What are main differences between bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder?

People often mistake these two, I mean, they have similarities but they also differ a lot. They both have mood swings as symptoms but these are stronger in people suffering from borderline personality disorder. These people also have chaotic relationships with people and they tend to hurt themselves while bipolar people don't. People suffering from borderline personality disorder tend to have additional mental problems as well like addictions, eating disorders, anxiety, and depression. Bipolar disorder is known for alternating periods of depression and mania that can last from days to months and while like this, these people have bunch of easily noticeable symptoms.

You didn't clear it out much for me, I am still a bit confused about all of this. I thought that bipolar people are the ones who are having a hard time with relationship, aren't they the one who are leaving their partners without any reason and cheating on them as well? If yes, in which way do people suffering from borderline personality disorder differ from them then? I can see some slight differences in what you wrote above Nina but I do not see any big ones, are there like any big differences between bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder?

Good question!

A lot of people just don't see or they don't want to see the difference between it.

Here is one really simple example that is going to help you understand it. People who suffer from borderline personality disorder can't really control their emotions. Usually, this leads to mood swings, especially in the relationships. Their "I love you so much" can easily turn into "I hate you and I don't want to see you".

When it comes to bipolar disorder, people have really high and than low moods in couple of seconds. In one second, they are here, but the next second they can't stand nothing anymore and they leave.

 

 

 

Bipolar disorder is tied to depression and mania while borderline personality disorder isn't. People suffering from borderline personality disorder have too strong emotions and they don't know how to control them, they can't control them, while people who are suffering from bipolar disorder show no emotions at all and they are likely to simply walk away from you. Actually, this is why I thought that I am suffering from bipolar disorder, because it is easy for me to walk away from anyone so I went to talk to a psychologist about it and he established that there was nothing wrong with me really.

Good point. Tnx God that someone have dice to clear this thing right, because a lot of people are making a mistakes when it comes to those two diagnosis. Different diagnose and different type of the treatment. I recently found one really good fact where you can clearly make a difference between it. Usually they make difference according to this - BPD as a personality disorder and bipolar disorder as a brain disease among Axis I clinical disorders. They are treated differently, they affect patients differently and they do have similar but still different symptoms.

It might seem that there is no that much difference between it. When you take look a little bit, both of those disorders are mental disorders that involve some mood shift problems etc. Generally, bipolar disorder involves a series of some manic or depressive "mood episodes," that are different second by second. On the  other hand, borderline personality disorder is more about an ongoing pattern of behavior, But when you are observing a behavior of people who have those two diagnoses, you might think that they are totally the same. But, they are not. They are different from the inside out. 

Everyone make it clear and people who never knew that there is a difference between it, now they know. I remember that one of my friends was telling me that he was diagnosed with BPD and next day he was talking about bipolar disorder.

I looked at him and I told him: "Is it really possible that you are diagnosed with two different types of disorder at the same time?" He told me that those two disorders are the same, and when I tried to explain that they are not, he didn't want to listen to me.

Now, I can't wait to show this site to him. Maybe he will learn something.

Anyway, it is very important to know what is the difference between them because that is the only way how you are going to be able to seek for proper treatment.