They are ready to do anything to be loved: how people with borderline disorder live

Borderline personality disorder

If we focus borderline personality disorder (BPD) into one point, then we can say that this is a person suffering from instability of his internal impulses and feelings. People with BPD can experience intense feelings, from love to hate, but the peculiarity is that these feelings arise only in the process of interaction with other people. And these impulses are the way by which contact with the world is established.

Symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder

When looking at the symptoms of borderline disorder, the first and main symptom is a constant, desperate attempt to avoid rejection, both real and imagined. Loneliness is unbearable for them. More precisely, not loneliness, but abandonment. They can be alone with themselves, but cannot stand it when someone leaves them.

The second symptom grows out of the first - very high intensity and instability of personal relationships. A person with BPD either idealizes or devalues ​​their partner, and this can happen almost simultaneously.

The third symptom is that these people don’t know who they are. Their self-image is unstable. There is no understanding of what is happening to them and what is really important to them. Today it may be one thing, and tomorrow it may be another. Instability can manifest itself both in relationships with oneself and with other people.

The fourth symptom is impulsivity. Instability pushes them towards it. The peculiarity of this impulsiveness is that it harms themselves. For example, they may engage in sexual excesses, or spend large amounts of money, or get drunk to the point of unconsciousness, and then abstain for many months.

The fifth symptom is attempts at suicide and often successful ones. This also includes driving at high speeds, using alcohol and drugs, abusing health, getting into dangerous situations, and more.

The sixth symptom is emotional instability. Their mood can change very quickly and dramatically. One minute they feel depressed, an hour later they feel irritated, and a couple of hours later they feel anxious.

The seventh symptom is a chronic feeling of inner emptiness that haunts them. And looking for external stimuli, pushes in the form of sex, drugs and other things, is a way to get in touch with your feelings.

The eighth symptom is anger inappropriate to the situation. They show it off often. They may even hit you if they feel like the person is bothering them.

The ninth symptom is paranoid imagination or symptoms of dissociation. They feel that other people want to control them and harm them. Or they may become trapped in internal dissociation, experiencing feelings and impulses simultaneously without being aware of them. Please note that in our Center you can conduct experimental psychological research and diagnose a person’s personality.

If you look at these symptoms, you can distinguish three main groups:

1. Pulse intensity.
2. Instability.
3. Impulsivity of behavior that is subject to dynamic impulses.

In this way, the borderline personality is filled with more energy. But for them it is real suffering. Acting under the influence of impulses, they do not make decisions about their behavior; it is as if something is happening to them. They may not want to behave this way, but the impulses are so strong that they must obey them or explode.

And now we will go from the surface to the depths to understand the essence of their suffering.

What are they missing, what are they looking for? They are looking for themselves. They are constantly looking for themselves within themselves and cannot find it. Their feelings tell them they don't exist. I can work, think, communicate, but do I really exist? Who am i?

And, of course, it is very difficult to live in such a state. You can treat yourself rationally, but this inner feeling makes it difficult to live. A person wants to get out of this state of internal dullness and emptiness.

How does he try to resolve this situation? He strives to experience some kind of experience that will save his emptiness. And first of all, this is an experience in relationships. Only when they are in a relationship do they have life, they feel that now I exist. They need someone next to them who makes them feel like they are themselves.

But if there is no other person nearby and they are in a difficult situation, then the body comes to the rescue. They may cut themselves with knives or blades, stub out cigarettes on their skin or pierce it with a needle, or drink strong alcohol that burns from the inside. At such moments, the feeling of pain brings pleasure. Because when I experience pain, I have the feeling that I exist. I live. Here I am.

So, a person with BPD suffers because they have no self-image or sense of self. He does not have an internal structure of the Self; he constantly needs an affective impulse. Without impulse, he cannot build a structure. And there is a feeling that if I don’t feel, then I don’t live. And if I don’t feel, then I’m not me, I’m not myself. And this is true, if we do not feel, we cannot understand who we are; such a reaction to the lack of feelings itself is normal.

But the method they choose gives relief here and now, but does not give access to their feelings. And a person with BPD may experience fireworks of feelings, and then again dark nights. Because they use the wrong ways to experience feelings, such as to satisfy their emotional hunger, they may abuse the relationship.

One might imagine that borderline patients are close to depressed, but there is a difference. A depressed person has a feeling that life itself is not good. He also lacks life. But life itself is not good. Whereas a person with BPD may have the feeling that life is good, life may be very wonderful, but how to achieve it?

Let's go a little deeper.

Where does instability come from, the transition from opposite to opposite, from black to white?

People with BPD have positive encounters and experience them as very valuable. When they feel love, they feel more life inside them, just like we all do. For example, when they are praised in front of a group of people, they may feel very good and begin to feel good about themselves. We all react to these situations in this way - they bring us closer to ourselves.

But we are normally in a fairly close relationship with ourselves. Whereas a person with BPD starts from scratch. Either there is emptiness inside him, complete nothingness, then he experiences love, praise and suddenly approaches himself. Then he had nothing, no sensation, and suddenly it was so bright. And this approach to himself arises only due to the fact that there is someone else. This is not his own process rooted in him, but a process that depends on something external. And this person is something like a hologram: you look at it and it seems like it’s something real, but it’s just the effect of external intersecting rays.

And then the people who love him praise him, are perceived as absolutely good, ideal, because they make him feel so good. But what happens if these people suddenly say something critical? And a person from this height suddenly falls not just to where he was, but somewhere even deeper. He begins to feel that the other person is destroying him, destroying him. It destroys his sense of self and causes pain.

And, of course, it is reasonable to imagine that a person who does such nasty things is simply a bad person. The same person who seemed like an angel suddenly seems like a devil. And this experience can be called hellish, because the person again does not understand who he is. When he falls out of this symbiosis with people who give him good feelings, and falling out of this symbiosis is so painful that this experience must be separated. To divide, to break something that is connected with this feeling.

He can divide another person in time, for example, a father or mother - he used to be so wonderful, but now he is a devil, because internally these experiences are very difficult to combine with one person. At one point, the father praises and says something good. But then how can you imagine that the same father can say at another moment, but now you have this nonsense, rubbish, please change this.

And if normally we understand that criticism and praise, positive and negative are all partly a common reality, then for a borderline person it is impossible to combine them together. Because one moment they have an excellent relationship with themselves, and the next there is emptiness and only pain inside. And the person he just loved, he suddenly begins to hate. And this hatred causes a lot of anger and he may become aggressive or have impulses to hurt himself. And this separative dissociative reaction is characteristic of borderline personalities.

This separation is due to the fact that they do not want to experience the feelings they experience when they are criticized. The criticism is so painful that they feel like they are melting away. And they protect themselves by trying to maintain this symbiosis. To return to the state when they were loved, praised, because this is the state in which they can live. But this internal positive feeling of self is artificial, in the sense that it depends entirely on the other person. They have no internal idea of ​​themselves, so they project everything outward and try to understand something externally.

You can compare this to the behavior of a five-year-old child: he can close his eyes and think that it is no longer there. A borderline person does the same thing on a psychological level: he separates something and it seems to no longer exist.

What does the phenomenological approach and existential analysis tell us? What leads a person to lose himself?

This loss of self is due to two things.

On the one hand, they constantly experience violence and some kind of inconstancy of others, in whose power they are. They may have a history of traumatic experiences involving emotional or sexual abuse. When a person simply cannot understand when their good relative behaved this way. These opposing experiences associated with people important to them seem to tear them in different directions. Often these are people who grew up in families where there was a lot of tension, scandals, and ambivalence.

The experience gained from childhood can be formulated phenomenologically as follows.

An adult, or someone from the outside environment tells them: be here, do something. You may be here, but you have no right to live. Those. borderline children feel that they have the right to be, but to be only as an object, a means for solving some other people’s problems. They are not needed as a person who has his own feelings, who wants to react to life in his own way, to enter into a relationship with it. They are needed only as tools.

And this is the very first form of this internal division, when a person grows up with such a message, with such an experience, and this is the basis of his future division.

But in response to this reality, he has an internal impulse: but I want to live, I want to be myself! But he is not allowed to be himself. And this inner voice is suppressed, drowned out. And it remains just an impulse.

And these impulses of a borderline person are completely healthy impulses directed against external aggression. Against external reality, which forces him to be torn, divided, not to be himself. Those. From the outside they are separated from themselves, separated, and from within there is a kind of rebellion against this situation.

And from here comes constant tension.

Borderline disorder is associated with very powerful internal tension. And this tension gives intensity to their lives. They need this tension, it is important to them. Because when they experience this tension, they feel life a little. And they don’t even sit relaxed, calmly, they always seem to be a little suspended, their muscles are tense. He sits in his own space, on his own support.

And thanks to this internal tension, he protects himself from internal pain. When he has no tension, when he is in a state of complete relaxation, he begins to feel pain because of who he is. How painful it is to be yourself! And this internal tension, on the one hand, gives him life, and on the other, protects him from internal pain.

We thought about how a person comes to this state of separation, rupture, and we saw that his life experience leads him to such a situation. Life itself was contradictory for him.

Another feature is the development of some images. Instead of seeing reality as it is, a person with BPD creates an ideal image of reality for themselves. His emotional vacuum is filled with thoughts and imagination. And these imaginary images give the borderline person some stability. And if someone begins to destroy this internal image or if reality does not correspond to it, then he reacts impulsively. Because this is a loss of stability. Any change in the way the father or mother behaves leads to a feeling of loss of support.

What happens when this image is destroyed or changed? Then the image of the ideal person is replaced by another. And in order to make sure that such a loss of ideal will not happen again, they turn the image of a person who was ideal into the complete opposite. And thanks to this change, the image of the devil will no longer have to be changed, you can be calm.

Those. images replace those feelings, thoughts and reactions to reality that help to live and deal with this reality. Ideal images become more real than reality. Those. they cannot accept what is given to them, what actually is. And this emptiness, due to the fact that they do not accept reality, they fill with images.

The borderline patient's deepest experience is pain. The pain is that if you leave, then I lose myself. Therefore, this encourages them to drag other people into relationships and not let them out. Do you understand the essence of the borderline patient's pain? The basic idea is that if someone else leaves me or I stop feeling pain, then I lose touch with myself, it’s like a kind of amputation of feelings. Feelings fade, everything becomes dark inside and the person loses contact with himself. He feels that he is not accepted, not seen, not loved for who he is, and this experience in the past leads to the fact that he does not accept and does not love himself.

Their behavior in relationships can be described as “I’m not with you, but I’m not without you.” They can only be in relationships when they dominate in these relationships and when these relationships correspond to their ideal internal image. Because they have a lot of anxiety, and when the other person leaves them or does something else, it causes even more anxiety.

For them, life is a constant battle. But life should be simple and good. They have to constantly fight and it's not fair. They find it difficult to manage their own needs. On the one hand, they have a feeling that they have a right to their needs. They are impatient and greedy with their needs. But at the same time, they are not able to do anything good for themselves; they can only do it impulsively. They don't understand who they are, and therefore they provoke other people.

So, borderline patients are very often aggressive when they feel abandoned or unloved, but when they feel loved and treated well, they are very warm, kind, and sweet.

And if, for example, after a couple of years of marriage, the partner says, “I want to get a divorce,” then the borderline can change his behavior in such a way that life in marriage becomes wonderful. Or he may react impulsively and be the first to file for divorce or break up. And it is very difficult to predict exactly how he will behave, but it will obviously be extreme.

They live extreme lives, they can work hard, drive at full speed, or exercise to the point of exhaustion. For example, one of my patients was riding a mountain bike and going down the mountain at such a speed that he knew that if something got in his way, he would break his neck. And in the same way he drove his BMW, and felt that if there were leaves on the road, he would be blown off the road. Those. it is a constant game with death.

How can we help a borderline person in therapy?

First of all, they need confrontation. Those. you need to meet them face to face and show yourself to them. Stay in touch with them, but don't let them react impulsively. Resist their impulses and say things like, “I want to discuss this, but I want to discuss it calmly.” Or, “Do you really need to be so aggressive, we can discuss it quite calmly.”

Those. on the one hand, remain in a relationship with them, continue to extend your hand to them, but do not allow them to treat you as their impulses dictate. And this is the best way for borderline patients to learn to switch their impulses and make contact.

The worst thing you can do is reject or push them away when confronted. And this stimulates their psychopathology. Only if you combine this confrontation with maintaining contact and continue to talk to them, then they can withstand this confrontation.

Show them your respect. For example, “I see that you are now very irritated, furious, this is probably something important for you, let’s talk about it. But first, calm down and after that we will talk about it.”

And this helps the borderline patient understand how he can be, who he can be in a situation where another person comes to him and allows him to make contact. And this is a very important resource that can be used in relationships with borderline people, who are colleagues and partners for us. It cannot cure them, it is not enough, but it is a behavior that does not stimulate their disorder further. This gives them the opportunity to calm down a little and enter into a dialogue with him.

You can work with a borderline person on the same team for decades if you know how to deal with that person. And if you yourself are strong enough as an individual. And this is the second important thing. If you are weak, or you have a traumatic experience with aggression, you feel traumatized, then you will find it very difficult to be in a relationship with a borderline patient. Because when dealing with him, you need to constantly be rooted in yourself. And it's not easy, you have to learn it.

And the second thing that borderline patients must learn is to endure themselves and endure their pain.

And if you look very briefly at the psychotherapeutic process, it always begins with advisory work. To help at the first stage to find some relief from internal tension, relief in a life situation. We work as consultants with their specific relationship problems in their life, at work. We help them make decisions, gain perspective in life, and in a sense this is educational work. We help them learn to notice their aggression.

This work continues for the first couple of months, six months, sometimes more. This work at the advisory level is necessary to gain access to a deeper level. For a borderline patient, pharmacological agents and medications are not very helpful.

And after the first stage of facilitating work related to counseling on life problems, we move to a deeper level. We teach them to take a stand. Position in relation to ourselves. Better to see yourself. For example, we can ask, “what do you think about yourself, about your behavior?” And usually they answer something like, “I haven’t thought much about it, I’m not valuable enough to think about it.” And in the process of work, you try to understand how this happened and how they can come to respect themselves.

And the first part of this work is working with yourself. And the second part is working on relationships with other people and biographical experience. And during therapy, their pain may increase and suicidal impulses may arise. They experience the amputation of loss of senses. And we can give them information that the pain you are experiencing cannot kill you, just try to bear it. It is very important to help them enter into the process of internal dialogue with themselves. Because the therapeutic relationship is a mirror that reflects how they feel inside, how they treat themselves.

Psychotherapy with a borderline patient is a complex art, it is one of the most difficult diagnoses in terms of working with them. Over the course of many years, they may have suicidal impulses, they may treat the therapist aggressively, and they may slip back into their disorder. This therapy continues for 5-7 years, initially with weekly meetings, then once every 2-3 weeks.

But they need time to grow up, because when they come to therapy, they are like little children of 4-5 years old. And how long does it take for a child to grow up and become an adult? We grow up in 20-30 years, and they should grow up in 4-5 years. And in most cases, they also have to cope with difficult life situations that cause great violence to them. Those. they need to make a very great effort to deal with their suffering and remain in therapy.

And the therapist himself can also learn a lot, we also grow with them. This makes working with borderline patients worthwhile. Source: https://kseniyapanyukova.com/ya-nenavizhu-tebya-no-ne-ostavlyaj-menya-pogranichnoe-rasstrojstvo-lichnosti/

General information about the disease

Borderline personality disorder is a form of psychopathy that significantly impairs the quality of life. A person suffering from it cannot build long-term relationships with partners, he has no friends, and adaptation to new conditions is extremely difficult. Conflict situations are aggravated by a lack of self-control. The patient is unable to monitor his reactions and control his own impulses in behavior.

The disease is diagnosed in approximately 3% of patients with mental disorders, 10% of them die by suicide. The first symptoms of BPD appear in adolescence, and the trigger is not necessarily stress. The development of mental illness can occur gradually. At first, it often remains invisible to others.

The inner world of such patients is very poor; they often describe their state as empty, “de-energized,” devoid of energy and strength. Borderline personality disorder is accompanied by the following symptoms:

• frequent worries over minor issues;
• emotional instability;
• impulsiveness in decision making;
• internal experiences;
• inability to master basic communication skills.

Frustrated attempts to realize oneself in the profession and society aggravate the situation. Against the background of constant dissatisfaction with oneself, depression develops. Drug and alcohol addiction occurs. First, with the help of third-party stimulants, such patients try to relieve internal pain. Unnoticed, they become involved, exhibiting extreme forms of alcoholism and drug addiction.

Diagnosis of BPD

Diagnostics is the first and main stage before prescribing a course of therapy. The specialist takes the following steps step by step:

• a detailed survey of relatives, work colleagues and friends, which helps to establish the exact time when signs of borderline personality disorder first appeared;
• studying family history - it is important to make sure that close relatives do not have similar diseases;
• collecting maximum information about the patient’s life;
• conversation with the patient and observation of him from the outside in order to identify characteristic symptoms of mental pathology;
• conducting psychological testing to obtain a complete picture of the internal state of a mentally ill person.

Primitive thinking

People with borderline organization may perform well in structured work or professional environments. But beneath the shiny surface, there are usually serious self-doubts, suspicions and fears. The internal thought process of such a person can be surprisingly artless and simple, masking behind a stable façade of memorized and rehearsed platitudes. Any circumstance that penetrates the borderline personality's defense structure can unleash a flood of chaotic emotions. Marjorie's example (above) illustrates this point perfectly.

Projection psychological tests also reveal the primitive thought processes of people with BPD. These tests—such as the Rorschach and the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)—provoke associations with ambiguous stimuli, such as inkblots or pictures, around which the patient builds a story. Borderline reactions usually resemble those of schizophrenics or other psychotic patients. While neurotic patients are more likely to give coherent, organized responses, BPD patients often describe bizarre, primitive images—they may see evil animals devouring each other where neurotics see a butterfly.

Causes of BPD

Borderline personality disorder develops due to exposure to a number of external factors that cannot be controlled by the person.

• Heredity.

If the parents had this diagnosis, then the chances of it being diagnosed to the child in adolescence are quite high. Women suffer from this disease more often than men.

• Character traits.

If a person has low self-esteem, he is a pessimist by nature, his psyche is not resistant to stressful situations, he has increased anxiety, and the risk of developing borderline disorder is high.

• All forms of violence.

If a child suffered from emotional, sexual or physical abuse as a child, he or she may develop this disorder later in life. This also includes separation from one of the parents or their physical loss.

• Lack of emotional contact with a significant person.

Lack of attention on the part of the parent, his emotional coldness, and a subconscious prohibition on expressing his feelings lead to mental disorders. A similar picture is observed if significant adults expressed excessive or contradictory demands on the child. Unfavorable living conditions form a maladaptive pattern of behavior that manifests itself at a late age.

• Excessive activity of the limbic system of the brain.

This pathology occurs as a result of emotional deprivation, being a secondary disorder.

Complications without treatment

Timely contact with a specialist in a psychiatric department improves the prognosis of recovery. Ignoring the clinical manifestations of the disease leads to its aggravation and acquisition of a chronic form.

Among the negative consequences are:

• lack of opportunity to build personal and business relationships with partners;
• constant thoughts of suicide, which will sooner or later be realized;
• chronic depression, lack of interest in the outside world;
• social isolation, secluded lifestyle;
• lack of desire to leave the house.

Borderline personality disorder develops in childhood. It is very important to take some preventive measures to prevent the manifestation of the disease. Among them are:

• visiting a specialist in critical situations (divorce of parents or death of a loved one);
• allowing the child to express his own emotions, even if they are negative;
• exclusion of physical, emotional, sexual violence;
• providing conditions for full communication with significant adults;
• creating an atmosphere in which it is comfortable to live and study;
• building a trusting relationship in which the child can freely share his problems.

The duration of therapy is determined by several factors:

• features of relationships with loved ones;
• age;
• the primary source of the disease;
• willingness to undergo long-term therapy;
• level of personal, professional, social development.

Questions and answers

Can borderline disorder be treated at home?

No. Such mental disorders are treated in a hospital setting. The patient can cause physical harm to the life and health of others, as well as to himself. Therefore, he needs hospitalization.

Is it possible to get rid of BPD using folk remedies?

No, using questionable drugs will only worsen the situation. Any medications are used after prior consultation with a doctor.