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Paranoia, Shame and Judgment Sensitivity
My wife has recently been really paranoid that the local moms don’t like her. She thinks that since they will sometimes not let their children come over to our house and play with my son that it means that they don’t trust her. OK, to be totally frank, my wife has been investigated by CPS twice. Once because of a DUI and once because she was over-medicated and went over to a judgmental woman’s house to pick up our children. The woman thought my wife was acting weird and reported her to CPS. I think that many BP’s get paranoid about their self-image with other people. The combo of fear…
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Role of Shame in BPD
Here is an excellent article about shame and BPD: http://www.soulselfhelp.on.ca/drm10shame.html The Role of Shame in BPD © Dr. Richard Moskovitz Can you discuss shame? Is shame not one of the most significant core wounds that must be healed in order to recover from BPD? Shame is fundamental to the experience of anyone with BPD and is the most crucial emotion that must be addressed if recovery is to occur. Shame is often confused with guilt, but these emotions have very different meanings. Shame is about who we are, while guilt is about what we do. Shame therefore reflects more lasting beliefs about the self than guilt. When we feel guilt,…
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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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Rejection Sensitivity and BPD
Rejection Sensitivity is the tendency to “anxiously expect, readily perceive and overreact to social rejection.” [Downey & Feldman, 1996, quoted from Baldwin, Mark, “Interpersonal Cognition”, 2005, page 83] Someone with BPD will almost certainly have this feature. Have you ever had your loved one ask you: “Are you mad at me?” Or has your loved one asked you: “Do you like me?” over and over again. Or have they said, “You could do so much better than me. Why are you even with me?” These questions and others like them are indications that your loved one is suffering from rejection sensitivity. Someone with rejection sensitivity will also avoid tasks, meetings…
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Does it matter if it is really BPD? (or if it could be PTSD)
I used to think it didn’t really matter if it was BPD or not. If the person is behaving in a “borderline fashion” I used to think “ok, well let’s read SWOE and follow the directions for taking MY life back” – but I have changed my mind about the importance of the diagnosis. The reason behind my changing my mind is that I believe that BPD is an emotional disorder and that the core feeling behind it is shame (and pain) – unlike PTSD, where the core emotion is fear. If a person has a great deal of fear (a phobia for example), treatment for this problem can be…
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Shame and Invalidation
Here’s a good site about invalidation: http://eqi.org/invalid.htm A quote: “Invalidation is to reject, ignore, mock, tease, judge, or diminish someone’s feelings. Constant invalidation may be one of the most significant reasons a person with high innate emotional intelligence suffers from unmet emotional needs later in life.(1) A sensitive child who is repeatedly invalidated becomes confused and begins to distrust his own emotions. He fails to develop confidence in and healthy use of his emotional brain– one of nature’s most basic survival tools. To adapt to this unhealthy and dysfunctional environment, the working relationship between his thoughts and feelings becomes twisted. His emotional responses, emotional management, and emotional development will likely…
