How would you explain what borderline personality disorder is to someone who doesn’t have it?
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My therapist explained percetly to me when I started going, because of an ex with bpd.
Imagine human emotions are in a 0 to 10 scale, non-bpd people live their lives in 4 to 6, with extreme events pushing to 7 or 3, people with bpd live between 7 and 3 with extremly quick changes from one to the other spending little time in the 4 to 6 range.
It is of course more complicated than this, and if a loved one or you yourself think that you have bpd, you should make some research and look for a therapist, it really helps to gonin detail and understand why and how youbor that person work.
Some of these responses are knowledgable a wonderful… others are downright offensive. I understand that it’s a hard disorder to live with/around, but it doesn’t make people with it bad people. Not all people with BPD are manipulative or difficult to be around, it can be managed and is managed well by many people. Don’t take the extremes to be indicative, as it can lead to isolation of people with BPD and unfair assumptions being made about them from those who don’t know better.
Like so many MH problems, it is diverse and manageable, so it’s usually best to talk to the individual that has it if you need to understand them better about their own experience.
When I got my diagnosis, my mother explained it to my siblings as “your sister loves too fast and too hard that she gets physically hurt and sometimes that pain makes her sick”.
Not exactly, but when explaining to children why their oldest sibling had to go to rehab, it got the job done.
Fun fact-the name originates from the idea that a person borders neuroses and psychosis, with the characteristic cognitive distortions
Someone once explained it to me as if a person with BPD is a bucket with a hole in the bottom.
They are constantly looking to fill their bucket, but can’t. Thus, from any experience they just feel whatever the last thing to leave the bucket was. They might have a day full of good things, but if it ends with one bad thing then the whole day feels bad. They could have all sorts of interactions with a person, but if that person leaves them feeling good, the person becomes a “good object.”
This also explains why spending time with borderline people can be quite draining: they attempt to fill their bucket from your full bucket, and no matter how fast you can replenish, they’re always in need of more.
As if speaking to a 5 year old, because I’ve made almost this exact statement to my sister’s kids about another family member who has BPD.
“You know how sometimes you feel happy or sad and other times you feel really happy or very sad? That’s what it’s like for (redacted) all the time. Their brain makes it so they only have big feelings. That means that they don’t often get to have the in-between feelings that you and I have and sometimes can go from feeling ok to having rally big feelings really fast. It feels fast to us, but it’s normal for (redacted). It can be really hard work to have big feelings , all the time like they do, and that’s part of why they’re so tired all the time.”
There is a window in childhood where an infant needs to receive adequate mirroring and attunement from a caregiver in order to develop a stable sense of self and lovability.
The parent pours from their cup to fill up the child’s, the child mirrors the adult and learns to fill their own cup.
If this never happens (for myriad reasons, not always due to being a “bad parent”) the child will spend the rest of their life trying to fill their cup from other people’s, unable to fill up their own cup. Forever looking to receive from adults the kind of relationship that only can happen between a parent and child.
No adult can give another adult the kind of unconditional love and attunement that a parent gives a child.
Everytime they fall short it reminds the person with BPD of that lack. That reminder is very painful and can result in a reaction.
Heard a professor use the metaphor of BPD being a 3rd degree burn to the soul of a person suffering from the disorder.
Having borderline is waking up everyday and not knowing who you’re going be or how you’re going to feel. It’s feeling emotions at the most extreme end of the spectrum or not feeling at all. It’s loving someone so much you’d rather die than be without them… yet if you feel they’re going to leave you you do everything you can to push them away first and then beat yourself up mentally for doing so. It’s having impulses that are so strong they override rational thinking and burst through your skin regardless if you wanted to do it or not. It’s constantly fearing everyone you know and love will eventually leave you all alone. It’s broken glass and bloody knuckles.. it’s living everyday teetering on the edge waiting for the tiniest thing to send you spiraling.
Edit: I just want to add that as a borderline it seems to me that a lot of people tend to think we act the way we do on purpose or out of malice. I honestly cannot speak for every borderline, just myself, and idk if it’s bc I’ve lived with this for so long (I’m 32) or if it’s just my particular flavor of bpd.. but for the most part I do my absolute best to not take my symptoms out on other people.
I’m in therapy and on medication and actively, daily, use coping mechanisms to control my anger and impulses. I still have a hard time trusting anyone, even those closest to me. I struggle with thinking everyone is lying or is harboring ill will towards me and i still require reassurance from my inner circle that they aren’t going anywhere and they understand and know I’m working on better myself and my mental health. I still have rage outbursts but have found healthy ways to express that rage. I’m not manipulative, I do not lack empathy (quite the opposite actually), and I’m hyper aware of how I treat others, and I’ve become aware of when I’m using black and white thinking and try to correct it. Not every borderline is the same, it’s a complex disorder and I urge you to not put us all in a box due to a bad experience with a less self aware borderline.
I fear my significant other has this. How can I bring it up to them so they can try and get some help?
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