Anything to Stop the Pain – For Non-Borderlines and Loved Ones of People with BPD « Anything to Stop the Pain

NIU Shooter and Self-Injury

From MSNBC story about NIU Shooter:

Troubled mind
The discoveries added to the puzzle surrounding Kazmierczak.

While friends, family, educators and investigators remain baffled and shocked at the gunman’s acts, a closer look reveals that Kazmierczak’s friendly exterior masked a troubled mind.

University Police Chief Donald Grady said, without giving details, that Kazmierczak, 27, had become erratic in the past two weeks after he had stopped taking his medication.

A former employee at a Chicago psychiatric treatment center said Kazmierczak’s parents placed him there after high school. She said he used to cut himself, and had resisted taking his medications.

Are you pissed off at someone with BPD?

BPD can be frustrating

UPDATE 10/2008: This post is quite old… but it still applies. However, if you want to know HOW to do some of the things I mention here, I have recently published the I-AM-MAD communication skill, which distills one of the main skills that I present in my book, When Hope is Not Enough.

Hi all. I have been monitoring the “non” email lists and have found a common idea that I believe is a misconception about borderlines.

A taste of this idea can be seen in this paraphrased comment: ”When will my BP be willing to take responsibility for his/her actions? When will he/she try and fix the harm he/she has done to me and the kids? When will they finally admit they are WRONG?”

This attitude is common among “nons.” What it represents is anger and sadness on the part of the non and a desire for the borderline to behave in a “normal” way.

Unfortunately, the borderline will not behave in a “normal” way until the source of the behaviors are either accepted or changed. This site (and many others about Borderline Personality Disorder) posits that borderlines behave in the way that they do because they are in pain. This pain is deep and emotional and is characterized by shame. They do not feel guilty for what they do. No, they feel shameful about who they are. They believe that they are bad/wrong people. Why do so many kill themselves? To stop the pain.

The anger that the “non” expresses comes off to the borderline as judgment of their feelings. One of the key “causes” of BPD is an invalidating environment. If they are acting in a way the “non” feels is “wrong” the expression of that feeling on the part of the non is a judgment of the BPD’s feelings. In other words, they have internalized that it is wrong to feel that way. The problem is: they feel that way anyway, whether the non believes it is wrong or not. They behave in such as way to stop the painful emotions (mainly shame) and the judgments that come from the invalidating environment.

People in the “non” support groups don’t want to hear this. Why? Because they too are in pain. They are angry and want to be told that none of this is their fault. The disorder is not their fault, but the continuation of the “invalidating environment” is. A quote from an article of DBT Family Skills Training:

Facilitated by DBT’s nonjudgmental framework, DBT-FST offers the possibility of significant emotional and behavioral improvements in the whole family system as well as for the individuals in that system. This is accomplished through:1) presenting the biosocial model to patients and family members in a non-blaming manner similar to the approach employed in psychoeducation models;2) offering support and education to family members in the form of teaching DBT skills; and3) reinforcing skillful behaviors (in particular using rehearsal and feedback) through increasing the levels of empathy and validation in the family.

(emphasis mine)

Note the “non-blaming” manner. This illustrates a new environment that the family members can help create that supports the BPD and eliminates blaming (or judging). The second two points are the ways in which things will change -teaching skills that can be used instead of the old maladaptive behaviors like cutting or starving or raging.

While many nons might be angry at me for pointing out that they need to change also, I feel that these skills provide a sense of control over the situation. The non-judgmental approach applies to the nons too – meaning, we can’t “judge” the actions of the non are “wrong”. Instead, we can see the actions of the non can be painful to the borderline.

That said – many nons don’t want to hear that they have being acting toward their borderlines in painful ways. They too don’t want the blame. But I am not saying these things to “assign blame.” No, I am saying these things to try and help empower the non with skills that help the borderline with his or her feelings. In that way, life can get better for all involved.

Learn about this and how to do it in “When Hope is Not Enough”:

When Hope is Not Enough
Get the Non-BPD book that is designed for
staying and working on the relationship

Va Tech Killer and Emotional Dysregulation

The Virginia Tech shootings made me want to say a thing or two. There was immediate a lot of talk about gun control and of the shooter’s ability to buy guns and ammunition despite having been found by a court to be a danger to himself and others. I think that the pundits should discuss the real issue here and it is not gun control. While it may still be a good idea to have stricter gun laws, it is not the gun that did the killing; it was Cho himself that used the guns as a tool of murder.

The true problem was that Cho was mentally ill and did not seek treatment for his mental illness. I am not going to postulate as to what actual diagnosis that Cho had (I am not qualified to do so) – I will suggest that his true problem was probably emotional. He was unable to control his anger and rage. I would also like to point out that he carried around shame and self-hatred. When inner shame is left untreated, it often leaks out as anger and rage. It is extremely difficult for a person with inner shame to take ownership of that shame. Instead, it bubbles underneath the surface and comes out as anger toward those that have wronged them. I suspect this was Cho’s real problem. He was humiliated throughout his life and, quite possibly, had a biological pre-disposition to emotional dysregulation. The combination of these two factors – biological and environmental – adds up to self-hatred, shame and a persecution complex. I am not suggesting that all people with this sort of make-up and history are dangerous or would take that rage out on other people. In fact, many people with those issues end up taking their inner rage out of themselves – through suicide or risky behaviors. It seems to me that Cho couldn’t handle his shame or his intense emotions, so he acted to take revenge on other people. In doing so, he handled his emotions poorly (obviously). He probably also believed that shame to be true; meaning, he hated himself and thought other’s teasing and bullying was deserved. In pointing out the feeling that he believed to be true (that he was a bad, worthless person), he took revenge on all other people, regardless of whether they participated in his belittling.

The point of this post is to say that what we really need in this country is better and more assessable mental health care. We need to teach people, adults as well as children, about the functions of emotions and the skills that can be utilized to handle those emotions. We educate people about academic subjects everyday, but do very little to teach self-regulatory skills for emotional states. For some people, these emotional regulation skills are the very ones that can save their lives (and, in Cho’s case, the lives of others).

Oppositional Defiant Disorder

Here’s an article about ODD and Conduct Disorder (CD) in children and the correlation to adulthood personality disorders:

Borderline Personality Disorder is called this because patients have many traits from different psychiatric disorders. They have very unstable moods, like bipolar disorder. They often have strange experiences, like people with schizophrenia. Their relationships with others are usually quite unstable. They often don’t have much of a sense of who they really are or where they are going. They often cut themselves. Most of the people with this problem are female. If you have ODD/CD and are female, you have approximately a 15% chance of getting this.

There is also info about Antisocial Personality Disorders. My question is: are these really separate disorders or does emotional dysregulation play a part in all of them? If someone is emotionally volatile it seems to me that they will act out in different ways depending on the emotion they feel most often – anger, sadness or guilt/shame. So, all these different “”disorders”" – ODD, CD, ADD, BPD, APD and others – are they really the same disorder (emotional dysregulation) exhibiting itself in different forms?http://www.klis.com/chandler/pamphlet/oddcd/oddcdpamphlet.htm

An Example of an Angry Non

I found this review on Amazon as a review for the book “”Understanding the Borderline Mother.”" This excerpt says a lot about people’s understanding of borderlines:

Perhaps it is true that the borderline personality is a real disorder in various ways, but I know for a fact that there are borderlines who can control their negative behaviours when they really want to, and that is the most frightening thing of all, that a grown adult can still act so immaturely and continue to destroy other people willfully. I think that someone needs to write a book about this too. Also take in mind that some people who were once classified as “”borderlines”" often improve with age. For this reason, I do think that it’s possible for borderlines to change somewhat, if they really want to.

So, what do we have here?

It is not a real disorder (perhaps).
Borderlines can control their negative behaviors (when they really want to).
A grown adult can act so immaturely?
A person can destroy other people willfully?
They can change (if they really want to)

Hmmm… I guess she feels that borderlines don’t really want to change. They enjoy what they do. Do you feel this way about your borderline?http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/0765703319/102-3120581-1484128?customer-reviews.start=33

Anything to Stop the Pain – BPD and Non-BPDs

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NIU Shooter and Self-Injury

Are you pissed off at someone with BPD?

Va Tech Killer and Emotional Dysregulation

Oppositional Defiant Disorder

An Example of an Angry Non