. The results of the study were that most of us experience
    almost all of the symptoms, but with effective treatment the number of those symptoms can be
    effectively reduced.
    Disclaimer on each one?