BPD Symptoms Test: Your Nine-Area Profile

What this BPD symptoms test covers

The test follows the nine symptom areas described for borderline personality disorder in DSM-5-TR. Each area has three questions answered on a five-point scale from Never to Almost always, so your profile shows how often an experience happens and not only whether it has ever happened.

1. Strong and rapidly changing emotions
2. Reactions to possible abandonment
3. Intense or unstable relationships
4. An unstable sense of self
5. Persistent feelings of emptiness
6. Intense anger or difficulty managing anger
7. Impulsive actions with harmful consequences
8. Self-injury or suicidal behavior
9. Stress-related suspiciousness or disconnection

Read the full guide to BPD symptoms and DSM-5-TR criteria

What your profile includes

• A bar for each of the nine areas showing how often you recognised it.
• For the areas that stand out: what the experience can be like, what is often underneath it, and one skill to try today.
• What else could explain your experiences, including complex PTSD, bipolar disorder, depression, ADHD and autism.
• A one-page summary you can copy or print for a GP, doctor or therapist, with suggested first steps for the UK, US, Canada and Australia.
• If you save it in your browser, a comparison the next time you take the test.

What this test cannot do

The questions were written for this site. Your profile is not a diagnosis, a count of diagnostic criteria or a measure of how serious a difficulty is. Only a qualified professional can assess whether experiences are long-standing, present across your life and not better explained by something else. If you may hurt yourself or cannot stay safe, find crisis support now.

Questions about the test

How is this different from the 10-question BPD test?

The 10-question test uses the MSI-BPD, a published yes-or-no screening tool that gives a single count. This in-depth test asks how often you had 27 specific experiences over the past 12 months, plus five questions about your circumstances, and shows a profile across nine symptom areas. It gives more detail, and its questions were written for this site.

Can this test tell me whether I have BPD?

No. Borderline personality disorder can only be diagnosed by a qualified professional who considers how long experiences have been present, how widely they affect your life, and what else could explain them. This test describes how often you recognise each experience and helps you prepare for that conversation.

What are the nine BPD symptom areas?

DSM-5-TR describes nine areas: strong and rapidly changing emotions; reactions to possible abandonment; intense or unstable relationships; an unstable sense of self; persistent feelings of emptiness; intense anger or difficulty managing anger; impulsive actions with harmful consequences; self-injury or suicidal behavior; stress-related suspiciousness or disconnection. A clinician looks for a long-standing pattern across several of them, not a single experience.

Are my answers private?

Your answers stay in your browser. They are not sent to our servers, and you do not need an account or email address. Saving for later is off unless you turn it on.

What if my experiences could be something else?

That is common. Complex PTSD, bipolar disorder, depression, ADHD and autism share several of these experiences, and more than one can be present. Your profile includes a section on what tends to look similar and what tends to differ.