Stereotypically, people with BPD or borderline personality disorder are seen as manipulative, impulsive, reckless, emotionally volatile, and lashing out at others. And this can be the case, but for those with quiet BPD, their extreme emotions are turned inward and their maladaptive behaviors are mostly concealed, making it even hard for trained professionals to recognize and diagnose this disorder.
So it often leaves people with BPD or quiet BPD anyway underdiagnosed and misdiagnosed. So even though the person with quiet BPD, or what is also known as discouraged or high-functioning BPD, may seem fine on the outside, maybe even above average or gifted in some areas, on the inside, they are in a constant battle with these extreme emotions, including fear, guilt, shame, anger, disappointment, discouragement, and low self-worth.
Today I’m discussing 10 signs of quiet borderline personality disorder. This article is for informational purposes only and it is not intended to replace professional support. Okay, so let’s dive right in. Borderline personality disorder is a serious and complex mental illness, and because a person only needs to display five out of the nine criteria for the diagnosis, it means that there are 256 possible symptom combinations.
So this is super confusing to identify and to make matters worse, BPD borders many other disorders including mood and Trauma-Related Disorders, neurodevelopmental disorders, dissociative identity disorders, and other personality disorders. So much so that it is rare to see someone with a pure borderline personality disorder.
Another thing is that the severity of the disorder can be very different. Some people can experience BPD very mildly while for others, it is much more severe. All this is to say that if you know one person with borderline personality disorder, you do not know them all.
So in an effort to decrease some of the confusion, psychologist Theodore Millen categorized BPD into four subtypes: the impulsive, petulant, self-destructive, and discouraged type of borderline, which is the type I am talking about today. But again, keep in mind that there is often an overlap between the subtypes.
So here are the 10 signs of quiet borderline personality disorder, in no particular order, and again, many of these signs will only be visible if the person with BPD is attached to you, such as if you are their favorite person or their intimate partner, and these signs should not be taken in isolation but looked at as more of a big picture.
Number 1 is people-pleasing.
Those with quiet borderline tend to be supreme people-pleasers, often going way over and above what is expected or appropriate for the circumstances. They may also go overboard with compliments, gifts, and favors, and come across as too nice or too much, and it can be genuine. But depending on the nature of the relationship, it can feel overbearing for the recipient, making them feel nervous to suspicious or like they need more boundaries.
The person with quiet BPD is doing this people-pleasing partly for attention, approval, and acceptance, and partly because they feel that if they’re not giving people what they want when they want it, those people will leave. So they often drop whatever they are doing to help someone out.
They say yes when they have no time, no money, or no energy, and in a world where they feel that they don’t belong or don’t fit in, or have any worth, helping others can give them a sense of purpose and value. So they are often overextending themselves to a point of being overbearing or burning themselves out.
Number 2 is this passive-aggressive behavior.
The person with quiet borderline internalizes their intense emotions, tending to lash out at themselves rather than others. They may, on occasion, lash out with an intimate partner, but they are much more likely to act in passive-aggressive ways towards everyone else. And this is because they have been taught to hide their emotions, that their emotions are not valid, they’re wrong, irrelevant, and should be suppressed.
So instead of showing anger or aggression, they will act as though everything’s fine and then sabotage you. Or they may say things like, ‘Of course, you know best. Your ideas are better than mine.’ Or they may stonewall you, keeping things polite and superficial but refusing to talk about the real issue that’s bothering them. Obviously, this doesn’t mean that everyone who is passive-aggressive has a borderline personality disorder, but it can be a sign when you’re looking at the bigger picture.
Number 3 is the need for perfection.
The person with quiet BPD is driven by a need to be perfect. They hold themselves to ridiculously high standards that are quite black and white, meaning if it’s not perfect, it is a complete and utter failure. They may as well be dead. So even a 90% successful endeavor can turn into a highly shameful experience for the person with quiet BPD.
They have an excessively harsh inner critic that is constantly telling them how horrible, worthless, and invaluable they are. But somewhere in their mind, they think that if they could be absolutely perfect, maybe just maybe they could prove to themselves and to you but they do have some value.
As an outward sign, you may notice that they are overly focused on their faults and amplifying their mistakes and shortcomings. They may over-apologize, partly because they do feel terrible and need to discharge some of the shame, and partly because they need you to soothe them and build them back up.
Number 4 is wearing masks.
The person with quiet BPD is like a chameleon, taking on other people’s likes, interests, and even personalities, and mannerisms. They lose themselves very easily in relationships because they learned early on that they can’t be themselves; they have to put on an act. So you may find them acting a certain way with certain people or in certain situations and then completely different at other times. Again, they feel that their true self is not good enough for anyone, so they try to be who they think you want and need them to be.
So, for example, they can seem super happy, cheery, and positive, and sometimes they actually are, but often it’s a mask to hide their dark, depressed, down, and discouraged state because they don’t want you to see that. Or sometimes, they may act discouraged or down when they’re not because that’s what they believe you need in that instance. In reality, their moods are intensely up and down but generally well hidden.
Number 5 is hyper and hypo arousal.
So like all individuals with borderline personality disorder, the person with quiet BPD has an overactive amygdala, which is known as the fear center of the brain but more broadly is the emotional processing center. The quiet borderline is usually extremely hyper-vigilant and on edge. They are hyper-emotionally aroused and always queued up emotionally.
So for example, let’s say the phone rings, they may jump a foot off their seat, or if someone turns a corner, they might scream and have a really hard time calming down. However, unlike with other forms of BPD, when the quiet borderline’s fear response is activated, It is rarely displayed as the fight response, but rather as the flight or freeze response, so they are much more likely to run away, escape, and avoid the situation, or completely go numb and dissociate from it. Just like other forms of BPD, they can go from zero to a thousand emotionally. This is what’s referred to as a BPD episode.
It is a full-on, uncontrollable dysregulated emotional state or response where they are acting on pure primal emotion with zero ability to think rationally or process reality. During this period, they are completely overwhelmed with emotion and in a total state of survival.
For The Quiet BPD, there can sometimes be an external discharge of these emotions, especially if it’s with a partner or favorite person, which can be extremely nasty, hurtful, or even abusive. But with anyone else, they will withdraw and turn their anger and their negative emotions inward, and this can manifest as self-harming or self-punishing behaviors.
Number 6 is insecurity.
At the root of BPD is the belief that they are bad, shameful, irrelevant, unworthy, unlikable, and unlovable. So if someone does like or love them, in their mind, the only logical explanation is that the other person doesn’t know the truth about them. Because the person with BPD feels so fatally flawed and worthless, they believe that rejection is inevitable. It’s just a matter of time. So they live in constant fear of being discovered and subsequently abandoned.
As a result, they display insecurity, possessiveness, and jealousy with anyone to whom they feel deeply attached. You become their end-all-be-all, relying on you for their emotional stability, their sense of self, for their survival. But no matter how much love and reassurance you provide, they cannot and will not accept or believe that they are worthy of your love or anyone else’s. This puts a huge burden on the other person, creating a sense of failure because no matter how hard you try to convince them and show them that you really do love them, they don’t believe you.
And no matter how many times you reassure them, they will end up pushing you away, testing the limits of your love to prove to themselves what they already know: that they are unworthy. So work or in social situations, these insecurities are better concealed, but you may notice that they seem overly concerned about how other people are perceiving them or that they ruminate a lot about what was meant or intended by something, or that they worry excessively about offending someone.
Number 7 They have higher levels of empathy.
Sometimes the person with Quiet BPD may seem like they’re lacking empathy or like they’re self-absorbed because they do get wrapped up in their own thoughts, feelings, and perceptions. But generally, they are incredibly empathetic, feeling and identifying with other people’s emotions so acutely that it causes them to internalize other people’s negative emotions and problems and then to get dysregulated. The Quiet BPD often gets overly involved in trying to soothe other people’s emotions and trying to fix or rescue them.
Number 8 Taking things personally.
Although people with Quiet BPD are acutely aware of other people’s emotional energy, they also tend to have severe perceptual distortions in that they perceive and interpret other people’s facial expressions and emotional reactions as much more negative than they actually are, to the point that they can perceive even neutral facial expressions as intensely negative. With Quiet BPD, they not only interpret subtle changes in other people’s emotions as negative, but they also immediately believe that they are the cause of it.
So if someone is feeling bad, they interpret it as if they must have done something wrong This can make them feel absolutely horrible about themselves. The Quiet BPD may think you hate them, that you’re going to lead them, or something terrible is going to happen, even when your mood has absolutely nothing to do with them, even when you’re not even in a bad mood.
So even a slight change in tone, facial expression, or a slight shift in your emotional energy is not only noticed, but it’s interpreted as a rejection or as meaning that they did something and are to blame, and they will often push you and insist that you tell them what they did to upset you, refusing to accept that it has nothing to do with them or that you’re generally not even upset.
Number 9 is sensitivity to criticism.
They are incredibly self-critical and very, very sensitive to any form of negative feedback. They deeply internalize criticism and interpret it drastically and dramatically. For example, if you point out that they forgot something, and to them, you are saying that they are a horrible person who everyone hates and wishes was dead, even when criticism is delivered effectively with several positives, the person with quiet borderline will take it as a huge rejection. In fact, they won’t even hear the good because they are so hyper-focused on the negative, and so that one little criticism is the only thing they hear.
Number 10 is submissive or regressive behavior.
So this happens with a favorite person or intimate partner, and it’s where the person with quiet BPD will shift into a regressive state, almost going from adult to child right before your eyes, and it’s like they need a parent to care for them in that moment, to guide them, protect them, and sometimes even to punish them. You can’t rescue or save them.
But there is some good news when it comes to BPD, because research shows that at least 50 percent of those who do receive treatment for borderline personality disorder, not for something else, do improve to a degree that they no longer meet the diagnostic criteria for the disorder. Of course, this depends on receiving and accepting the correct diagnosis, having the willingness and capacity to engage in intensive treatment, and the availability of that treatment.
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