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Some time ago I wrote a post about the “myth of the high-functioning BPD.” The point of the post was to facilitate a conversation about whether the categories of high-functioning and low-functioning apply to Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). My theory was that there was no fixed state in BPD, and a sufferer can swing from high-functioning to low-functioning at the whim of their emotions. Now that I am learning about mentalization, I have a new appreciation for the “high-functioning” state (and it is a temporary state, not a fixed one). It appears to me now to be contextual. Have you ever wondered how a person you love with BPD can be a raging nightmare with you yet perfectly fine in his/her job? Ever wonder how they can “fake it” with others and never show their Mr. Hyde side?
DBT calls this “apparent competence,” which makes sense with respect to the dialectical model (the dialectic side of apparent competence is “active passivity” BTW). The one thing that never made a whole lot of sense to me was how the behavior can generally be “reined in” when with certain people. Most non-borderlines think, “Well, if she can control her behavior with [whomever], this must be completely under her control. So, she needs to start behaving better with me.” Sometimes, it seems as though a person with BPD can turn it on and off at will. However, this is not really the case.
Instead, mentalization explains this through attachment relationships: The closer the attachment, the more at stake for a person with BPD. This is why there is a fear of abandonment in BPD. When it comes to close relationships (such as partner or parent), the attachment is more important to the person with BPD and the fear of losing that attachment, the fear that the other person will judge him/her as wrong or bad (shame), is much larger. Unfortunately, the method of coping with this fear is usually maladaptive and functions to push the other person further away. Sadly, that can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy of abandonment.
When Hope is Not Enough
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Related posts:
- BF Skinner meets Buddha with DBT
- A failure to mentalize – Mentalization Information Part 2
- Mentalization Information Part 1
- Does the mode of “failure to mentalize” determine the ineffective behavior of the borderline?
- Remission Common in BPD, but functioning still a problem
- Mentalization-Based Treatment Versus Structured Clinical Management for BPD
- Mentalization and BPD
- The Myth of the High-Functioning Borderline
- Mentalization Based Therapy Shows Promise with BPD
- Mentalization and understanding the minds of others
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A note on control of the symptoms or ‘being able to rein it in.’ This is just a thought from my experience living with a BP during childhood and my own experiences as someone facing a possible diagnosis (if the health insurance ever comes through and I can get a chance to see someone)- but I think that the reason why a BP can seem perfectly ‘normal’ in a work like environment and then on the other end of the scale when at home can be for two reasons that I’ve never really seen addressed on the net.
1. safety – It’s quite possible that the person with BP acts out more around loved ones and family because that person feels a bit safer with them. They don’t have to put on the ‘act’ for the sake of others and they may feel that while an outburst at work will have some severe consequences an outburst at home… well, you’re surrounded by people who love you (though many BP might just be testing that, ie; seeking that constant validation and confirmation they won’t be left) who are supposed to accept you no matter what.
2. closeness – For me work is a bit on the impersonal side. I socialize (talk, joke, whatever) with the people I work with but I’m not close to them. They come and go and I may go a long time before seeing them again. Half of them I don’t care if I see again or not. There’s little (some) fear of abandonment. I’m kept constantly active and there’s no time for emotions to settle in or for me to really be left alone with my thoughts. At home on the other hand, the BP is surrounded by the very things that give them anxiety. The people they love, the constant thought of abandonment, the emotions and having to deal with at least one other person on an emotional level. They’re so close to the very source of their anxiety it’s not a wonder they have trouble.
Work is impersonal, structured, and filled with things to occupy your time.
Home is filled (or supposed to be at least) with the very love BP’s are afraid of accepting because they think it will be taken away in the next moment. It’s relaxed and more open.
Again I come back to my first reason. I (whether I be BP or not) tend to vent more at home than I do at work or in front of people I’m not ‘close’ to. It’s a familiar environment I’m used to- whether I feel safe or not things are just going to come out.
This is why it irritates me that some people think it’s only at home or they turn it off outside the home. If the BP is having a worse time at home, I figure you should look at the sliver of an optimistic side- they feel they can tear down the act around you and that show of trust is a lot for a BP person especially when they’re constantly worried they’re going to be left the moment they do take it down.
Anyways, that was just a vent but yeah.
Hello everyone,
please stop pointing that he/she has BPD problem. I could say you are not able to communicate effectively to he/she
you do not feel equal to he/she
you are not able to accept his/her strong personality.
Try to think in positive way , then you will have solution for your problem.
Hi all,
This interests me, as using the approved terminology I used to be a high functioning BPD-very high functioning infact, seeing my painfully low moods as one to keep permanently on the run from… this worked well for me back then, sustaining me through a few careers and a degree at an established institution. But that was then, and this is now-where there are periods of time, aometimes prolonged where even having a chat to friends or making it out to get a pint of milk can be a great challenge.
The way i saw it when this highly functioning side began to fade into current state was that I had finally lost my mask. My ability to keep it together around other, not close people and associates. It was when my BPD began to display itself uncontrollably around those not close to me that my life began to also errode.
It used to be something i could keep to myself more or less around strangers, colleagues, but not people very close to me. I was an extrovert and i was very popular. I made a party and would be asked to attend, and seen to be a good laugh.Then all of a sudden, these states I used to take for granted to get me out and about and being generally bubbly and social, suddenly stopped coming to me.I say suddenly, but it was somewhat gradual as I found it increasingly difficult and problematic to be around people, whome i once thrived.
I’d try to re-induce these positive states by holding parties and events, then i simply fell apart when negative BPD states took more and more control over me, and now i cant even make a plan to meet others.
I am still struggling to comprehend how i switched from a highly functionning to a low functioning BPD, i am dissapoited I lost my mask on one hand, but on the other I always knew i would never sustain the mask forever-it takes a lot of physical strength and energy to keep running from emotional states which inevitably always catch up!. The behaviour and states that got me through my 20′s no longer apply in my 30′s.
Hopefully the loss of my mask and finally after years of being mis diagnosed with various depression states, I have opened up in a long course of therapy- and this has finally ensured I got the correct diagnosis (in which case I have had this untreated for over 20 years) and am going to begin the correct form of treatment-in the hope of at least regaining my mask if only to begin the process of becoming a more functionning BPD- if not even a happy and functionning ex-bpd (one can wish) .
It’s going to be a 3 year plan of treatment. It seems a long time, but these things are rarely treatable per se, only more manageable.
apologies for typos-small keyboard big finger syndrome!
I am a high-functioning or “Quiet” BPD. I seem to be able to maintain it too well all of the time, only knowing myself that this description is fitting. Reason? I trust no one, it’s too much burdon for others, and I’m petrified that my life will fall apart permanently if I try to let others in. Right now having a job, husband, family- to lose it all would only increase the pain and that would be the end. I’ve told my med doc and my therapist about this- but yet I don’t tell them the truth about my thoughts or actions. Things only I know, things done in private-those remain my secrets- I can’t verbalize any of it- I become paralyzed and do the same ol’ thing….act “as if” everything’s going ok. I am currently on the brink of losing control- no longer being able to hide it- when your whole life feels fake and you can share nothing about what’s going on inside of you it becomes overwhelming-you become pressurized, it’s now taking over my focus, I’m feel that I’m losing the ability to function well at my job- I feel that people are starting to look at me funny or that they’re reading my thoughts. I took the time last week to tell my providers (in writing) how desperate I was feeling but honestly, I don’t think they believe me. They won’t until I do something to prove it. I was told to “Go read the book ‘Sometimes I Act Crazy’”. High functioning BPD is real- everything for me is turned in on myself. I wouldn’t dream of taking my seething self hatred out on anyone else- just me. I think this came about for me at age 9, Every thought seems to be negative. I started self harm at 16- but did very well in school- I finally landed in-patient at age 29 when husband caught me self harming. Got out and all has been well (with meds and therapy-…. oh I should say the appearance of “all is well” has been going on since then. Now at age 39 I feel another crash building- not sure how to keep control- sort of feel that it’s impossible because 10 years have passed- people (family) forgot or don’t want to admit or don’t have an interest- and of course I haven’t given them any indication that attention was needed. I don’t tell family- they don’t understand and don’t want to. That hurts even more- I quit trying because it was too painful, the feeling of rejection. It is completly me- alone- and I am trying to tell the people that I look to for help- the BPD specialists that created the STEPPS program- I don’t think they even recognize High functioning BPD or quiet BPD- maybe they will soon, maybe they’ll believe. When mindfulness practice produces a sarcastic negative response within and the intensity of emotion is too overwhelming to continue- I then practice with eyes open, the mind continues to work against me- creating negative scary words in the designs of the carpets- all relating to myself and how much of a hopeless failure I am- any external “abuse” that might have happened in the past, coming verbally from me to others- only gets pointed inward- all of it- there’s no depressurization, No hope and obviously no recognition from anyone that could possibly be helpful. This condition needs to be recognized and the focus needs to be on this patient not the family of a Quiet Borderline- they don’t even know… ~Michelle
Thanks for reading.
This was a great eye-opener for me. My wife would give me the cold shoulder one minute then act kind and lively with the kids the next. I concluded she was intentionally turning it on and off to punish me; I never thought it could be that she feels safe with the kids knowing they won’t abandon her.
I have a friend that is possibly a high-functioning borderline and I am not sure how to reassure her that I love her, care about her and just want to understand her as best as possible. She has yet to accept that she has an issue and has so far alienated ALL friends in her life. The only person she speaks to is her mom. She doesn’t associate with anyone else. She also has a fabulous job and to the best of my knowledge, is well liked and well recognized there.
She and I have not spoken for months and will be hanging out soon this week. I am just not sure how to respond to her. I have no intentions in juding her at all. I really just want to know how to communicate in a way that she knows I am here if she needs/wants me and that I won’t leave. I would love suggestions/comments about this.
If your friend has BPD, she will not really care if you care about her or love her, even if you do. That is because those things are about YOUR feelings, rather than hers. What she needs is someone to understand her pain fully and to listen to her struggles, without judging her and without providing advice. My book provides detail on how to accomplish this goal.
Just briefly, I hear what you’re describing here, and I relate to seeing this in my former partner. However, when I first read your earlier article questioning “high functioning”, what occurred to me was the intelligence level of the affected person. Is there room for looking at the correlation between IQ and exhibited behaviours in BPD sufferers?
To Na, I don’t know of any studies regarding IQ. My daughter’s IQ scores went WAY up after DBT therapy. She could regulate her emotions and that helped her take the test better. I don’t think she got any smarter, just more effective!
Actually, as your daughter was able to processes her emotions more effectively realistic, she was able to redirect her brain activity from her mid brain, which has no IQ, into her pre frontal cortex. In other words, she was able to use the IQ that has been available, but not accessible. In a way, she did become smarter. I’ve seen this happen many times, and experienced it myself.
Further, each step taken to understand the reasons why a particular mind becomes disordered, can also be used to remediate those reasons; through awareness of cause and effect. In essence, we learn to identify with who we really are, instead of the persona of disorder. Learning the whys and wherefores allows the cognitive powers to realize what the crazy is reacting to.
Each level of awareness is another group of neuro pathways that can become rewired over time. Each pathway attaining its natural order, is then available to be used for something other than processing fear, analyzing its affect, or avoiding its provocation altogether.
I feel really bad for Michelle, alone in her pain. She should know she has plenty of company, but many have learned how to express their crazy, quietly, and seek resolution. But most can’t do it alone, or do so before a crash. As a lovely HF BPD, 46 year old woman recently told me, we need a strong, gentle hand to lead the way….. which must be a hand that has been there. Only another HF BPD knows how a HF BPD feels and thinks. You can’t know, unless you’ve known, regardless of what you’ve read.
I can assure you Bonn, that every BPD actually does care about whether another loves them. They may not be able to reciprocate, or accept that love, or be peaceful in a loving relationship, but they do care about the fact of it. We can observe love; even if being able to participate in its experience must wait until recovery, when the ability to trust in ones true self, has been established.
I believe in “high functioning BP” because I think my wife has it. I am thinking maybe its related to different types of personalities having BPD.
Some people are really conservative and introverted and conscientious but also could have BPD. So they don’t binge drink they don’t blow money they don’t do irresponsible things, yet they can’t control their emotions and can lose their shit at any time out of the blue, but not so much at work but at home.
My wife is a born again Christian and doesn’t drink. She’s very frugal. She doesn’t cut her self but she does punch herself enough to give herself bruises.But at work she is just quiet and polite and hard working. While we were seperated she was fine. Just in intimate relationships she has mood swings and rage and dispair and reckless driving and just insane episodes and fear of abandonment and all this kind of BPD stuff.
But 90% of the time she can keep it out of the workplace and in public.
Yes, Ted, it sounds like you are married to a very ‘quiet’ BPD. Who punches herself. Wow.
The desire/fear/expectation of emotional intimacy is the battleground where disorder takes its stand; simulating the desperate feelings of childhood where a nurturing, loving acceptance didn’t happen.
Your wife sounds a lot like my mother, rigidly controlled by adhering to her beliefs, but rarely resulting in joy. I hope you and your wife get the help you need. There is a wonderful little book you might want to get, written in the 70′s by Cecil Osborne, The Art of Learning to Love Yourself. Osborne was a Baptist minister turned psychotherapist, as he observed that prayer did little to impact early emotional damage. I wish both my mother and her mother could have read him. They would have easily seen themselves in his stories.
Thanks a lot for the book recomendation. We are trying to work through things we do have some joy especially while enjoying the outdoors.
That is true about her lack of nurturing from her mother.
Ted, you and wife both have to know as much about what you are dealing with as you can. Only then can you identify what is abhorrent. As I’ve said many times, mindfulness is a wonderful tool, yet much more powerful when you know what to be mindful about. And that is where a lot of reading and education come in; helping the disordered mind to begin to observe itself.
[...] Article by Bon Dobbs on “mentalization” and “attachment” in BPD [...]
Thank you for this published conversation. It is helpful. I have been feeling many of the things I read are typical for BPDs and wonder if this is what I am dealing with. I have the early childhood emotional abandonment issues, the childhood sexual abuse history and a pattern in my life and relationships that I am now just beginning to really see and which I can’t seem to get lasting relief from. I medicated myself for a long while but have stopped doing that, understanding that it is not really helping me. But once the medication does not mask the feelings, they return. So here I am at that place again, needing to get some help, but distrusting and resentful at the fact of having to “bare” myself yet again to a therapist who may not be helpful. I have been to therapists and once did two years of weekly therapy with a Jungian therapist. But that form therapy is so excrutiatingly slow and expensive it seems better suited for rich persons than middle class workers. Also, the insurance was pestering the therapist for session notes and that really freaked me out to think what I said in private could be in some corporation database with who-knows-who having access. They do not like long term therapy, preferring quick fixes and drugs. I don’t want to take those kind of meds unless there is no other way and don’t feel I have explored all other ways yet. I have trust issues and as a result I stopped therapy.
I have been studying the Course in Miracles for about a year now, feeling drawn to its view and was hoping the study would help. I had some exposure in the 1980s to it but abandoned it as it seemed that the goal was to lose ones individuality. This is actually the goal, but then, it was too frightening for me, was too much. Now I understand it a bit differently. The Course does help, but again, the going is slow and I feel I need more help than a weekly book discussion class where personal discussions are not appropriate. Reading things on the Internet and here about BPD have been helpful. I do have insurance but have not been successful in working with the “plan” psycologists. The two that I have seen seem to want to encourage a sense of victimhood as a way to forgive the self, but that does not jive with the Course in Miracles, so I end up confused. It is so wierd, but my outer life as viewed by others would seem to be successful. I am educated and got very high grades, have a good job, a long term marriage with a partner who loves me, but inside I am chronically unhappy, have few intimate friends, distrust people, feel cynical, excluded and judged. This ends up being a self-fulfilling type of thing, and I do actually get rejected, which hurts. What I began to notice, however, is that the objective facts of my life do not match the subjective inner experience. So I know something is wrong. Getting the right kind of help has been so hard. It helps to know I am not alone. Thank you. I will keep trying to find the right kind of help.
Alex,
It amazes me how this website, devoted to questioning the very existence of a high functioning borderline, has become a definition of the fact. Your very clear vision of the difference between the facts of your life, and your inner experience of them, is the recognition of the way disorder filters the reality of not only your memory, but your sensory present. A low functioning BPD is so preoccupied with primitive defensive mechanisms, they cannot begin to approach that level of awareness.
I read you have made the rounds of various therapists and see that you have no need to learn dialectical behavioral skills….. you already have them. But what you do need to learn is a dialectical dialogue with your own mind, where you can reveal to yourself that your perceptions are sabotaging your ability to experience reality as it is; the facts of your life.
Having been through this many times with very high functioning BPDs, the first thing you must realize is that disorder is a deceit….. which then has a vested interest in keeping the truth of defensive postures deeply hidden, to be effective. That was the way your young sensitive mind figured out how to survive. Unfortunately, the patterns of thought designed for childhood survival, translate into disordered thinking and behavior as an adult. So the journey, when you are ready to put the pieces together, is to first understand the logic of cause and effect…… and the turning point to remitting disorder is to learn how to apply what you know to what you feel; becoming disciplined in how to do that, 24/7…… until the new neuro pathways of order become the knowing choice.
It sounds to me like you are ready to do the real work, and would be a determined student to claim a happy life experience. Let me know if you are interested in joining a number of like minded persons. A non profit is about to be funded to do this work….. which will have an on-line, confidential presence for those who would like to, or logistically must, participate through that modality.
Wow, Markos, what you say makes alot of sense. Thank you for your thoughtful response. I am working with those very principles in classes I attend in the Course in Miracles. The Course teaches to notice those defensive postures, or positionalities, that color the experience of our lives which doesn’t always jive with the facts. It says that we can “choose again,” which gives me hope. What you say about creating new neural pathways for a 24/7 change to “claiming a happy life,” also resonates with me. This is what takes discipline, time and presents challenges. I had thought that a “disorder” may be getting in my way, but you are saying the same thing the Course does, that this experience can change. I would love to join like minded persons in working with these concepts. Thank you!
Hey Alex,
I am familiar with the principles in ACIM’s, as well as the volumes I’ve read in religion and philosophy over the years. I’ve been sent copies of Tolle, Watchman Nee, Jung, etc ….. and been told by a PhD psychotherapist who is also a high functioning BPD….. that all the real questions are laid out by Ernest Becker in The Denial of Death. Oyi. Those and many more have all been very instructive in their own ways, even if serving to display the elaborate lengths the human mind will travel to deny a simple truth; hidden by the guise of complex reasoning. It seems that our wonderfully complex pre-frontal cortex has a very rough time accepting simplicity, for the very reason that we can create complex rationalizations that seem to make so much sense. Of course, how much sense may have nothing to do with what the truth is. In other words, we do it because we can, and it makes us feel good in the moment; or better about ourselves generally. The history of science, medicine, politics and religion is a document of this very concept in action, killing or destroying the wellbeing of untold numbers in the process. All, for very ‘good’ reasons.
So, my journey has been to disseminate the large and small particles of ‘truth,’ in each bit of research and writing on not only disorder, but a much broader context of human behavior ….. and reality test it against my own disordered experience with a BP for many years before resolution, and a very peaceful and thoughtfully objective experience since.
Noticing defensive postures is a very important tool, as you know. Realizing there are other choices, and ‘choosing again’ is what DBT is all about….. which always needs to happen. And as you’ve already written, knowing what the modalities were of some of the original wounding, are other important pieces of the puzzle. But knowing how these pieces have fit together to form the neurological spider web of disorder, and deconstructing them though an awareness of how their everyday manifestations effect your emotions through perceptual ‘unrealities’ is the foundation necessary to remit disordered thinking…… and begin to build the neuro pathways of living in an ordered mind, that responds to reality as it is.
I will keep you posted on the start date for the like minded forums…… and will look forward to your participation. Thank you for your patience with the developmental process. We’ve wanted to take our time, as the hope of real happiness and living without self perpetuating anxiety is not to be suggested lightly to those who have little experience with either.
If you want to send me your email through Bon and his contact button above, I can keep you directly informed.
Thank you Markos, looking forward to participating. I left my e-mail and request to forward it to you on the form at the Contact page. “Living in an ordered mind…” Now that does sound good!:-)
I’ll be in touch, Alex, as soon as I get your email from Bon. I can suggest a few titles that will give you a head start on the ‘ordered’ mind concept; as conversely, its really important to know how and why a sensitive, intelligent mind becomes disordered. Having the cognitive ability to understand what you are working with, makes the road out of the woods a lot smoother……. hopefully, I’ll hear from Bon shortly…..