There are a couple of things that I have learned recently about BPD and about anxiety and decision-making. First of all, on anxiety. I hadn't connected that to making decisions, large and small, but that explains it. In dysfunctional families, anxiety is how emotional closeness is regulated. Family members feel anxious when they are either too close or too distant from each other, and in dysfunctional families it is overused and becomes chronic. When you're afraid that everything you do is going to be disapproved of (anxiety), it's hard to make any decisions, even little ones. Much more big ones like what to do with your life.

Anxiety and decision-making are relevant to BPD because of the ways they grow out of dysfunctional family systems. The thing I learned about BPD is cognitive. BPD is characterized by a basic cognitive error, "Someone is going to mess everything up anyway, so I'll just mess it up myself before they do."