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Tough Love is NOT the Answer with BPD
I often peruse the web for articles and posts about dealing with people with Borderline Personality Disorder and what I usually find is incorrect and misguided. I recently stumbled upon a post that can be found here: http://www.helium.com/tm/339437/individuals-suffering-borderline-personality In which the author gives some insight and advice about “dealing with” someone with Borderline Personality Disorder. I’d like to look at her advice by excerpting some of her text and then offer a little commentary. First of all, she says this: Individuals suffering from borderline personality disorder are very self-destructive and they have great difficulty forming any good relationships. A deep-seeded fear of abandonment is behind every wayward action and prolonged…
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Genetics and BPD
In this study, researchers posit that traits associated with BPD are inherited (impulsivity and emotional regulation). Here is a quote from the abstract: The effect of genes on the development of BPD is likely substantial. The effect of common family environment may be close to zero. While the study doesn’t conclude that BPD is 100% inherited, it does point to certain genetic factors in the BPD adaptive behaviors (or maladaptive). The main point of posting this is to chip away at the myth that BPD and other personality disorders are all the “fault” of parenting or abusive environments. One of the big problems that I have seen in the social,…
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Hypersensitivty to Sensory Stimulation
I recently saw a thread in which borderlines were discussing their “hypersensitivity” to certain sensory stimulation. If you know my story, you know that one of my daughters has dysfunctional emotional reactions. I like to think of that as pre-BPD. I hope that the actual onset of full BPD can be avoided. One of the things that has started happening with her more and more is she has developed a sensitivity to certain foods. She can’t eat certain foods and she finds certain smells offensive. The other day she found the milk smelled sour, even when it was not sour for everyone else in the family. I think this hypersensitivity…
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Adopted Children and BPD
This is a link to site positing that adopted children are often mis-diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Sometimes, BPD is characterized by an “”inability to connect”” with parents. In the case of adopted persons, the initial invalidation of being “”rejected”” by one’s birth parents can be a life-long struggle. I have found that in Family Support groups close to 40% of the children diagnosed with BPD were adopted. However, there is another theory that has been overlooked by this author. That is that the birth parents of these children may have exposed them to biological impulsivity. If the mothers of the adopted children are impulsive – having sex and…
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BPD: Emotional Dysregulation and MRI/fMRI
A study, using an MRI, of BPD patients found: We believe that this hyper excitability in BPD patients, particularly in brain regions thought to be involved in generating emotions, is likely to put this patient group at high risk for experiencing episodes of abnormally intense and inappropriate negative emotions characteristic of ED. In support of our hypothesis, we also found that the level of amygdala activation to the Fearful, and Neutral faces in BPD patients is significantly correlated with diagnostic measures of emotional lability. So, what does this mean? If you “go calm” or “neutral” on the BP in your life, they will not understand it – their brain sees…
