Beyond Boundaries Buy the new eBook from Bon. "Beyond Boundaries" is the culmination of five years of research, practice and hard work. It's $18.00 at Google Checkout.
When Hope is Not Enough Buy "When Hope is Not Enough" eBook from Google Checkout (and save $0.50!):
But I Love You Buy "But I Love You" eBook from Google Checkout:
A free eBook – 4X4 for Nons
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Interestingly enough, anythingtostopthepain.com was “personality analyzed” by http://www.typealyzer.com/ which found the following…. What’s weird is that my personality type is not INTP. Oops, the bold seems to show that I am less than compassionate when blogging!
The analysis indicates that the author of http://www.anythingtostopthepain.com is of the type:
INTP – The Thinkers The logical and analytical type. They are especially attuned to difficult creative and intellectual challenges and always look for something more complex to dig into. They are great at finding subtle connections between things and imagine far-reaching implications. They enjoy working with complex things using a lot of concepts and imaginative models of reality. Since they are not very good at seeing and understanding the needs of other people, they might come across as arrogant, impatient and insensitive to people that need some time to understand what they are talking about.
Article about Dr. Richard Davidson and the brain science of happiness…
Scientist inspired by Dalai Lama studies happiness
MADISON, Wis. – After hearing about his cutting-edge research on the brain and emotions through mutual friends, the Dalai Lama invited Richard Davidson to his home in India in 1992 to pose a question.
Scientists often study depression, anxiety and fear, but why not devote your work to the causes of positive human qualities like happiness and compassion? the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader asked.
“I couldn’t give him a good answer,” recalled Davidson, a University of Wisconsin-Madison neuroscientist.
Since then, Davidson has become a partner in the Dalai Lama’s attempts to build a connection between Buddhism and western science. This weekend, the Dalai Lama will mark the opening of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the university’s Waisman Center, where more than a dozen researchers will study the science behind positive qualities of mind. Davidson said the center will be the only one in the world with a meditation room next to a brain imaging laboratory.
Davidson’s research has used brain imaging technology on Buddhist monks and other veteran practitioners of meditation to try to learn how their training affects mental health.
His team’s findings suggest meditation and other “contemplative practices” can improve compassion, empathy, kindness and attention. They support the concept that even adult brains can change through experience and learning.
“He’s made some interesting discoveries about meditation, and I think he is doing very good science,” said John Wiley, who was university chancellor from 2001 to 2008 and is interim director of the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery.
Initially, “a significant number of his colleagues around the world were suspicious and thought that it wasn’t adequately grounded in hard science,” Wiley said. “He’s proved them wrong.”
The appearance comes as the Dalai Lama has spent more time promoting research into traditional Buddhist meditative practices and urging scientists to help create a more ethical and peaceful world.
Davidson, named one of Time magazine’s most 100 influential people in 2006, will appear with the Dalai Lama at scientific events five times this year.
“His relationship with the Dalai Lama lends a great deal of public influence to the hard science that he does,” said David Addiss, a former Centers for Disease Control official who now works at the Fetzer Institute, a Michigan nonprofit that gave Davidson a $2.5 million grant.
Yet Davidson’s relationship with the Dalai Lama remains controversial. When he invited the Dalai Lama to speak at a 2005 neuroscience conference, dozens of researchers signed a petition in protest.
Some of the criticism appeared motivated by Chinese researchers who disagree politically with the Dalai Lama’s stance on Tibet. Others said it was an inappropriate mix of faith with science.
Davidson, who meditates every morning but does not consider himself a practicing Buddhist, has also been criticized for being too close to someone with an interest in the outcome of his research.
Davidson said the Dalai Lama’s commitment to science is remarkable for a religious leader of his stature, and notes that the Dalai Lama has said he is prepared to give up any part of Buddhism that is contradicted by scientific fact.
“He also is the first one to point out the limitations of meditation and how it’s not a cure all and be all for everything and has very limited effects on health,” Davidson said.
Davidson is ready to test his research in real-world situations. The center plans to begin training local fifth-grade teachers next fall to cultivate skills like patience and relaxation among their students.
“We’re really intrigued with his research that shows students can learn how to relax so they can focus more on learning,” said Sue Abplanalp, assistant superintendent for elementary schools in the Madison public schools.
By RYAN J. FOLEY Associated Press Writer
Sorry all if you have been to ATSTP over the past couple of days can gotten “Error: can’t access database” or something of that sort. My hosting company has informed me that traffic to the server has been unusually heavy over the past few days. Things seem to be getting a bit better as of today. I noticed personally that when I logged into my host to try to trouble-shoot the problem myself, it was really slow.
An article “clarifying” the latest Courtney Love custody decision…
Courtney Love in wake of losing custody of Frances Bean: ‘terrible influences, pure evil’
By Vicki Hyman/The Star-Ledger
December 15, 2009, 10:29AM
 Courtney and Frances Bean Courtney Love has left a string of only occasionally coherent messages on her Facebook page in the wake of a Los Angeles court decision to give temporary custody of Frances Bean Cobain to the girl’s paternal grandmother: “cruelty to children and people too young to understand that under that rock isnt gold its only,.,,,,, utah on steroids” and “terrible influences, pure evil. and a poor baby caught inside a trap”.
That clears things up.
Love’s lawyer tells People that Frances Bean, Love’s daughter with dead rock icon Kurt Cobain, wanted to live with her grandmother, and the judge’s decision should not be taken as confirmation that Love has had a drug relapse.
“Courtney’s been clean for years and is perfectly fine,” Keith A. Fink says. “Frances is 17 and a strong-willed child, and this is a decision she made on her own. No matter what, Courtney loves her daughter more than anything in the world.”
Frances Bean has reportedly always been close with her grandmother, who had custody during a particularly messy period (and that’s saying something) of Love’s life in 2003 and 2004.
Faith in objects
Crushed by borderline personality disorder, a local man finds salvation in art
By Amy Yannello
 Ink and Paper Horse Sculpture by Mark Williams Mark Williams—no relation to the local radio talk-show host of the same name—may be the most talented artist you’ve never heard of.
From the biodome-like steel structure in his backyard, to the 4-by-6 mixed-wood xylophone he crafted from scratch, to the two working looms he built and uses in his back bedroom, Williams is one of those artists for whom it seems there is nothing his mind can conceive that he cannot create.
His modest home in north Sacramento is filled with his various art projects, such as meticulously crafted moving carrousels, which, to the naked eye from some distance away, appear to be crafted from plaster or wood, but when viewed close up, are made of paper, pen and ink.
Williams’ various projects have never been displayed for the public, though he’s been asked to do so at various times, he says. The answer as to why goes to the core of Williams’ persona—one that he works daily to overcome.
“They said it was up to them where and how they placed my stuff,” Williams explained. “They didn’t take my input seriously. I didn’t trust them. I said, ‘Forget it.’”
Williams has borderline personality disorder, a mental illness affecting more than 6 million people in the United States, but shrouded in misinformation and is still rarely talked about.
According to Dr. Neil R. Bockian, in his book, New Hope for People With Borderline Personality Disorder, the daily life of a person with BPD can take on all the precariousness of an emotional roller coaster, driven in part by “inaccurate perceptions, misguided thoughts, and shortsighted assumptions about others in their environment.”
But not everyone with BPD has the same symptoms. Williams, for example, has had long-term relationships, where many people with classic BPD do not. Nevertheless, he says his BPD led to an intense mistrust of people and institutions, fueled almost certainly by his mother’s death when he was 2 years old, and his father putting him into an orphanage, where he stayed until he was 18.
Continue reading Story of an Artist with BPD →
Here is a story I stumbled across about a nurse allegedly encouraging people to commit suicide on the Internet.
Minnesota Nurse Investigated for Allegedly Encouraging Suicide
Police Say William Melchert-Dinkel May Have Had Suicide Fetish
By SARAH NETTER
Oct. 16, 2009—
A Minnesota nurse whose license was revoked by the state is under investigation for allegedly encouraging the suicides of people he met on the Internet.
William Melchert-Dinkel, 47, has not yet been charged, but the case has drawn the attention of the U.S. Attorney’s Office and several Minnesota law enforcement agencies after as many as five people attempted suicide or successfully completed the act.
Melchert-Dinkel’s license was revoked by the Minnesota Board of Nursing in June in light of the police investigation and after years of reprimands and documented infractions. The license had been suspended since February.
According to the nursing board’s public action document, it received a complaint in August 2008 that Melchert-Dinkel was under investigation by the St. Paul, Minn., Police Department for allegedly using fake identifies on the Internet and encourgaing people to kill themselves, sometimes watching the suicides via webcam.
The complainant, according to the document, was the mother of a 32-year-old man who, she said, had hanged himself after corresponding with Melchert-Dinkel online.
In January 2009, Melchert-Dinkel was admitted to a hospital, the admissions survey noting that he was “dealing with addiction to suicide Internet sites,” and, “feeling guilty because of past and present advice to those on the Internet of how to end their lives.”
The nursing assessment also noted that Melchert-Dinkel had a four-year “suicide fetish” and had posed as a 28-year-old woman on the Internet in order to make suicide pacts with others even though he had no intention of following through on his end.
A medical record from that time indicated Melchert-Dinkel was involved with an Ottawa woman who jumped to her death after talking with Melchert-Dinkel online. He reportedly also told individuals that his nursing experience gave him “expert knowledge into the most effective ways to kill yourself.”
Reached by phone, Melchert-Dinkel declined to comment to ABC News about his job or the allegations against him.
“What they said was all nothing new,” he said of the information contained in the Board of Nursing document.
Nurse Questioned in Suicides Has History of Reprimands
Also included in the Board of Nursing document is a lengthy list of on-the-job reprimands and accusations of neglect dating back to 1994 — three years after Melchert-Dinkel got his license — when he was working at a Minneapolis nursing home.
At various times over the past 15 years, Melchert-Dinkel was reported for things such as failing to administer and document patient medications, having “disrespect for cultural differences” and abusing his patients.
Faribault, Minn., Police Capt. Neal Pederson said that police have checked with Melchert-Dinkel’s former employers, including a Faribault nursing home, but there have been no reports of suicides or attempts at those places.
His department has assisted officials from both St. Paul, Minn., and the state Bureau of Criminal Investigation. The issue of what to do with the information against Melchert-Dinkel is problematic on several fronts, he said.
“Part of it has to do with the international [aspect]: Is Canada going to charge him or are we going to charge him,” he said.
The Board of Nursing document indicated another person in England had committed suicide after corresponding with Melchert-Dinkel.
Authorities, Pederson said, are also trying to figure out which specific laws Melchert-Dinkel may have broken. While it is illegal in Minnesota to encourage suicide, there is no such federal law. Because Melchert-Dinkel used the Internet and because of the location of some of the suicides, it is unclear which jurisdiction would take precedence.
Deborah Chevalier, the mother of the 18-year-old Canadian woman who jumped to her death, told ABC’s Austin, Minn., affiliate KAAL, “I want him to be found guilty go to jail, and thereby sending a clear message to Internet predators.”
 Practice and Balance When I was a child, I went to a fairly fundamentalist church. We had this Christian tract that showed man on one side and God on the other, with “clouds of sin” in between, obscuring man’s view of God. Repentance and faith in Jesus would “clear the air.” There was another one, with which you are probably familiar if you’ve ever been exposed to these things, where man is on one side and God is on the other and there is a big gulf of sin in between. The cross ends up being the bridge that allows man over the gulf.
Now that I am a grownup I lean more toward skillfulness than faith. However, the idea of “clouds” obscuring a “true view” of reality still appeals to me. These clouds are now sin now, they are ineffective cognitions, whether cognitive distortions or negative emotions. I see the interaction between two people as a dance or a piece of music in which each plays a part. Training, practice and conditioning all come into play when one is preparing to dance. If a dancer over-thinks, she is sure to fall on her rear or step on her partner’s toes. If one’s mind is engaged in cognitive distortions or negative emotions, one can’t dance properly.
Years ago, I read “Zen and the Art of Archery.” In the book, the author has to develop a certain mind-set to hit the target. Much of this mind-set involves getting out of one’s own mental way and practicing the skill until it becomes second-nature. Whether it is archery or dance or interpersonal relationships, I find that much of the time, most people get in their own way and end up a tangle of resentments, anger and emotional pain. There are too many automatic thoughts and learned emotional responses that cloud a person’s ability to perform effectively in a relationship.
My suggestion to counteract this is for people to:
- Clear the mind of cognitive distortions and negative emotions
- Don’t assume another person’s motivation
- Practice effective skills to the point of complete mastery
- Relax, take a breath, slow down
You can purchase “Zen and the Art of Archery” here:
Zen in the Art of Archery
 David Oliver and BPD Support I have been running a new pay-per-click campaign on Google, so I tried to type in some phrases that would generate one of my ads. When I typed in “borderline personality disorder,” I got the usual suspects: Tami Green, McLean Hospital, Amanda Smith’s Organization (Florida Association for BPD), BPD Family… and I got one other ad that intrigued me. It was entitled “Surviving With Borderline” and it linked to a site www.toborderlinepersonlitydisorder.com. I clicked on the ad and was presented with one of those marketing sites that promise to provide you with “The 10 secrets you MUST know about Borderline Personality Disorder.” The site is starts out:
Dear Friend,
If you have a loved one with borderline personality disorder, then this is going to be the most important letter that you have ever read.
Hi, my name is David Oliver. In a few minutes I am about to tell you how I discovered the 10 secrets to helping and supporting a loved one with borderline personality disorder.
10 key secrets that NOBODY else will tell you.
…and is of course ridiculously long and repetitious, imploring you to sign up today for a FREE gift of this newsletter (or whatever). So, I got interested in this David Oliver guy. I did a “whois” on him and found out the site is run by a company called “The Leverage Team, LLC.” Off to Google to find out what the deal is (of course Google knows – haha). It turns out that this “supporter of BPD” is a multi-level marketer. I found this profile of him:
David Oliver is the president of The Leverage Team, LLC. and has over nine years of combined experience specializing in network, multilevel, and referral marketing. Mr. Oliver has written several books, including “The Ultimate Home Business,” which details the benefits of multilevel and network marketing, and “Get Rich Quick Schemes Finally Exposed.” Mr. Oliver graduated from Yale University, with honors, with a degree in Sociology with a concentration in Economics and completed his senior thesis titled: “Visionary Capitalism: A Study of the Network Marketing Phenomenon.” Mr. Oliver is familiar with multilevel marketing companies including: Herbalife, Mary Kay, PartyLite (Blyth), NuSkin, Amway, Arbonne, Pampered Chef, Quixtar, XanGo, Pre-paid Legal, Eniva, USANA, Shaklee, FreeLife, Isagenix, and NewWays and many startup companies. Mr. Oliver sells up to $28,571.42 a month of products, putting him in the top .5% of the multilevel and network marketing industry.
He just makes all the real people, who are honestly trying to help non-borderlines, appear like scam artists and marketing a-holes.
It turns out he also runs a bipolar support board and has posted many articles about bipolar support. To me, he just looks like another guy trying to rich with Google.
Why would you buy my book – over other more popular books like “Stop Walking on Eggshells” and Randi’s new book? The reason is that my book can have a bigger impact on your life than can the others. Why? Because my book focuses on a different aspect of BPD than does these other books. Sure, you could read “One Way Ticket to Kansas” or “Tears and Healing” but ultimately I ask you – what do you wish to do in your relationship? If you want to work it out, read my book. If you want to get divorced, read all those others. Read “Stop Walking on Eggshells” or “Tears and Healing” or “The Essential Guide to BPD” or “One Way Ticket to Kansas” and get divorced. Read my book and work it out.
 Misinformation
Boy, it’s amazing how much bad information travels around the Internet at the speed of light. People are so misinformed about BPD it’s scary. Yesterday, I stumbled across the “Yahoo Answers” site for a question in which a woman asked if she could “help her partner with Borderline Personality Disorder?” There were 10 “answers” to this question. Here are some excerpts from each, which the misinformation pointed out:
“So, you sacrificed your children to a crazy person?? What is wrong with you?? Is there a clinical term for “glutton for punishment”?” Dissolve this toxic relationship immediately!
Judgmental. Non-BPs don’t need another person telling them to leave their partner; there are hundreds of people for that. This commenter is a “top contributor” too with 2,424 answers to questions thus far. I wonder how many wrong/inaccurate questions she’s answered. I guess some of her answers (like those in “Cooking and Recipes”) can’t hurt too many people (unless they poison themselves with bad brownies).
“Your Co-dependency is off the rictor scale when you place your partner ahead of your SONs safety…This is NOT about your partner.. This is about the health welfare and safety of your son… This is an abusive house hold!!!! GET OUT OF THERE IMMEDIATELY!!!”
Judgmental. Another voice saying “get out!” And the use of co-dependency, love it. I wonder if the woman asked the question, “My partner has cancer… is there anyway to help him?” What would be the answer then?
“You really should get yourself and kids out of that situation .Do it for the kids.”
Same.
“I hate to tell you this, but he’s not going to change. Personality disorders are incurable and they only end when the person with them dies.”
Oh yeah? Well, when did you get this information? 1980? The APA is considering taking the word “personality” out of BPD (and borderline for that matter). Look into the research before you hand out advice. DBT, SFT and Mentalization-based therapies all show promise in reducing the behaviors and feelings below the 5 of 9 threshold mark for diagnosable BPD. It is not incurable.
“you might want to get a little therapy yourself, bpd can really mess with your head sometimes… but then i am with my own mental problems. so take that with a grain of salt.”
Not bad advice.
“PLEASE SPEAK TO A THERAPIST ABOUT A BOARDRLINE AND WHETHER THEY CAN BE HELPED. imo and therapists I have spoken to the answer is no. Treatments (the VAST majority of the time) don’t work. Please don’t take my word for it, ask for yourself.”
Speaking to a therapist is not bad advice… but that the answer is they cannot be cured… that’s incorrect. BPD can be managed and all people in the support system can help. If this person had bipolar I – would you all tell her to “run away?”
“You’re [sic] “kind and loving husband” never existed. That was nothing more than a mask. Oh, you moved out? Then stay out.”
OK, leave him again… I think we got it. It’s amazing how angry people are with borderlines.
“Personality disorders CANNOT, repeat cannot, be cured. They are inflexible, self-sustained, and have a 99% chance of being incurable. Your gut instinct, and the FACTUAL evidence you’ve read on the internet, are guiding you in the right direction.”
Again, wrong… see above. “Factual evidence…” on the Internet is a laugh. The Internet is filled with angry (usually ex-) Non-BPs that are ready to tell the story of how impossible, abusive and awful their ex BPD partner was. I’m not going to argue that people with BPD can’t be abusive or rage at you – they can. However, if you see the problem for what it really is… it is more manageable than many other disorders. Educate yourself about it. Find out the facts. Learn skills. Or leave… it’s up to you.
“Personality disorders are pretty much the only mental problem that CAN be cured. It takes a long time and a good counselor. Personality disorders are not a biological disorder like the more commonly known mental illnesses. Personality disorders are conditioned behavior over a lifetime.”
Well, this is almost true. The behavior component is conditioned behavior and can be “retrained” out of someone. The emotional dysregulation and impulsiveness components are probably biological.
“You sound like a weak person. You would sacrifice your sons well being to have someone.”
Judgmental.
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