Borderline Personality Disorder?

[AlexDP]

 

 

Interestingly enough, this deficiency is likely caused by environmental factors not allowing the person to develop emotionally as they should thereby reducing the growth of the amydala due to simple lack of use. This seems to fit and will unless new information comes along indicating some sort of genetic cause to the defect.

 

There is always a genetic factor in the sense that some of us 'build' easier in certain parts of our body than others. The obvious example would be building muscle.

 

However, if you agree with this idea (and I'm asking everyone in this thread), what does that really tell you about accountability?

[HarmonyInDisonance]

Have you had rtms???

 

No, I should have been more specific. I mean that until the Bipolar condition was properly managed with medications, I was unable to utilize DBT.

 

In your case it's likely to be similar, if the RTMS works, then you'll be a somewhat less of a handicap.

 

I am familiar with RTMS and met many people going through it. There were also some getting good old fashioned electroshock therapy.

 

More on that later gotta go.

[HarmonyInDisonance]

There is always a genetic factor in the sense that some of us 'build' easier in certain parts of our body than others. The obvious example would be building muscle.

 

However, if you agree with this idea (and I'm asking everyone in this thread), what does that really tell you about accountability?

 

 

We do have different "building tendencies" genetically, but I am referring to the possibility of a birth defect of sorts. In other words a slight deficiency that causes the amydala to be stunted in it's growth, in comparison to the low normal end of the spectrum.

 

Right now we only have proof that environmental factors, ie your treatment growing up, causes you to lack the emotional development of your peers. In this cause the amydala would be stunted due to lack of use. Much like a muscle deteriorates without use.

 

It's a chicken or the egg sort of thing for now.

 

As far as accountability goes, it just depends upon whether the person is aware of what is happening. I became aware the moment I realized what was going on AND what caused it.

 

Upon knowing the truth I had a new option. That option was to overcome, to do what is right. I fall on my face constantly, but I GET UP. I carry the burden of the people I hurt and I honor the sacrifice of those, who like Downtown volunteer their lives willingly to help another.

 

Jesus said there is no greater love than when a man lays his life down for his brother.

 

Jesus did it for us all, my wife did it for me, so have a few close friends. So my accountability is to my loved ones.

 

If I give up, If I simply run away to "save them", I dishonor their lives, that they sacrificed great portions of for my sake.

 

So in the end, I guess it comes down to the level of awareness. Perspective comes into play also, but that is where accountability is a choice. A person can almost always rationalize what their doing if they try hard enough. Your being accountable when you stop doing that and accept the truth for what it is.

 

Until a person is made aware of what they are doing they are less accountable. In a perfect world we would have metrics designed to measure emotional intensity. By doing so we could establish EXACTLY what handicap each person has and therefor, how much control they have over themselves.

 

I actually figured out a way to do this, but after dialogue with you and friends from a couple of science forums, I realized there was an issue with sample bios.

 

A shame, but I continue to work on it, hoping to find a way around it at least to the point that preliminary testing can be done to open the way for more visibility.

 

I might have been a little round about there, but it is a difficult thing to explain.

 

Hope this is a satisfactory answer for now.

[HarmonyInDisonance]

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply. I think you have completely summed up my anguish in statement about intent. That is exactly my issue, if his intent was honest and he genuinely wanted to be with me, then I can deal with that. If he was just taking me for what he could get, that is way harder for me to deal with. My friend thinks it doesn't matter, but it is fundamental to me. If I didn't see what he was doing, how will I see it next time? How will I trust another man?

 

Can you explain what you mean by 'hyper-rationalism' I haven't heard that term before.

 

I'll be back later. For now, suffice to say that hyper-rationalism is the act of deferring to cold hard logic to make decisions. It's an emergency protocol of sorts, to be invoked when your in a dangerous state and your ability to make decisions is impaired by intense emotions. I default to this by nature so long as someone doesn't anger me enough to completely lose it. (I realize now that it is still my choice as to whether or not I allow anger to "take hold")

[HarmonyInDisonance]

Delightful attitude. Simply delightful.There is no cure because there is no disease to cure. BPD is not considered to be a disease but, rather, a way of thinking. It therefore can be managed and controlled by undergoing therapy to retrain the mind to think differently.

 

As to what it takes to be successful in that endeavor, it does not "take a miracle." Rather, it takes a high level of self awareness and sufficient ego strength to persist with therapy. Significantly, you have both of those attributes in spades, Harmony.

 

Just caught that, lol, thanks for the kind words. Hearing such a thing spoken too me would probably embarrass me something fierce.

 

I do realize its not a disease in the normal sense, but rather spiritually. It is a way of thinking, but so much more a way of BEING. Learning to do is easy, learning to BE, well I've had a tough time with that one.

[J_L_C]

No, I should have been more specific. I mean that until the Bipolar condition was properly managed with medications, I was unable to utilize DBT.

 

In your case it's likely to be similar, if the RTMS works, then you'll be a somewhat less of a handicap.

 

I am familiar with RTMS and met many people going through it. There were also some getting good old fashioned electroshock therapy.

 

More on that later gotta go.

 

Did those people find rtms worked??

[Leegh]

The person that I know with BPD is extremely selfish, and will not budge in any way to help family members, and will not make compromises.

[HarmonyInDisonance]

Did those people find rtms worked??

 

There were two out of the 5 people I knew that said it helped.

most of this stuff is hit and miss.

 

I actually noticed improvement in some doing electroshock.

 

I'll look into these more later and get back with something useful so you know where you stand a little better.

[Emilia]

The person that I know with BPD is extremely selfish, and will not budge in any way to help family members, and will not make compromises.

I think you would benefit from reading all the posts in this thread

[Downtown]

Without forgetting of course that, essentially, people with BPD are indeed extremely selfish.

Sometimes they are, Alex. Other times, however, they may be extremely generous and caring. My experience is that a BPDer's problem is not being selfish but, rather, emotionally unstable. This instability means a BPDer does not exhibit any particular behavioral trait, like selfishness or generosity, consistently. I would agree, however, that all you will see is selfishness while the BPDer is splitting you black. And I would agree that BPDers generally exhibit selfishness more frequently than nonBPDers.

We can find a dozen reasons and explanations for a character flaw, but at the end of the day, it's still a character flaw.

"Character" is most commonly used to denote moral qualities, ethical standards, principles, and the like -- e.g., the expression, "a man of sterling character." If that is how you're using the term, I would disagree. A BPDer's problem, as I said, is being unstable -- not having bad character.

 

Indeed, two of the most beloved women in the world -- Marilyn Monroe and Princess Diana -- both were high functioning BPDers, if their biographers are to be believed. They were publicly known as caring and generous women. Diana, for example, was famous for her extensive charity work all over the world. They did not behave that way, however, toward close friends whom they were splitting black.

 

Indeed, none of us behave that way when we are splitting someone black -- something we all do whenever we become very angry at a person. When we experience intense emotions, our judgment goes out the window -- which is why we all know, by the time we are in high school, we should keep our mouths shut and our fingers off the keys whenever we get angry. BPDers are like that -- just more so -- and they lack the impulse control needed to keep their mouths shut when angry.

[HarmonyInDisonance]

No body misinterpret this okay, I'm not exactly defending his point of view, but...

 

I think he has actually read some things about this disorder. He has an, at the very least, basic understanding of how the brain works. Even to the point of some knowledge of area specific calorie burn.

 

Being a lawyer I imagine he has a nature to make things fit.

A large sum of any man's life is his job. His job is proofing or disproving something based on discernment.

 

This has got him hung up on the accountability all along. That's the main thing he's after here. He, by his fairly long standing postings on this thread, is actually show a lot of interest, whether intended or not. It always comes down to whether or not a person has any excuse.

 

I always go back to it being your problem when you realize you have a problem. I ignored the idea for a long time myself. A person that has no idea that they were being completely wrong constantly, is sort of akin to a child. Like a child they are ignorant of a simple thing. There logical capacity is, for the most part, on par with anyone else. So, at some point you know if something is wrong or not, and you know you know. You can at least try or you can lie to yourself, then it's your problem either way and responsibility for your actions becomes fully yours, for better or worse.

[HarmonyInDisonance]

On a different note, I will probably be absent from this post for stretches here and there. I am going to be extremely busy. Things took off faster that I expected with my business.

 

I signed a contract today for a 3 year gig web hosting for a fellow that owns several businesses. And, supplying all of the computers he sells. I am also in talks with a long lost friend that I read about on yahoo. He has a very successful skating shop in missouri. I got stud up by a potentiel client and ended up just bumping into him while I was out. I had my presentation on me and he happened to ask what I do.

 

Talk about dumb luck, he needed exactly what I was already doing for my other friend, with two stores.

 

And I get a free skateboard

 

I have a deal worked out with a car repair and builder fellow, and also about five other owners here and there that are watching to see how this goes. IT goes well, and I will likely land 3 out of 5 of the contracts at least.

 

So I am stressed out, but in a good way. I thought I had a good plan and business model going, but wow, a ton of work exploded in my face right off the bat! Weeee! I got to this point before, but was stopped by simply having too many kids, but my family took the kids off me. So now I get to see what comes after the part were you start running out of places to stack up computers lol.

 

Thanks again for your input and advice people. I sort of lucked out a wholllllle lot as well.

[HarmonyInDisonance]

Dude, but seriously I am freaking out at the amount of work I have to do in six months!

[Emilia]

Good luck Harmony busy is good.

[HarmonyInDisonance]

Make that 5 out of 5 already. I met with the fellow that is my contact for they're little family network of operations yesterday. I apparently impressed him. You see he came all the way to my actual home. So as an unexpected bonus instead of showing him pictures of my work he got to see it in person. So, instead of waiting about 3 to 6 months, it looks like I am going to be signing those contracts within the week. Gotta go forgot I was doing this, that was hours ago, got a call, and more work, and wow this is just crazy!

 

[Emilia]

This post is about my BPD sufferer ex as I have been using this thread as an opportunity to record his progress and my experiences related to having a loved one who has to deal with it.

 

There was an incident at one of the armed forces training areas in the UK on Sunday where two soldiers died, it was the same place my ex texted me from a few weeks before. As soon as I heard the news on the radio I contacted him because they weren't releasing names yet.

 

In fact he was in my city, only a good 20 minutes away from my place and he offered to go for a coffee. I declined a couple of times purely because I was scared to get drawn in emotionally again but he insisted so I said yes.

 

He looked very well and has matured enormously over the last 3 years. We had sporadic contact but nothing beats seeing the person in real life. I know he is very intelligent and observant but I had sort of forgotten how much so. It was interesting to see his mood changes on his face now that they don't freak me out. I observed two. Obviously everyone has their mood changes to a degree depending on conversation but his are quite pronounced and I recognised them all. It was the most rational and mature one that he stayed in longest thankfully. By the time we finished coffee he had lightened up a fair bit. Perhaps because the ordeal was coming to an end, who knows

 

The conversation mainly focused on his job, some of the frustrations we both face but also discussed conflict resolution and lightly touched on splitting. He asked me not to psychoanalyse him in a good natured way but it was him who made that reference to his cutting people off, almost in a shy way. We talked about his family and his parents and it was clear that he had thought a lot about our argument a good 3 months or so ago. His constant need to be around people also came up, he is as frustrated with that feeling as he was the last time I saw him.

 

He was patient, calm and seemed rational for I'd say at least 90% of the time we spent together.

 

He is doing ok and I playfully patted his butt when we said good-bye and he giggled which was very cute. I have absolutely no idea whether I'll ever hear from him again.

 

EDIT: forgot to add, he has also stopped fighting apparently. I didn't ask him, I knew of only one fight but he says he has worked out how to control that particular impulse. Obviously the fact that he would get into more trouble than your average person if anything really bad happened is an incentive too, he admitted it so.

Edited July 16, 2013 by Emilia
additional information

[Downtown]

Emilia, I'm glad to hear your visit with your Ex went well and that he seems to be a bit more self aware. Please be careful. There is a reason they call it "hoovering."

[Emilia]

Emilia, I'm glad to hear your visit with your Ex went well and that he seems to be a bit more self aware. Please be careful. There is a reason they call it "hoovering."

Thank you for kind concern, I thought I'd get a stronger warning Boundaries are safely intact. Thank you

[Mack05]

Playful pat on the butt...Got to say this would give me mixed signals if an ex did this. I mean why do that? To me there is clearly something there on your part and quite significant at that. For you to admit anything else I think there is a hint of denial. I mean you still post about this guy and its three years later. Up until recently I posted about my ex's too, want to why? Because part of me for entirely different reasons (for each girl) was still hung up on them. I mean if I wasn't why post about them?....I could have given the same advice without having to refer to my story(ies).

 

You know I think you are great Emilia, but I would thread very carefully here. I have met ex's over the years and they looked great etc etc but in no way was I focusing on their actions or fretting about meeting them for a beer Why? Cause I didn't feel a thing. I fretted once about an ex I was with for 8 years (hadn't seen her in a year) but that was because I was still very keen and she looked ridiculously hot :-)

 

Listen I am sure he has made improvements, but let another girl see them. I wouldn't be surprised if he contacts you again (indeed I am expecting him to). I know you might think what harm is a coffee but isn't that how it always starts!??A friendship, then a few beers, come over for a movie and badda bing badda boom.

 

I really hope this is just a nice ending to a period in your life. Going back to the past will end up in one thing. Heartbreak. When we talk about noticing and seeing improvements it means something is still there. It seems you are hoping to see these improvements. Deep down hoping he wants to meet again?

 

Listen I ain't you and I am guessing here, these are just the views of a guy outside the box who doesn't want to see a girl he really likes (but never met) hurt. Kinda like a big brother kinda thing :-)

[Emilia]

Playful pat on the butt...Got to say this would give me mixed signals if an ex did this. I mean why do that? To me there is clearly something there on your part and quite significant at that. For you to admit anything else I think there is a hint of denial. I mean you still post about this guy and its three years later. Up until recently I posted about my ex's too, want to why? Because part of me for entirely different reasons (for each girl) was still hung up on them. I mean if I wasn't why post about them?....I could have given the same advice without having to refer to my story(ies).

Oh he is a hottie for sure, there is no denial that I still think he is very attractive. Of course I'm hung up on him, you won't see me deny it. It will be the case until I meet someone great. When I dated in the last 3 years he wasn't on my mind much but as soon as that ended, he came back on my mind. No denying that Mack. He is definitely not the reason it hasn't worked out with others. You kinda have to take my word for it.

You know I think you are great Emilia, but I would thread very carefully here. I have met ex's over the years and they looked great etc etc but in no way was I focusing on their actions or fretting about meeting them for a beer Why? Cause I didn't feel a thing. I fretted once about an ex I was with for 8 years (hadn't seen her in a year) but that was because I was still very keen and she looked ridiculously hot :-)

 

Listen I am sure he has made improvements, but let another girl see them. I wouldn't be surprised if he contacts you again (indeed I am expecting him to). I know you might think what harm is a coffee but isn't that how it always starts!??A friendship, then a few beers, come over for a movie and badda bing badda boom.

 

I really hope this is just a nice ending to a period in your life. Going back to the past will end up in one thing. Heartbreak. When we talk about noticing and seeing improvements it means something is still there. It seems you are hoping to see these improvements. Deep down hoping he wants to meet again?

 

Listen I ain't you and I am guessing here, these are just the views of a guy outside the box who doesn't want to see a girl he really likes (but never met) hurt. Kinda like a big brother kinda thing :-)

You are very sweet and I'm not offended the slightest. Very happy to straight talk.

 

To me this BPD thing is new and I'm getting my way around it slowly, it's been about a year that I've learned about it and realised the whole caretaking/codependent thing. I'm learning from this too, you know? And I'm enjoying the growth has brought me.

 

I knew I would get stick for posting this so don't worry

 

I know you don't believe me necessarily (denial and all that lot) if I tell you that facing that enemy (BPD) has made me feel much better. Seeing him 'normal' made me feel much better.

 

I do realise how that sounds. You are very welcome to pull me up in the near future if you see me posting anything you don't like but I won't be going to his house to watch movies and he isn't coming over to mine

[Mack05]

but I won't be going to his house to watch movies and he isn't coming over to mine

 

well in my recent experience I know what happens when people call over for movies and popcorn...Although right now I am projecting ha ha..

[Emilia]

well in my recent experience I know what happens when people call over for movies and popcorn...Although right now I am projecting ha ha..

I know exactly what happens when you call people over for movies and popcorn, hope it was a good experience for you

 

I promise I'm not talking the sort, ok? It has helped me a huge amount that his self-awareness has grown so much. You know what a torture it is to watch someone drowning. I can't not care. His job is bad enough, god knows whether he is more susceptible to PTSD, etc. It's good to see the other person dealing with life.

 

I'm pretty sure the pat on the butt has not unbalanced his life in any shape or form either the conversation was not the personal kind. We did not discuss whether either of us was seeing anyone or anything personal like this. There were no feelers put out. If he gets through all his courses he will be moving to quite a remote area fairly far away from London.

[LinkWorshiper]

I don't talk to my friends about this stuff because they don't get it. I just post here because there are people like Downtown and Mack05 who get it. You are very welcome to talk to us here.

 

Sorry it took me about a hundred years to answer. I forgot I had a thing on this thread because I'm brilliant XD But thanks for your support... it means a lot to hear from other people who know what this crazy nonsense even is.

 

You do want to remind yourself though that he is his own person. Even if he seems to you like someone who isn't capable of running his life, he is an adult and he has the right to live the way he wants to. The truth is - which all of us with codependent tendencies have to learn - none of us have the right to control a person and make them live the way we approve of.

 

You're right. I guess that was a big struggle for me. Because a lot of what he is dealing with has always been super obvious for me, especially since our break up. And my instinct is to help because that's just the kind of person I am, especially when it comes to people I care about. Incidentally, when I recognized that his emotional push/pull was starting to affect to me, I told him that it was getting to a point where maybe we should take some space from one another. Which actually seemed to help him and me more than I could have ever anticipated. Three weeks of NC later, he wrote me this incredibly raw and emotional letter about how he was struggling to understand who he was, that he had ****ed up his life and our relationship (and some past ones too) with drugs and alcohol and he needed to strip everything in his life down so he could figure everything out. He said he wasn't happy just being my friend at all, but that we had to be strong to get through this and he hoped I'd forgive him when he was a better person. So at least if anything, he has become self-aware and even felt the need to tell me about it in an unexpected way that he really didn't have to. It was actually quite uplifting to read it. I cried.

 

How do you deal with grey areas in general in interpersonal relationships? Do you cut people off much?

 

I am HORRIFIC with grey area. My mind hamster wheels out of control whenever there is a situation I don't really understand because it's too vague (welcome to my situation with my ex haha). Before I learned what BPD was and that I had it, I would just shut it down. People I didn't like or who were frustrating to me, I was pretty quick to tell them off, though people I have great affection for, I'd be ridiculously understanding and forgiving of things they do... usually the people who've managed to make it through the thick barrier I have around myself. And betrayal is like the ultimate f*ck-up as far as I'm concerned, mostly because I don't even remotely handle it well. I still do all this stuff, but I am way more analytic about my own thoughts and the actions of others than I ever was. Which gives me a whole new realm of things to hamster wheel about, because it is just a whole new bucket of things I have a difficult time understanding. But I guess it's better than just doing all that stuff without even really getting why or trying to stop it.

 

Well, I can't tell how permanent each progression he makes is and I don't have enough contact with him really to 'monitor' it as it were. I think what is on his side is that he has self-awareness. When we met years ago he told me he knew he had something, he was guessing it to be something like bipolar but he wasn't sure.

 

So I try to provide stress-free contact because that's the only way for me to keep getting news from him. I really don't see how this would work as a relationship though.

 

First off, that is exactly the thing I wanted to know when I asked about what I ought to do to keep tabs on my ex while he is dealing with his issues. I know that we have enough affection for each other to make things work, but he has to be in a place where he can meet me halfway. I may be a mess, but at least I know it. My ex said that his inability to face his own complications had made it impossible for him to understand anyone else's, but since going through all this self-analysis, he's become a lot more empathetic to my distance from people and such. Anyway, I suppose I can check in on him every month or so. I wrote him a letter in response to the one he left me, so perhaps I could keep that up on a semi-regular basis.

[czen]

My ex has BPD. Well to be honest, I think she has it. Het psychiatrist just thinks it's a depression and apparently laughed at the idea of her having BPD.

 

I still believe she has BPD anyway. Her mood swings between extreme happiness and telling me the sweetest things to rageful bouts of anger and extreme sadness, fear of abandonment and excessive responses to minor obstacles tell me that. I still hope to get back to her, but I'm not sure how much therapy will help if they are convinced she has something else. And I can't be with her if she doesn't at least get the fear of abandonment and rage somewhat under control.

[Downtown]

My ex has BPD. Well to be honest, I think she has it. Her psychiatrist just thinks it's a depression and apparently laughed at the idea of her having BPD.

Czen, only a professional can determine whether your Ex's BPD traits are so severe as to meet 100% of the diagnostic criteria for having full-blown BPD. There is a world of difference, however, between diagnosing BPD and spotting the red flags. You are capable of learning how to spot all the warning signs by reading about the nine symptoms (i.e., traits). For anyone thinking about marrying an abusive angry partner, relying on HER psychologist to give you a diagnosis likely will be a disastrous course of action. I say this for four reasons.

 

First, psychologists may never witness the BPD traits. Because high functioning BPDers generally are excellent actors, it is a cakewalk for them to hide their BPD traits during a 50-minute session held only once a week. It therefore may take a psychiatrist years to see the dysfunctional behaviors you see all week long -- and it is highly unlikely a BPDer will remain in therapy that long (in the unlikely event you persuade her to even start).

 

Second, even assuming that the psych has sufficient time to identify a BPDer's disorder, it is unlikely that the psych will ever tell you. Therapists generally are loath to tell a high functioning BPDer -- much less tell her partner -- the true diagnosis. Because BPDers have fragile egos, giving her the name of her disorder almost certainly will result in her immediately quitting therapy.

 

Third, in the very unlikely event she stays in therapy, telling her the name of her disorder may cause her behavior to become WORSE, not better. Because BPDers have a fragile, unstable sense of who they are, they are often looking to other people for cues on how to behave. The danger of disclosing the disorder name, then, is that it will give the patient a new identity as "the BPDer." The result is that a patient who had been exhibiting 5 or 6 BPD traits may suddenly start exhibiting 8 or 9.

 

A fourth reason is that therapists know that listing the diagnosis as "BPD" almost certainly means insurance companies will refuse to cover it. It therefore is common for the "diagnosis" to be listed, instead, as one of the side effects or comorbid disorders, such as depression, anxiety, PTSD, or adult ADHD -- all of which are covered by insurance. About 75% of BPDers have a clinical mood disorder, such as anxiety or depression, which is treatable with medication. This is why BPDers usually are prescribed medication even though meds will not make a dent in the BPD itself.

No secret to therapists. This withholding of information is no secret in the psychiatric community and has been discussed in academic articles for decades. See, e.g., the classic 1992 Dartmouth Medical School article at The Beginning of Wisdom Is Never Calling a Patient a Borderline; or, The Clinical Management of Immature Defenses in the Treatment of Individuals With Personality Disorders -- VAILLANT 1 (2): 117 -- Journal of Psychotherapy Practice and Research. More recently (May 2009), the Columbia Univ. College of Phys. & Surgeons devoted a workshop to this very issue, i.e., when to withhold and when to disclose the BPD diagnosis. See http://www.borderlinepersonalitydiso...sure_Hersh.pdf.

 

No secret to attorneys. Likewise, this withholding is no secret to the family-law attorneys who specialize in divorces and spousal abuse. One such firm -- located in Calif and NV -- explains on its website why there is little chance of being able to use a BPD diagnosis in the divorce proceedings against a very abusive spouse. This article, by trial lawyer Joel Douglas, states:

"Often mental health care clinicians in completing their DSM list of differential diagnoses will “defer” or simply leave an Axis II diagnostic impression blank, irrespective of whether a personality disorder exists."

Douglas gives four reasons as to why "many psychotherapists are loathe to list Axis II personality disorders." See full article at Bonne Bridges, Mueller, O'Keefe & Nichols - Do You Know Someone Like This: The Borderline Personality Disorder.

Edited July 21, 2013 by Downtown