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5th Anniversary of ATSTP List and Some Support for Non-BPDs
Today is the 5th anniversary of the Anything to Stop the Pain support list. After over 50,000 messages and 600+ members, it is still going strong. The ATSTP list is offered for free to non-BPDs. In honor of this momentous occasion, I will clip a response from me to a list member. Any personal details have been removed. The only thing blog readers need to know is that this man’s wife has been diagnosed with BPD and is asking him for a divorce. We also have a couple of recovered borderlines on this list and they are a valuable resource (as is noted here): I believe that there is no…
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A Preoccupation with Interpersonal Relationships
This feature is a new one that I have added to my “model” of BPD. I added it because I was attending the International Society for the Study of Personality Disorders (ISSPD) and listened to Dr. John Gunderson present a detailed model of his experience with BPD. The purpose of the presentation was to present a “real world” clinical model of BPD from the viewpoint of someone with many years of experience treating the disorder. One of the features that Dr. Gunderson provided was this “preoccupation with attachments.” I believe this feature is born of an unstable sense of self. A person with BPD has difficulty “locating herself in the…
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BPD, Self-Regulation and Others
Ok, after posting about book sales recently and stuff like that, now it’s time for a much more substantive post about BPD. Today, I plan to talk about self-regulation and a new study that points out an intriguing aspect of BPD. There has been much talk in the BPD research and clinical community about the “core” of BPD. Once it was thought to be a personality disorder or even an extreme form of PTSD. Dr. Marsha Linehan (the inventor of DBT) talks about dysregulation in a number of systems, the most important of which (in my interpretation) is the emotional regulation system. People with BPD are extremely emotionally sensitive and…
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Shame and BPD
In researching the implications of shame in BPD, I found this research study: Shame and Implicit Self-Concept in Women With Borderline Personality Disorder * Nicolas Rüsch, M.D., Klaus Lieb, M.D., Ines Göttler, M.D., Christiane Hermann, Ph.D., Elisabeth Schramm, Ph.D., Harald Richter, Ph.D., Gitta A. Jacob, Ph.D., Patrick W. Corrigan, Psy.D., and Martin Bohus, M.D. * *OBJECTIVE: *Shame is considered to be a central emotion in borderline personality disorder and to be related to self-injurious behavior, chronic suicidality, and anger-hostility. However, its level and impact on people with borderline personality disorder are largely unknown. The authors examined levels of self-reported shame, guilt, anxiety, and implicit shame-related self-concept in women with borderline…
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On My Side
I often hear people with BPD/ERD say that they feel that their loved ones are “not on my side” or that the loved ones are “supposed to be on my side.” This phrase stuck out at me when I read the story about the suicide of Megan Meier (the “MySpace suicide” case), because, although I have no insight into Megan’s mental health, clearly when she was insulted and rejected on MySpace, and she was emotionally dysregulated. She came to her mother, and after her mother admonished her for the use of foul language on MySpace, Megan cried and said, “You’re my mom. You’re supposed to be on my side!” (This…
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Fear and Shame
Today, I figured I would discuss fear and shame. Not many people realize the impact that these two emotions have on people’s behavior. I believe that most of the “controlling” behavior in relationships is based on these two emotions. My daughter is angry at her boyfriend for being controlling. He monitors her and gets upset when she does something that is not what he expects. I believe that his behavior has to do with his fear of losing her to someone else and his shame that he feels deep down that he is not really good enough for her. Shame is particularly corrosive, and it is, of course, a big…
