It can be hard to maintain steady, honest empathy for people with Borderline PD, but their suffering is very real.
Prescribed a drug that made me much more depressed and started cutting. I stopped taking it, and later met the person who is now my spouse. Early in the relationship I got fraught that it would end, so I tried to end it preemptively. That didn't work, thankfully.
It was really a relationship where I could for the first time just be myself and not "front", so it just felt right. My pysch was not convinced and warned me, rightly so. But, we moved away from that college, got married, have kids, and really haven't had any emotional rollercoasters since (over 10 years later).
But occasionally I have emotional scares/thoughts but they usually subside. Also, since I'm on a throwaway, when we first had our first child I kept getting murderous thoughts about how to kill it whenever I got frustrated. These scared me, and through some introspection, my own aim seemed to be to get an emotional response from myself. Especially since these thoughts typically included how I would immediately regret harming my child and how others would react.
So I feel like it's still there, but my hormones leveled out or something happened to allow me to manage it.
I imagine so. There are always errant thoughts of taboo things (well, I assume that's a common thing...), but to keep coming back to something like that without some obvious priming (such as media) sounds terrifying. Just experiencing those thoughts and wondering about myself would probably leave me a wreck, so good on you for recognizing them for what they were and finding a way to deal with them.
Other times it was more insidious, "would your baby still be so fond of you if you slowly crushed its head".
Ugh, I struggle just trying to type that last one out. They would always bring me to tears. I'm pretty good at compartmentalizing I suppose.
These have disappeared now that our kids is older and our emotional input is requited.
I am still contemplating whether I should mention it to my spouse. She knows about my diagnosis in college but not these intrusive thoughts.
[1] http://www.viruscomix.com/page590.html
As with pain, we can never really know the scope of anyone else's intrusive thoughts; but know that it is not a unique burden.
That's a tough one. I'm going to step inand give my two cents, even though I'm not trained in this and don't have a huge amount of experience.
Don't share it unless you have a specific setting that allows it to be digested by her slowly, and with professional help to put it into context, and even then have a good reason for doing so. Sharing this with her puts her in the situation of needing to balance her understanding and love of her husband with her love and protectiveness of her children. It's her job to worry about the kids, so even if she's 99% sure there's absolutely no danger, that 1% is hard to accept as a parent. As long as you're sure the situation is safe, saving her from having to obsess over the possibility of those scenarios is doing you both a favor.
This of course presupposes that you aren't really a danger, as you've noted. So as long as you're sure of that, I keeping it to yourself is better for your both. I'm of course an untrained outsider looking in though, so take this for whatever it's worth.
It's important to understand that emotions can't 'force' you to do anything. You fuel your intrusive thoughts by not allowing your frustration to vent in an appropriate manner. Just sighing and saying 'I am frustrated, oh well' when you are can help a lot.
Intrusive thoughts are like a mild case of OCD, and with a bit of psychotherapy the will disappear.
My diet has also changed a lot, like another commentator mentioned.
Too many variables!
And see also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_behavior_therapy "This approach works towards helping people increase their emotional and cognitive regulation by learning about the triggers that lead to reactive states and helping to assess which coping skills to apply in the sequence of events, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to help avoid undesired reactions."
Of course, all easier said than done...
I'm not a professional, but think he's untreatable mostly due to his completely non acknowledgement of his disease. The added paranoia and delusion makes him aggressively dismiss any kind of intervention as "conspiracy" against him.
It's sad too see an individual waste his life this way for something that seems treatable, from this report.
Lack of insight is a feature of the disorder, to be able to treat BPD at all is partly to improve this.
Self-insight is developed in childhood in healthy interactions with a caregiver: roughly a parent displays an appropriate emotional reaction to your behaviour which allows you to recognise your own behaviour by observing this emotional reaction. Without an ability to observe yourself emotionally through the mirror the parent provides, you fail to develop an awareness of your identity/emotions/etc.
The process of developing it anew in an adult requires re-running childhood again in a particular kind of way, with a therapist, and have the therapist provide you with the healthy responses that your parent failed to provide. It is, in my opinion, an exercise in retraining the emotions -- particularly developing the reflective frontal-lobe responses and suppressing the fight+flight amygdala responses which is often way out-sized in traumatized people.
Insight into oneself is a trainable faculty like many others, and its deficit is not the end of treatment but the usual starting point.
But he won't start treatment?!
> As a result, the term “treatment resistant” can fuel views of patients as “oppositional” and recalcitrant, instead of expectably symptomatic.
I'm not claiming that the kind of dissociation a person experiences when psychotic can be treated by therapy. Pharmacology is essential, and actually I do think after awhile therapy can be helpful (I have family members who have had psychotic episodes too).
The lack of insight in both cases is a product of dissociation. In a personality disorder this is a "mild" chronic state (compared to psychosis) which is amenable to very long term (years+) therapy, unlike psychosis. It is why BPD people with quite severe dissociation or who have episode of severe dissociation report mildly schizoprenic-like problems with their identity (eg. thinking that they are multiple people, lost time, etc.).
I was assuming his BPD friend had this background state, which would not preclude treatment. Treatment would, in part, be to deal with that.
(per Wikipedia)
beep beep
And what would that particular kind of way be?
Two hints to anyone that might need help with this. If you think you cant feel anything, consider this. What is the feeling of not feeling anything?
Last suggestion: find a pillow and hold it to your chest. Hug the crap out of that thing. See if you can feel the comfort. Your job as a traumatised person is to learn to feel that same comfort when you need it, but without the pillow. Sounds weird but this is what un traumatised person learned to do before they could ride a bike and promptly forgot that they ever learned it. You need to learn it in adulthood. And fortunately its not that hard.
Yeah, this has been the entirety of my experience with people who have personality disorders.
I ended up at a job working with someone with it. Let's just say the only winning move is not to play.
I've had work experiences with BPD co-workers and ended up just needing to extricate myself from the situation for my own sanity rather than to try to help or do anything productive that could've made their situations improve. I always felt bad about it, but I just don't have the patience and fortitude to help in those situations.
It's not just this, but it's the frustration that comes from not being able to, for lack of a better term, fix BPD. You can pour your heart and soul into a relationship with someone who is borderline (as I did), and it will all be for nothing as soon as they split you. You can have a relationship spanning back years, maybe it's even someone you've known since you were a child, and suddenly a switch goes off in their brain and you may as well be someone that they just met yesterday.
There is no parity between Cluster Bs and "normal" people when it comes to things like friendship, loyalty, and obligation, and that has the potential to really hurt people. Some (most?) never figure out what Cluster B personality disorders are -- to them, these people are simply evil.
At best you have some success getting them to change and improve themselves, but then they just discard you and move on without so much as a second thought about you or your feelings. Unless they need you again in the future, that is.
This is a perfect description of what it's like. It seems to happen in episodes, too.
Every time you think you've built up some kind of bond (not anything special, just a typical everyday person-to-person emotional bond), there's another episode around the corner to reset it to zero in the blink of an eye for no apparent reason.
I was in a years-long relationship with someone with BPD, and eventually what I realized is that time doesn't strengthen anything with them. Nothing builds up over time, there's no foundation being built, you are always one instant away from being nothing to them.
Time can make you a recurring candidate for bizarre episodes of infatuation and idealization after you've left. But no amount of time you spend with them will ever meaningfully strengthen whatever bond you think you have.
i’m sorry for your experience but this is also patently false applied as a general statement to “us”. you’re not helping the situation by putting all of us over “there” where there is always one instant away of you being nothing to us.
All untreated BPDs experience splitting. For me, that isn't up for debate. By that, I mean you can't convince me otherwise. It's a hallmark of the disorder. Maybe you are receiving treatment and able to suppress it, but as soon as treatment no longer works for you or you discontinue it, you will start to split again.
I don't know where you got that information from, but I'll assume it's the bad experiences you mentioned. I'm sorry you made them. "a pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation" is one of nine criterias used to diagnose BPD. One must fulfil only five, however. Please try not to make those generalizations. It's important. People suffering from borderline are still individual humans. Even if they have similar (not the same) problems as the ones who hurt you, it's not fair to divert your disappointment.
Being the victim of childhood abuse or trauma does not give you the right to abuse people unrelated to those events today. You have agency, and you are responsible for your behavior.
Having a personality disorder does not give you license to abuse others and does not negate your responsibility for your behavior. Again, you have agency and your mental illness does not change that.
The fact that you did not choose to have BPD is irrelevant and does not give you the right to abuse others. It does not negate your responsibility for your own behavior.
I ran around for more than 20 years, pretty much non-functioning. I searched for help various times, and received help, but not always in my own best interest (e.g. if organisation X pays for your professional help, its in their interest; not yours). Now that I know I suffer from autism I have a much easier time recognising the patterns, and once my therapy starts I'll have an easier time coping with myself and society.
It makes me wonder how many people are running around with incomplete or inaccurate diagnoses.
For someone in a relationship where it seems to rhyme but not fit understanding the two flavors can be eye opening.
There is also some exploration of the relationship between BPD and trauma as most people with BPD have a history of trauma. There may be some gender bias when diagnosing BPD. Men who report the same symptoms as women are more likely to be diagnosed with PTSD than BPD.
How do you detect BPD when the subject is so uncooperative and knows how to act normal enough to trick you?
I suspect someone of having BPD who doesn't want any help at all (suprise?). What will convince a psychiatrist or counselor?
Edit: Don't take this the wrong way, but others have given you a bad name: you sound as professional as Microsoft support.
Our interactions were mostly them telling me all about themselves, troubles, and what I considered a bit too wrapped up in their family and essentially anything I said was forgotten. But they were nice to have a glass or two of wine with.
After the incident, I said maybe they should seek professional help. They said that they hated that I turned out to be one of "those people" that, when they were being 'different' or 'standing up' for themselves, were always saying that maybe they should talk to a therapist or that something was wrong with them and that they were "disappointed" in me. Over the three days following they tried to shrug it off, bring me gifts, etc. but I figured it best just to go "no contact" as they say online.
Anyway, I don't know if they have BPD (though a friend with a bipolar mom confirmed some things) but it's tough when 80% of the time the person is nice and functional but there are hidden faultlines that rapidly turn frightening.
If I could afford to, I would go see a therapist just to get a different perspective on my life from my friends but it's sad that someone who seems to really need it are in refusal. I recall when my mother told me about her taking depression meds and was sad that she was struggling with that and I had not recognized it but also happy that she had sought help.
I confess to a personal interest as I've sought at times for things like anxiety and depression, and frustratingly enough would not be able to tell you what treatment I was actually receiving under the name of therapy.
People should have a choice of what works for them.
http://www.crisiscareconcordat.org.uk/inspiration/meeting-th...
That document lists:
Dielectical Behavioural Therapy Mentalization Based Therapy Cognitive Analytic Therapy Transference Focussed Psychotherapy Interpersonal Group Psychotherapy Cognitive Therapy for Personality Disorders Schema Therapy
and it lists intensive therapeutic programmes, therapeutic communities, and arts therapies.
Of these DBT probably has best evidence, and has most people providing it.
please don't engage in armchair dx.