Borderline personality disorder self-assessment reflecting emotional sensitivity and trauma-informed therapy with Marla Leigh Caplan, LMFT

BPD Quiz

A reflective self-assessment tool for identifying traits of Borderline Personality

BPD Diagnosis or Emotional Sensitivity Mistaken for Pathology?

When what looks like a disorder is a nervous system shaped by experience.

Borderline Personality Disorder Quiz

A diagnosis can create a sense of normalcy and containment.

What it doesn't do is define the depth or possibility of who you are.

Below are reflective questions adapted from DSM-V criteria.

Diagnosing Personality Disorders

Identifying various personality organizations can be useful in so far as it creates a framework around a set of experiences that can be normalizing and validating for some. For others, it can feel pathologizing and reductive.

Am I Too Sensitive?

If you’ve found yourself wondering whether there’s a name for emotional intensity, heightened sensitivity, and volatile relationships, you may be looking for a structured way to understand your experience. A diagnosis is a place to orient.

Diagnostic Criteria for BPD

The following questions are based on symptom descriptions from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM V). Results from this self-report quiz do not constitute a clinical diagnosis.

Do you notice intense fears of abandonment arising from micro-interactions?

Do you have a history of unstable or volatile relationships?

Is your relationship to yourself unstable? Does your sense of self change depending on your environment or who you're with?

Do you struggle with impulse control?

Do you have recurring thoughts of suicide or self harm?

Do you experience mood swings and difficulty regulating your emotions?

Do you feel chronically empty or adrift?

Do you experience disproportionate rage and explosive anger?

Do you become paranoid or severely dissociated under extreme stress?

References

American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Borderline personality disorder. In Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.).

Pattern Recognition

Exhibiting one or two traits of a disorder does not indicate a pathology. It just means you’re a human.

If you have noticed a pattern of at least 5 of the above criteria repeating throughout your lifetime in a variety of contexts and in a manner that makes your life more difficult, this may be something you would benefit from exploring in therapy — regardless of whether you have a diagnosis.

Responding to life using outdated tools doesn’t mean you’re broken. It may simply mean that the strategies that once helped you survive no longer support the life you want to live.

Marla Leigh Caplan Psychotherapy offers a non-pathologizing space for people navigating emotional intensity, relational complexity, and impulsivity, including empaths, artists, and highly sensitive people. Therapy begins with safety and pacing. Together, we build stability first, drawing from grounded, evidence-based practices like Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. As therapy deepens, so does the approach, moving from skill building to mindfulness, body-based awareness, and psychological insight.

Rather than disordered, you may be sensitized by trauma.

If you’re noticing that many of the traits attributed to BPD fit your experience, contact me to explore recurring patterns and behaviors across your lifetime.