BPD: "manipulative, destructive and threatening behavior"

Several years ago I came across an article from the UK titled Exploring Registered Psychiatric Nurses' Responses towards Service Users with a Diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder.

Sadly, you probably won't be too surprised to know that individuals diagnosed with BPD are often treated very differently from patients with other diagnoses in a hospital setting.

The study not only revealed that patients were often thought to be "manipulative," "destructive," and "difficult" but that nursing staff also displayed lower levels of empathy towards them.

As soon as I read the article, I thought about John Gottman's wisdom about how there really is a "deep personal longing" behind each and every complaint, argument, and tantrum.

When people with BPD feel genuinely validated, understood, and cared for, challenging behaviors become manageable and trust and openness begin to build.

Isn't your relationship worth it?

You can read the entire article by clicking here.

If you are a family member who needs practical tools to help the person you love the most, check out my course here.

Self Help for BPD?

The concept of emotional suffering when it comes to borderline personality disorder (BPD), is often explained using an analogy of a burning building.

When people are feeling their worse—engaging in self-injury or other self-sabotaging activity, making suicide attempts, jumping out of moving cars, causing harm to others, using illegal drugs or alcohol to dull emotional pain, texting an ex-boyfriend hundreds of times in the space of just an hour or two—they are in the basement trying to get to safety while avoiding the flames.

Getting Help for BPD

The first step requires asking for help and that can be absolutely terrifying for someone who has been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. The second? Accessing evidenced-based care from a therapist or other mental health professional who isn't going to increase the overwhelming sense of shame that often accompanies a mental health diagnosis.

I speak with wonderful people every single day who are ready to make this first step in helping themselves or someone they love. If you're alone and have access to few resources, there really are ways that you can help yourself starting today.

Are you ready to get out of the fire that is consuming your life? Are you ready to create a life worth living?

You can do this. I promise. You can email me at amanda@hopeforbpd.com.

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Interested in learning more? Please take a moment to check out:

• Can You Diagnose Yourself with BPD? Pros and Cons of Self-Diagnosis

• 101 Coping Statements for Self-Harming Behaviors

• The BPD Playlist: Music to Change Your Emotions

• Self-Compassion for BPD

Loving Dandelions: A Lesson from Marsha Linehan

A man who took great pride in his lawn found himself with a large crop of dandelions. He tried every method he knew to get rid of them. Still they plagued him.

Finally he wrote the Department of Agriculture. He enumerated all the things he had tried and closed his letter with the question, "What shall I do now?"

In due course the reply came, "We suggest you learn to love them."

—Anthony de Mello, SJ in The Song of the Bird 

I first heard this story of the dandelions from Marsha Linehan in 2010 at a training in Boston. It was a powerful moment for me and I’ve thought about the wisdom in this tiny meditation many times over the years.

Dr. Linehan has said that the only way out of (emotional) hell is acceptance.   

But the concept of radical acceptance (just one of the skills in Dialectical Behavior Therapy) isn't a one-time event but can be a fairly dramatic shift in the way we choose to approach life's challenges.

That's ultimately the dialectic of change and acceptance. There are things we can change and things we cannot.

Like most people who are emotionally sensitive, I still find this particular skill to be both burdensome ("Good grief! That's it! No more accepting today!") and also freeing ("It's okay. Really. I’ll feel better when I accept this.”).

And like the dandelions, I have a choice in lovingly accepting my emotional sensitivity, the many past choices that I regret, painful moments of grief and loss, the cat throwing up on the freshly-washed duvet cover, and what feels like a million other little things that come up every single day or I can continue to struggle with wanting someone else to come into my life and make things better. (No one is coming to save me. I save myself.)

Sometimes there’s peace in acceptance.

What about you? What are you radically accepting today?