Quotes About BPD

However, if the therapist takes everything the person with BPD says at face value without probing further—and this is not uncommon—the therapist may inadvertently reinforce their twisted thinking, making things worse.

With BPD, the cause of an argument is not necessarily the actual event but the person with BPD's interpretation of that event. As you probably know, you and the person with BPD may come to very different conclusions about what was said and done.

People with BPD need their friends and family members to be stable and clear—not to reject them and not to smother them. They need you to let them take care of themselves and to not do things for them that they can do for themselves. The best way to do this and help them is by working on yourself.

Enlisting allies: The blackmailer asks other people to pressure you. This seems to be most common when the person with BPD is a parent. In one case, a mother with BPD showed up at her daughter's door with four relatives to back her up.

folks with NPD have shallow emotional lives because so much must remain hidden, both from themselves and from others. This shallowness makes them hard to get to know, because there doesn't seem to be much of a real person beneath the façade. This is the opposite of most people with BPD, who feel and express a very wide range of emotions.

Some people with BPD who act out may use a game we call "Tag, You're It" to relieve their anxiety, pain, and feelings of shame. It's complex because it combines shame, splitting, denial, and projection.

This lack of empathy is a central hallmark of NPD in the same way that a fear of abandonment is central to BPD. Do not expect someone with NPD to listen to, commiserate with, or emotionally support you, whether in a crisis or in an ordinary conversation. This lack of empathy feels deeply foreign to most of us.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is probably the best-known structured treatment for BPD.

People with BPD feel all emotions intensely, not just anger.

Some people with the conventional type of BPD have the opposite problem: they feel unable to express their anger at all.

writes that people with BPD who under-express anger "fear they will lose control if they express even the slightest anger, and at other times they fear that targets of even minor anger expression will retaliate.

The holy grail of the life of someone with BPD is to find that caring, compassionate person who will magically fill their empty insides, take care of them and their needs, and never leave them feeling alone again.

People with BPD often need to feel in control of other people, because they feel so out of control with themselves. In addition, because they feel vulnerable and afraid, they try to make their world more predictable and manageable by controlling it as much as possible.

Separate your feelings from those of the person with BPD. Earlier in this book, we explained that people with BPD often use projection to try to get others to feel their feelings for them. You may need to keep checking yourself to determine whose feelings are whose. If you start to feel helpless or angry, is it because the other person is projecting his or her own helplessness or anger onto you?

Your feelings need to be validated just as much as those of the person with BPD.

Vulnerability opens us up to being shamed. To someone with BPD, controlling others is a way to ensure that no one can ever shame them. In practice, however, people with BPD often attempt to control others by putting them in no-win situations, creating chaos, or accusing others of trying to control them.

According to MaryBelle Fisher, Ph.D., when a parent has BPD, the normal formation of the child's identity may be derailed. In our interview with Fisher she said, "The child's 'self' becomes a mechanism to regulate the borderline parent rather than an internal, cohesive event.

Many people we talked to for this book told us that the person with BPD in their life seemed to be aware of their triggers.

When the person with BPD felt threatened, they consciously or unconsciously protected themselves from painful feelings in ways that pushed these buttons.

According to the highly emotional logic of BPD, if they do something terrible to you, and you accept it without complaining or becoming upset, that shows that you care about them. But if you respond in the way that most people would, by expressing your anger or displeasure, that means that you don't really have positive feelings for them.

Minimizing any visible reaction: If the person with BPD knows the button-pushing is having the desired effect—whether consciously or unconsciously—chances are that the behavior will be repeated.

Linehan echoes this belief, often saying that people with BPD are like people with third-degree burns over 90 percent of their body. Lacking emotional skin, they feel agony at the slightest touch or movement.

For the person with BPD, feeling separated from someone else can be frightening. It makes them feel rejected, abandoned, and alone. So, consciously or unconsciously, they may discourage independence or independent thinking in people close to them.

Interpersonal interpretive processes that developmentally antedate mentalization appear to govern the behavior of individuals with BPD, at least within attachment relationships.