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Ask Bon: How do I balance validating somebody’s feelings with protecting myself or my children from emotional abuse?
Q: How do I balance validating somebody’s feelings with protecting myself or my children from emotional abuse? A: This is an excellent question and one that I have grappled with for years. My wife’s behavior before I started down the path to effectiveness was off-the-charts and was affecting my children’s feelings of safety in our household. Numerous times I felt the only solution to protecting my children was to leave my wife and apply for full custody of our children. When my wife was “acting out” and/or in a rage around the children, I would take the kids to the library or to events around town. I worried that they…
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A Review of WHINE by someone with BPD
The other day I received a review on Amazon about my book When Hope is Not Enough from an individual who identified himself as a person with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Here’s the text of the review: Got BPD? Get This! Great for Everyone Who Needs Validation!, June 16, 2011 I have BPD and I love this book! I no longer walk around feeling like BPD is stamped on my forehead and everything I say or do is a result of my lousy emotional filtering. I can constructively offer suggestions to myself (or others) on how I would rather be treated or spoken to. I can laugh with myself and my…
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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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First Search on IAAHF
I coined the phrase “It’s All About His/Her Feelings” (IAAHF) as a mentalization tool to understand the MOTIVATION behind much of the confusing behavior of those with BPD. Last week, I got the first search engine search on IAAHF. See below: As you can see, I also get lots of searches on “famous people” or “celebrities” with BPD. I only post those types of articles to relate to those with BPD and their families that perhaps they are not alone in their struggles – perhaps (again it’s a maybe because the closest celebrity to actually come out and say he/she has BPD is Megan Fox – who speculated about it).…
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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…