Helping those with Borderline Personality Disorder fight the stigma and enjoy their lives for who they are – highly empathetic, compassionate and creative people with beautiful minds.
Last Tuesday, I met with my counsellor and my mother-in-law to try to help her understand my BPD. We had a very good talk and I think she’s finally beginning to understand it a bit more. I tried to explain to her how she was unintentionally invalidating me constantly. She told me that she wasn’t saying anything bad to me. I explained to her that it doesn’t matter what she says or how she says it, that to someone with BPD, especially with me, it always feels like criticising and that I’m not good enough. She asked what she could do to make it better and I told her “nothing. Just do your own thing. You can’t make this go away. I’m the only one who can help me.” She got a look on her face like she finally “got it.” Also kind of sad for me.
My counsellor thought that I was very articulate, and told my mother-in-law that I’m doing everything I need to be doing to keep myself as well as I can be. I’m seeing both of them again this Tuesday. It’s good practice for me for running a group or presentation on BPD to educate people on the disorder. I’m learning more about myself every day.
I was so exhausted afterwards that I had to lay down for an hour. People don’t realize how exhausting it is for those of us with BPD just managing our emotions every day. It just comes to them naturally.
I’ll keep you posted on how it goes Tuesday. Till then,
I have been trying to explain my BPD to my mother-in-law for months. At first, she had no idea what I was talking about. But she gets a little bit more out of every conversation we have. It’s such a complex disorder to try to explain to someone who doesn’t have it. I believe they can only understand it to a point. They don’t have to live with it every day of their lives. They can only try to imagine what it must be like. At least with depression or Bipolar, you can feel better, with either time or medication or therapy or a combination of them, and the symptoms go away. With BPD, it never goes away. You can learn how to manage the symptoms, your emotions and behaviour, but it’s always going to be there, for the rest of your life. It’s absolutely exhausting! People expect too much of you. They think that, if only you’d try a little harder. They’re seeing things through their own eyes, not ours. They don’t have our brains. They think that, if you were trying as hard as you possibly can, you’d be handling things just like them, and you’d be doing so much better. They don’t realize that, you’re doing the best that you can. You’re never going to be like them. That doesn’t mean that you’re any worse than them. It just means that since your brain works differently, and they have to realize that.
When people expect too much of you, its extremely invalidating. What they need to do is validate us by saying “I don’t understand exactly how you feel, but I know that you’re doing the best you can.” This will make us feel validated and then we can get better, at our own pace. When they push us to do things that we are not capable of, that just makes us feel worse instead of better. With me, I feel very overwhelmed and paralyzed and I can’t think straight or do anything. Then they get upset with me for not doing anything, which makes me feel even worse. I feel so many things so intensely, all at the same time – anger, guilt, etc. “I’m not good enough.” I just goes into a vicious circle of negative emotions. Every time I try to explain it to my mother-in-law, she says “Oh, that must be awful!” And it is. Sure, sometimes it can be a good thing, but it’s also extremely difficult to live with.
What are your experiences with trying to explain your BPD to others? Have you had any success or not? If so, what do you find helpful? I’ve included some helpful links at the end of this post.
Some people will never get it, no matter how many times you try to explain it to them. They are just incapable of understanding your disorder. I don’t know what to do about that, other than just try to accept it the best you can. I need to distract myself from angry feelings when that happens, which is an awful lot. It feels like they just don’t care, or else they would make more of an effort to remember that I am not like them. My brain does not work like theirs does. My favourite ways to distract myself are: going for a walk and blasting music on the headphones while playing a game on the computer or looking stuff up to keep my mind busy.
Here is an excellent video clip.
I wish people could try to understand how hard it is for those of us with BPD, and cut us some slack!
What are your experiences with this? How do you feel when it happens? How do you cope? Do you have any suggestions? Please let us know in the Comments section below. I’d love to hear from you! (Please? I’m lonely!) 😦 😆
Another post by Catherine Taylor, this one about the causes of her BPD. So heartbreaking, yet so full of inspiration. Includes a video about the differences between Borderline brains and those without BPD.
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