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

Changing of the Poll: Non-BPD Books

Bon Dobbs — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 20:23:24 +0000

Today, I have decided to rotate the poll. The last question I asked is about books that non-BPD people have read. Not surprisingly, the largest slice of the responders said “Stop Walking on Eggshells” as the book that they read (among others). Here is the data, normalized across the “choose all that apply” spectrum. If you’d like to see it by responders, see the “polls” link or poll archive.

Books Read by Non-BPDs

OK, here’s a better representation of the percentage of the responders, rather than the % by total answers:

Books by Responders

I also have started a new poll about self-injury. I am quite interested in the stats on self-injury because I have been told time and time again that MOST BPDs do NOT engage in self-injury. I guess we’ll see in the unscientific way that we do here.

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ATSTP hit 200,000 views today

Bon Dobbs — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 23:09:59 +0000

In less than 3 years, ATSTP has hit 200,000 page views. We have had 24,000 SPAM comments! Jeez. Thanks to Akismet for filtering most of them!

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Angelina Jolie Tops the List of Searched On Celeb Borderlines

Bon Dobbs — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:06:59 +0000

Alrighty then! I did an analysis of the keyword searches that reached the ATSTP blog. Unfortunately, the readers are searching on celebrity-related BPD searches more and more. People trying to figure out which celebrity has BPD (or self-harms) represented a whopping 68% of my total searches in the past 30 days of those search strings that occurred 5 times or more. It is too cumbersome for me to do analysis of more than those (there were 3800+ of those and 5800+ of all search strings). Of the celebrity-related searches, I created a little graph (below). As you can see, Angelina Jolie wins the “borderline bonanza” with 18%+ of the searches, followed by Britney Spears and Kurt Cobain. Others* include Pete Doherty, Hitler, Courtney Love and Heather Mills. The runners-up were Amy Winehouse and Princess Diana. General means there was no name mentioned, just “celebrity BPD” or something like that.

Celebrity Searches on ATSTP

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

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Results from my latest poll

Bon Dobbs — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 15:42:25 +0000

Last year, I launched a poll asking my readers how they are related to a person with BPD. The choices were:

Self
Spouse
Non-Spouse Partner
Child
Parent
Sibling or Other Relation
Friend
Ex-Partner or Ex-Spouse

I got 141 votes from 102 voters (you could choose more than one relationship if you had more than one). I have now closed that poll and wanted to present the results. I have two graphs that represent the results of that poll. One is a straight results graph:

Which shows that the spouse category is the largest at about 22%. However, in the next graph I combined spouse, non-spouse partner and ex-partner (or spouse) and found the following:

With 42.55% showing that the relationship is with a spouse/partner/ex. This could be explained by the fact that many children are not given the diagnosis until later in life (supposedly BPD is only diagnosiable at 18 years of age and more) and as the Time article notedthe “prime time” for BPD is in ones 20′s.

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Updated Stats from Search Engine Keywords

Bon Dobbs — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 14:34:31 +0000

Well, I haven’t updated my stats in a while so I thought it might be interesting to do so. The last 30 days I had the following stats:

Celebrities with a PD rose to 53% of the traffic – it’s amazing what people are interested in.

BPD General rose to 26% of my traffic. This is due in part to my running a Google AdWords campaign on the term “BPD” to try and get my book, When Hope is Not Enough: a how-to guide for living with and loving someone with Borderline Personality Disorder, into the hands of more people.

Coping was about the same as in the past.

I was happy to see that “BPD evil” and “BPD demonic possession” has dropped off the top search terms.

Now for some notable recent search engine terms that found my blog (my comments in parenthesis):

bpd blame (yes, they do a lot of it)
bpd sluts (hmmm…)
why are borderlines evil (they’re not)
i’m in love with bpd woman (fasten your seatbelt!)
“npd”+”marriage” (no, please don’t)
bpd people why they threaten to leave you (because they want to leave you before you leave them)
inner child borderline personality disorder (not the inner child again, please!)
bpd family guilt no contact (that’s tough)
demonic symptoms (it doesn’t exist)
suicide how to do it (I almost cried at that one)
dbt parenting skills (read WHINE and take a DBT-FST class)
how to calm someone who is dysregulated (read WHINE)
praying for spouse with bpd (sometimes hope is not enough)
bpd and bitch (ouch!)
how to tell someone they have bpd (don’t)
demon possession vs. mental illness (these people and their beliefs in demons)
borderline personality girl causes trouble (I bet!)
bpd don’t know how to show love (no, they have too much shame until they are treated)
loving a bpd (it’s a rough road)
borderline personality god (I guess they were looking for answers, not diagnosing god)
tough love therapy (it doesn’t work with BPD)
do people with bpd cheat more (some of them do)
do people with bpd ever realize the truth (emotional truth, yes)
bpd body image (it ain’t good)
demon possession borderline personality (the demons AGAIN?)
how to get rid of bpd spouse? (I hope you didn’t mean “get rid of” like really get rid of)
child of a borderline hell (that’s sad)
i want bpd ex back (you sure?)
“bpd” burn bridges (yes!)

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Internet Searchs on BPD and Why you need WHINE

Bon Dobbs — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 16:16:12 +0000

I have been looking over the keywords that found my blog in the past few days and have noticed that I’m getting more traffic from people seeking information, self-help, advice and assistance with their borderline personality disordered partner. Here is a (small) sample of of these search terms:

helping someone with bpd
bpd crazymaking
levels of validation
“self-destructive behavior” friend
how to get bpd to go to psychiatrist
bpd communication
bpd and lying
high-functioning borderline
borderline how to convince ex i have changed
are emotions painful for bpd
invalidating environment, boundaries
advice for dealing with someone with a bpd
bpd dealing with love
borderline girlfriend
when she clearly has a personality disorder
bpd google groups
how to deal with a bpd
rejection-sensitivity
borderline rage attack
telling someone they have bpd
mental illness that exhibits rage, blaming
borderlines and lying to hurt their partner
did i give my child bpd

If you found my blog while searching on one of the above or on a similar search term, I would suggest you read my book When Hope is Not Enough (aka WHINE), because it contains answers to all of the above search terms and provides a how-to guide for solving those issues. WHINE is available for sale on Amazon and other Internet retailers. You can also buy an eBook version from Lulu.

I’d also like to respond to two reviews of WHINE from Amazon – one negative and one positive.

First, the negative review…

Sorry, I didn’t care for this book as much as the others on BPD. The techniques were pretty much the same as recommended in “Stop Walking on Eggshells” but the technical background and reasoning behind the techniques was not as clearly discussed. Perhaps this book could be useful to someone who prefers the “lay” or non-professional approach and needs a book written in simpler terms.

OK, the techniques that I discuss are different than “Stop Walking on Eggshells” (although some of the techniques DO overlap). The main reason that my tools are different than in SWOE has to do with the fact that I present a different view of BPD focusing on three main aspects: emotional dysregulation, impulsiveness and shame. Unlike SWOE, I do not take you on a step-by-step review of the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria and, in this way, I feel that WHINE is more practical as a how-to guide than SWOE. Additionally, I explain the techniques in DETAIL, that is, HOW to do each one, what to say and what NOT to say, etc. As an example of this surrounds validation techniques. I have flipped through SWOE and found very little on emotional validation of the BP’s emotions. There is 1/2 a page on the “triggers” of invalidation and a how a “I know how you feel” response could trigger rage (that’s on pages 113-114 of my copy of SWOE). There is some additional information that MAY be considered validation on pages 142-145 of SWOE about “Acknowledge Before Disputing;” however, this information is not detailed. In WHINE I spent over 30 pages (of a 185 page book) on emotional validation – why to do it, how to do it, how not to do it, when to do it, etc. Why? Because emotional validation is central to learning how to communicate effectively with someone with BPD.

Where SWOE spends many, many pages on boundaries and limits, the message is inconsistent. In the beginning of the introduction of boundaries SWOE says this:

Personal limits are not about controlling or changing other people’s behavior. In fact, they’re not about other people at all. There about you and what you need to do to take care of yourself. (pages 118-119)

THAT I agree with wholeheartily! However, later in SWOE we get this:

If you want the BP to change, you have to be willing to make some changes yourself if the person does not observe your limits. (page 157)

Alright, I would believe in the first part; however, the second part is what I have a problem with. My understanding of boundaries and limits are that they are for YOU and not about other people’s behavior. A person can’t “violate your boundaries” because only YOU can violate your own boundaries. If they do, your “boundaries” are not about your behavior anymore, they are about ANOTHER person’s behavior and those type of “boundaries” are really rules for the other person’s behavior. On this point (and on the importance of emotional validation) is where my book and SWOE completely diverge. (Another note creating such “boundaries” – that are really rules – is a trigger for BPD rage too).

Finally, the two books were written for two separate reasons. If you look at the subtitles of each you can see where each book has a separate purpose. The subtitle of SWOE is “taking your life back when someone you care about has borderline personality disorder.” The subtitle of WHINE is “a how-to guide for living with and loving someone with borderline personality disorder.” SWOE is written to focus on validation of the non-BP (which has its place, no doubt, I got a LOT of validation out of SWOE when I first read it 3 years ago). WHINE is written as a “how-to” guide for (peacefully) living with a person with BPD. The difference is subtle, but important. A member of my Internet list summed it up rather well this way:

I want to add another thought about this…

I think when Randi [Kreger, the co-author of SWOE] wrote her book, she likely recognized the importance of
validation, but her frame of mind was on healing herself. So, I would
venture to say that is why there was a strong bent towards validating nons.
In addition, Randi got out of her BP relationship, so she didn’t really know
what to advise those who wanted to stay. If I was her, I don’t think I’d
even care about any of that “staying stuff”… I’d probably just want to
help the nons move on with their lives (something she was familiar with.)

Bon, on the other hand, it seems had already gotten through the stage of
being able to self-validate, and had decided to stay. So, his focus was, of
course, on problem solving. And the only way to be effective at that is
through validation of BPs.

Each of their situations are different, as are their target audiences
(Randi’s being X-Nons and Bon’s being Staying-Nons.) I think they both did
an excellent job speaking to the feelings of those they could sincerely hope
to reach out to. The audiences that are getting caught up are the
Undecided-Nons. Those are the ones who would benefit most by reading both
books in the exact order you advise.

So, as you can see both books have their place in the life-cycle of being a non-BP. I think what you have to do it decide where you are in the life-cycle. My book is aimed at making BP/Non-BP relationships more calm without “walking on eggshells.” SWOE is not really a “staying” book – although Randi Kreger does have a new book due out in the Fall with staying in mind.

Ok, so back to the key words… if you are searching on those types of things and WANT to maintain a relationship with someone with BPD, WHINE is an excellent resource for that. If you’re searching on “i hear demon moaning in husband” or “cutting ties borderline personality disorder” I suspect you should look for a book other than WHINE.

I’ll have to review my “good review” in the next post.

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Fun with Keywords Again

Bon Dobbs — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 17:27:41 +0000

Well, I’ve looked over recent keywords that find my blog and found these to be interesting (with my comment in parenthesis):

borderline tough love (it doesn’t work see this post)
bpd not wrong (I wonder a BP saying they’re not wrong or a non-bp complaining about it?)
bpd impacts on loved ones (big ones! That’s the whole point of the site huh?)
how to stop ruminating (It isn’t easy. Mindfulness helps.)
dumped out of the blue bpd (yeah, it happens)
how to stop a demonic possession (I’m amazed at the number of demonic possession believers out there)
here is the last two digits of my social (ok, where is the rest? – haha)
bpd inability to love (sad…)
bpd look of hate evil (I’ve seen it.)
outlandish lies (poor guy/gal)
best site anythingtostopthepain (my favorite of the group)
cocaine and bpd (not a good combo)
bpd wife bitch (bitter much?)
shall i contact my ex who has bpd (not if you don’t have to)
how do i validate my borderline daughter (nice… I’m glad you’re trying!)
“borderline personality” evil (evil again)
drunk housewives (is this someone looking for porn? or support? Maybe a new ABC show?)
bpd are evil (evil again!)
how do you stop a demonic possession (you can’t – it doesn’t exist. I guess you can stop believing in it.)

Updated Stats from Search Engine Keywords

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