Borderline Personality Disorder With Atypical Traits in a 30-Year-Old Female: A Case Report

In this paper, we report an atypical presentation of borderline personality disorder (BPD) in a 30-year-old female with a history of childhood molestation and trauma and a prior diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The patient was hospitalized due to anxiety, depression, and guilt ove...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Curēus (Palo Alto, CA) CA), 2024-02, Vol.16 (2), p.e55166
Main Authors: Garikana, Sarah, Jain, Pratik, Megna, James L, Leontieva, Luba
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Alcohol use
Alcoholism
Anxiety
Borderline personality disorder
Case reports
Clinical medicine
Drug use
Families & family life
Females
Meetings
Mental depression
Mental disorders
Narcotics
Overweight
Personal relationships
Post traumatic stress disorder
Schizophrenia
Self image
Sex crimes
Sons
Substance use disorder
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:In this paper, we report an atypical presentation of borderline personality disorder (BPD) in a 30-year-old female with a history of childhood molestation and trauma and a prior diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The patient was hospitalized due to anxiety, depression, and guilt over her relapse into alcohol use disorder. During her hospital stay, we diagnosed her with BPD based on psychiatric examination, clinical interviews, and patient history. While the patient exhibited some of the typical characteristics of BPD, such as an instability of interpersonal and romantic relationships, there were numerous findings that were atypical of BPD. These include a demonstration of mature defense mechanisms such as sublimation and altruism, high levels of occupational functioning, strong maternal caregiving behavior, and no history of self-harm. Further analysis of the patient's personality traits helped us identify that this presentation could be best characterized as a high-functioning internalizing subtype of BPD as identified in prior literature.
ISSN:2168-8184
2168-8184
DOI:10.7759/cureus.55166