People with borderline personality disorder may have an extreme fear of abandonment. This fear is an overwhelming feeling that people close to them will physically leave and not come back or will abandon them emotionally. The fear of emotional abandonment may be less obvious than fear of physical abandonment but it is no less traumatic. For a person with BPD these fears can severely impact their relationships. They may need frequent assurance that they will not be abandoned and will go to great lengths to avoid a real or imagined abandonment.
A seemingly simple occurrence such as a person being late for a meeting; not responding to a text; or not returning a phone call can cause a person with BPD to feel like they are about to be abandoned and become panicky or angry. They may assume that these everyday events are caused by how the other person feels about them rather than by an unrelated circumstance. The intensity of their reaction reflects their sensitivity to rejection.