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I-AM-MAD Skill makes it to Partners in Wellness Blog
In the post “When Your Partner Says They Are In Pain, Validate” Kate Theda of the “Partners in Wellness” blog specifically used my I-AM-MAD communication skill to teach her readers about validation. Here is the intro for the log post: After a period of dealing with a partner’s mental illness, compassion fatigue can set in. Yes, you still love your partner. Yes, you still care that they are not feeling well. But it can become difficult to empathize after a while, and you begin to wonder, “When is this going to end?” While I can’t give you an answer on when–or if–the illness will abate, what I can tell you…
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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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New Review of When Hope is Not Enough
I’m currently reading the book ‘The Essential Family Guide to Borderline Personality Disorder’ by Randi Kreger. This is the first book I’ve read on the subject & I’m finding it really helpful. I started to research other books and found the one I’m ‘reviewing’ on the US Amazon website. There are lots of reviews of the book there and it made me decide to buy it as the reviews are very positive. So, if you want to read reviews before you buy this book, have a look on the American site. I’ve now read the book! Just this minute finished reading it in fact. I have found it so very…
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What BPD Feels Like
Excellent article about what BPD feels like: What BPD Feels like A lot of friends and family members want to understand what the BPD sufferer is going through, but they don’t have a proper understanding of what is actually happening. For the BPD sufferer it is hard to explain what it feels like when honestly, they don’t know exactly what it is that isn’t “normal”. People around the BPD sufferer know that something isn’t right with the person, but quite often the sufferer does not know there is anything wrong, which is why they can attack you when you suggest there may be. As a BP sufferer myself, I can…
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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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An exercise in validation
Validation (or emotional validation) is an extremely powerful tool when it comes to emotional situations. It is complex and multi-stepped and it takes a lot of practice to master. On my Internet list, I talk a great deal about validation because it is essential to managing a relationship with someone with BPD. If you learn to master validation, you can see a marked change in the way your loved one with BPD interacts with you. Validation is a tool that verifies that the other person’s feelings are valid, but doesn’t necessarily condone or agree with their behavior. Remember, the behaviors come from feelings, beliefs and “action impulses” so they can…