- May 25
- , 2012
- May 25
- , 2012
- May 25
- , 2012
What does any of this have to do with Nons having some part of this Borderline crazy? Triggers. That’s what. Or just those day to day things that most people would mention but the Borderline frets about in silent simmering fury and frustration. Just because you’re not aware that you’ve done something, doesn’t mean you didn’t do it. And unfortunately, because someone with BPD may continually not speak up, you may do these things over and over without realizing that you’re doing something that is hurting them.
For Example: When I was 17 a guy I knew tried to rape me. He was unsuccessful but he put in a damn good effort. I’d known him for years prior and every time I saw him he’d always say “Hey kid, how’s it going?” or “Hi there kiddo”. Any time anyone calls me ‘kid’ I automatically think of this man that tried to rape me. Sometimes people in my daily life will say “Let’s go kid” or something like that. Harmless, non offensive, but still triggering for me. Usually I tell people not to call me ‘kid’. Sometimes though, like if I’m in a professional setting, I don’t, because I don’t want to have to explain why this bothers me. I think it’s understandable that I wouldn’t want to share an experience like this but it also leaves the Non believing that it doesn’t bother me and leaves open the potential that they can, and probably will, call me ‘kid’ again. And therefore, trigger me again. Is it the Nons fault that they don’t know that this is a trigger for me? No, of course not. Is the Non still triggering these traumatic memories and feelings? Yes. Yes, they are.
I havea lot of triggers. I have a lot of things that cause me frustration, upset, and anger. Humans in general aren’t as considerate as they’d like to think. There’s a lot of opportunity for small slights. There’s a lot of opportunity for doing things that don’t bother you one bit, but may come across as inconsiderate to someone else. This is really pretty normal. And a normal person would usually speak up and say, “Hey buddy, would you mind leaving the seat down after you use the toilet?” for example, without worrying that there would be repercussions. A Borderline, however, always thinks about the potential repercussions. Remember how I talked about ruminations and hypersensitivity? When you’re hypersensitive to how another person might feel, and ruminate on dozens of different ways a comment could be taken, the potential for disastrous repercussions becomes a very real possibility. So logically (for us), it’s better to just not say anything and not risk offending anyone and therefore not having to suffer the consequences.
Right. Hah. Sure. Because the problem stops there. < —— Sarcasm.
This is where that ‘unexpected vanishing’ comes in. You’ve been with your Borderline for a long time, everything seems wonderful. Sure there’s some moodiness and maybe the occasional push-pull but nothing unmanageable. Unbeknownst to you, you’ve unintentionally been triggering problem areas in this person’s life. Or just doing things that get under their skin. When someone pokes you in an annoying spot for long enough, it begins to grate your nerves raw. Resentment begins to build. It’s small at first and ignorable. But over time, these things keep happening and that resentment turns to frustration. You should know! Can’t you see that this thing that you do makes my smile strain? Can’t you see that every time you do a particular thing, and then ask me if I’m ok, there’s a pattern there? You’re not paying attention! I want you to care enough to figure this out! But how can you do this if I don’t say something? But there’s all these reasons I shouldn’t. Back and forth. The hurt slowly builds to anger. Until we just can’t take it anymore. Our tolerance hits a boiling point and unexpectedly pops. All that anger, frustration, and upset, that had been triggered over a long period of time, that you had no clue about, finally surfaces in one gloriously unexpected explosion.
It appears that this perfect relationship has suddenly been devalued. You’ve been unexpectedly split into some demon of a significant other and you have no idea why. This is a problem in the perception of the Non, and the communication of the Borderline. It’s not that it just happened suddenly, at the drop of a dime, because we had one random mood swing. It’s because these things have been building up over a period of time, but unlike how normal people behave, the problems haven’t been expressed. Without expressing them, they can’t be addressed. They can’t be worked through. They can’t be released. They can’t be healed. We can’t move on. Instead, we hold onto each incident with a death grip, pushing it down, and compacting it under all of the things that eventually pile up upon it. When we can’t communicate, we just get more frustrated! Instead of protecting ourselves, we’re perpetuating our own problems. Because of all these fears though, often we don’t even know how to ask for help. Even when we really do want it. How do you initiate a conversation about what concerns you, if you’ve always been afraid of doing this? Or if you’ve always been told that have no right to talk about something? It’s foreign territory that we don’t know how to navigate. We literally don’t know how to seek help for certain things. We need help, learning to ask for help!
I’m not going to pretend that having any kind of relationship with a Borderline is going to be easy. It’s often not. Depending on the relationship it can be extraordinarily difficult. The relationship I had with my parents, and my siblings was much, much more volatile than almost any of my romantic relationships (other than the abusive ones – but I’m not responsible for the abusive actions of those others). Especially when I was younger, getting me to talk about anything was like pulling teeth out of a rabid mutant bear-shark hybrid. Take a minute to digest that image. Ok. I’ve never been good at communicating my needs and concerns.
Never? Well, crap. How hopeless is this situation? It seems inevitable that all Borderline relationships are doomed! I disagree. So how do you overcome these problems? It will take a little more vigilance and probably a lot of patience, but it’s not necessarily a one way course set towards disaster.
Communication is really important. This doesn’t mean hounding someone every time they say ‘they’re fine’. That would annoy the best of anyone. But it does mean keeping your eyes open, and watching for signs that something isn’t right. A strained smile, a deeper forced breathe, pursed lips, wringing hands, tense shoulders… body language is incredibly telling. Pay attention. Be gentle, be approachable, and pre-emptively cultivate trust in communication. Reassurance is really important to a Borderline. It’s important that we know that you will be willing to work with us on a problem, without walking out on us. Sometimes you might get angry, sometimes we might get angry, but if we believe that you’ll stay with us while we work it out, it’ll be easier for us to believe that we can talk to you about things that are a problem. When you notice a sign that something might be wrong, say, “It seems like something is bothering you. Can you tell me about it? I’d like to know what’s going on with you. Maybe there’s something we can do to fix it together. Your feelings are important to me and it’s important to me that your needs are being met too.” Maybe not quite so clinical, but in a way that conveys that it’s safe to discuss what is going on. Borderlines, we need to know our triggers. When we learn what they are, we need to communicate them so they aren’t set off.
Being safe. Often we don’t feel this. I’m not sure I’ll ever know what it is to truly feel safe with another person. Not emotionally anyways. I’ll never know unless I try. I won’t be able to try if the other person isn’t willing to work with me though.
Two people, two ways. It takes both to work on a relationship. Don’t wait until it’s too late to turn back before trying to fix something that isn’t too broken to repair.
Alright, so that was for the longer relationships when your Borderline just disappears seemingly out of nowhere. What about the one’s you’ve known for a shorter time? Why do they disappear? Why will I see a Borderline a lot and then it seems they drop off the face of the earth? Well now, I guess there’s just more to this story now isn’t there.
- May 25
- , 2012
- May 25
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- May 25
- , 2012
“He just left. Everything was great. Then all of a sudden he blew up at me over something small and that was it. Our relationship was over. I never saw it coming!”
Sound familiar? Relationships with a Borderline Personality Disordered person sometimes end abruptly. The Non Borderline in the relationship almost expects the turbulence and explosive endings, a buildup of anger or emotion over a period of time, but at least you see it coming. But sometimes it seems like things are great, and then all of a sudden, BAM! Game over.
I think there are two main contributors to this (other than the volatile emotions of a Borderline). Brace yourself, I may piss everyone off here.
1.) A person with BPD fails to communicate; what he or she is feeling, hides what is going on, and fears talking about what is causing some inner turmoil.
2.) The Non-BPD doesn’t pay attention.
Especially if you know you’re involved with a Borderline, if it seems like something is wrong, you ask, and she says, “No, it’s fine,”… Come on. This is a Borderline we’re talking about. How often are things usually ‘fine’? It’d be nice if people just spoke their mind and were straight forward with what is going on wouldn’t it? Most Nons don’t even do this very well. Don’t assume your Borderline is going to do this very well because I promise, they won’t.
It’s not the Nons fault that their Borderline doesn’t communicate well, but it is their fault if they ignore the difference between how a person is acting and what they’re saying. It’s easier to take a person at their word, then dig deeper to get to the real root of a problem.
People see what they want to see and believe what they want to believe. Even if one of those people has a Borderline Personality Disorder, it takes two people to be in that relationship. I visit a lot of forums for family members and people affected by Borderlines. There’s often a general attitude of, “I’m the victim of the Borderline in my life. I didn’t do anything. They just went crazy because they have a personality disorder.” This is extremely unfair, even if it’s not completely untrue. There may be some truth to this, but there’s also the other contributing factor; You, the Non-Borderline. You may not think you’ve done something, but that doesn’t mean you haven’t.
Tha’ts not how it works.
I’m not trying to blame the Nons here. Far from it. My point is, when it comes to relationships, be they parent/child, siblings, friends, or lovers, we each need to take responsibility for our own part in what occurs. One person alone, does not a relationship make. It’s takes two.
Bear with me. I’ve got some explaining to do.
Nons get very frustrated with us because our emotions and behaviors are often unpredictable and irrational. That’s very understandable. However they also get exasperated and angry when we can’t just ‘grow up’, act normal, and quit acting out. Our brains are hard-wired differently. (Click that for some Neurological Studies in BPD). Literally. This isn’t a choice. That doesn’t mean we’re not reseponsible for our actions, we are, but it’s not a choice. Believe me, we don’t like being this way (At least I don’t. Many BPDs are undiagnosed and don’t think there’s a damn thing wrong with how they behave), but because something in our brain is actually wired differently, it’s not something that we can just do a little meditation on and have it be all better. As much as we might like it to be. How we think, how we feel, is fundamentally different. You want us to be something that is not what we understand how to be, because odds are, it’s an experiencing of life that we’ve never felt. Just like you can’t always understand why we react in such unpredictable or different ways than you would in reaction to some stimuli.
Just because you don’t understand it, doesn’t mean there isn’t a legitimate (to us) reason for it happening.
Communication. Communication is something that is so, SO, important in dealing with someone that is Borderline. Communication is necessary in any relationship but doubly so with BPD. Why don’t Borderlines just say what the problem actually is? There are a lot of reasons for this.
1. We don’t actually know the origin of our frustration. I know this sounds strange. How can you not know what is bothering you? If you’ve ever been depressed, or had general anxiety, where you just have this low level dread or frustration permeating your life, even though by all logic your life is pretty good, you’ll understand. Sometimes our feelings are like a disembodied presence just hovering over us. The origin of the feelings may have started a while back, or something may have triggered us, and the feelings while not directly attached to what is happening in the present, are directly correlated to something traumatizing in the past. A current event or situation can spark those memories and the emotions related to that experience can still creep back into our present lives.
2. We’re afraid the person will get mad at us for voicing a concern. This happens a lot with abuse victims. Hell, I just had this problem with Tech Boy (though I did push through this feeling and communicate my problem!). If we care about someone, we don’t want to lose them. If we’re not perfect, if we complain, they may believe that we think something is wrong with them, like we’re criticizing them. Criticism could make them angry. If they’re angry, they might leave. Or be upset with us. If they’re upset with us, they might take it out on us in another way. Even if they’re not the type to do this, we don’t want someone to be upset with us. This just reinforces the idea that we did something wrong. That there’s something wrong with us.
3. We don’t want to hurt you. We don’t want to inconvenience you. We don’t want to make you feel bad because something you did, unintentionally made us feel bad. If we care, we feel like we should be doing whatever we can to contribute to your pleasure, not burdening you with things that bother us. This is a natural extension to #2 and leads right into #4.
4. We don’t feel that we have the right to complain about something. For me, I’ve been told my entire life to ‘suck it up’, ‘deal with it’, ‘toughen up’, essentially take what life hands you and figure it out myself because everyone else has their own problems to deal and don’t have time for mine too. I know that everyone has their own issues. I don’t feel like I have any right to impose my problems on someone else. I should be strong enough to deal with the things that upset me. I shouldn’t ‘get bent out of shape’ about something that bothers me. So I suppress. We all know what happens when you bottle things up for too long though.
5. We don’t want to express vulnerability for fear of having it used against us. This is another product of abuse (though not always). Expressing any feeling or concern that will make us appear ‘weak’ is an awful feeling. I overcompensate for this big time. I’m a strong person, but I talk an even tougher game. When you let someone into the more fragile areas of your world, it’s like exposing your soft underbelly to the beast of rejection. Or worse, humiliation. Evil-Ex used to call me a robot because I was “too perfect”. He would tell me “being vulnerable makes you feel human”. And then when I would show those vulnerabilities, he would quickly find a way to turn them against me, hold them up as a reason I was “weak”, not as wonderful as people think I am, and point them out publically to humiliate me. Not showing vulnerability is like an emotional armor. We can appear to let things bounce off our skin, roll off, and roll away, while maintaining an emotional distance from the problem. Unfortunately this also inhibits true intimacy in the process. Of course, things don’t actually roll off our skin so easily. Things will still bother us, but the other person won’t know that they’ve found a crack in our armor, and therefore can’t use that thing to wound us on purpose.
6. We don’t trust. It’s hopeless. You wouldn’t understand. We don’t trust someone to treat us fairly, believe us, or be willing to help us. When you’re used to being criticized, when you’re used to being told that your needs are not as important as someone else’s, what do you have that will make you believe that someone will ever put you first? That someone will treat you fairly? It’s never going to happen; it’s hopeless, so why bother? They wouldn’t understand anyways. This is also particularly true with why my communication was so poor with my family growing up. Mistrust, and a pervasive hopelessness, is insidious, and pervasive. It’s always lying in wait just below the surface. Paranoid. Suspicious.
Would you pick up this phone? I don’t think so.
This fear of communication is all sort of a misguided self-protection. It’s not something we’ve decided to do consciously. We’re not choosing to be difficult on purpose. We’re trying to protect ourselves from being hurt. I’m self-aware enough that I’ve spent a lot of time exploring the different reasons I do things like this. Most people with BPD don’t have these ‘reasons’ they just have the feelings without words so they can’t necessarily explain it. They just do it. What does any of this have to do with Nons having some part of this Borderline crazy?
Triggers. That’s what.
To find out what this means, you’ll just have to tune in tomorrow (Continued Part 2). Try not to get too angry at me just yet. Hear me out. Then get as angry as you want ;) Your opinions are valid too.
- May 25
- , 2012
- May 25
- , 2012
- May 25
- , 2012
I really wanted to write this days ago but I was too lazy and really just wanted to relax didn’t have time.
I’ve been massively, massively stressed out lately. It’s affected my ability to blog the way I normally would but I should be getting back to a more manageable schedule now. Yay!
Friday I got off work, and I was done. I was done with my week. Done with the soul crushing pressure. Done with dealing with the real world. I went to the gym. I love the gym. I put my headphones on, step on the treadmill, and the only thing I have to deal with is putting one foot in front of the other. Sometimes I read, sometimes I watch the telly (all cardio machines have televisions at my gym), sometimes I listen to music, but what really matters is that for that hour or two, nothing outside of my gym matters. This is my ‘me time’. Time dedicated solely to taking care of my body and my mind. I would recommend everyone doing this. I would doubly recommend everyone who has BPD do this. Then I shunned social activities in favor of taking a nice quiet night to myself. Yes, it was a Friday night and I stayed in reading and playing PC games. And went to bed early because….
Saturday I was waking up early to go to the gym for one of the most epic workouts I’ve had in years. I ran for an hour. Then I went to one of the personal trainer run weight training classes. It was an hour and a half of weights/core/abs. Best decision ever. Even though dragging my ass out of bed at 7:30 a.m. on any day Saturday is not what I consider a fun idea, and is in fact getting harder and harder for me to do the more stressed out I become, I forced myself to do it anyways. I’m so glad I did. Pushing my body gives me so much more energy, clears my head, and makes me feel functional.
Saturday was eventful and cute. I cleaned my apartment then went to Tech Boys. He’s moving to a new place (closer to me). We went shopping to get him some new sunglasses (Oakley’s are f-ing expensive! Who spends $220 on sunglasses? Him, apparently). Then we went shopping to find him some new furniture. His idea to go shopping. I’d mentioned going shopping for various things before if he ever wanted a second opinion on picking things out but he thought it was a really weird idea. So I never really mentioned it again, even though I think it’s pretty normal for people to go shopping together. Yes? Maybe I’m crazy. Well, I mean, obviously I’m crazy, but I’m not wrong, right? ::smiles:: Anyways, we went couch shopping, and ya know what? It was fun. We bounced around on furniture that wasn’t ours and got to talk about asinine details of aesthetics versus function that generally had us laughing at our own ridiculousness. Afterwards we went to dinner at a really nice restaurant. It was super cute. We’re venturing into the land of day time outings haha. We had a pretty nice little Saturday ;) Shocked.
Later we went to a big bar to catch the nights Pay-Per-View UFC fight. I love UFC. For a minute we didn’t think it would be possible because the first 10 bars we called weren’t hosting it (I don’t have television so watching it at my place was out). We finally found a place though and proceeded to have many beers and lots of bloody amusement. We talked way more than we watched the fights though. Much more. About people we’ve dated, what we want in a relationship, work, family… and he brought up the debacle last week when things went in a direction I wasn’t ok with.
He’s still upset about it. Strangely I’m not. He’s been very careful with me since we talked about it. Sweeter, not necessarily more considerate, because he’s always considerate, but sort of more aware of how we interact? Idk. He still doesn’t really remember it happening, but when I told him about it, he knew that it was definitely something he could have done. He’s had fuck buddies friends with benefits that were really into that sort of thing. Not only that, but would ask for it even harder. Couple that with the fact that I really do play pretty rough sometimes he didn’t realize it was out of my boundaries. He was also kind of doubly shocked when I finally mentioned it because I didn’t act like anything had happened at first. I tried explaining to him that I shut down when things like that happen. If I don’t know how to react, I often don’t react at all until I can process. I also told him I was worried he’d was going to be mad at me for mentioning it. I think that confused him but I know it’s a product of the abuse I’ve dealt with before. He told me many times that he was glad I’d said something. He was very upset that he could have done that. Yeah other girls he’s been with were into it, but he also said he should have known better. I’d mentioned abusive relationships before and he should have made the connection. We talked a little about that. I haven’t gone into explicit detail of what exactly I’ve been through, I really don’t want to. He said he doesn’t need to know the details, that’s it’s not okay is all that he needs to know. I don’t need to explain, he just has to respect what I need regardless. He apologized a lot. I was having a hard time maintaining my sympathy face. On the one hand I was impressed that he wanted to talk about it further and brought it up unprompted. It was also nice to have the reassurance that it wouldn’t happen again (though I’m still keeping my eyes open). But I already said it was ok and accepted his apology once. Twice. Probably a dozen times. I just wanted him to change the subject. Plus I was distracted by the fight on TV. We went out to watch guys beating each other bloody, not get all serious. It’s nice to know that we can talk about stuff like that though, and he’s not going to get pissed off at me, refuse to talk about it, and give me the silent treatment because I ‘can’t just accept his {horrible} behavior as being a part of who he is’. Evil-Ex was a real winner <sarcasm>.
Thought. Before when he’d mentioned briefly the thought of hitting during sexual play. It was a quick conversation of liking when things get rough. Maybe his suggestion was more something he thought I’d enjoy and less something that was particularly interesting to him. It could very well be. It’s obviously not something that he needs to do. Maybe I had the intent of the first conversation wrong. Maybe since I like playing rough, and h e’s been with other girls that like it rough in that way, he thought that would translate to me as well. It seems logical to me.
It doesn’t change the fact that it’s not ok with me. But I do well and truly accept his apology. Next time, things like that are things we should talk about first though.
It’s funny. I’m very good at hiding how I feel. Avoiding hard conversations because I’m afraid of how the other person will react. Even if I’m very justified in the situation I feel a need to discuss. This is something I think a lot of people with BPD do. Instead of expressing a concern, due to fear of another persons reaction, even if it’s something little and inane that another person wouldn’t think twice about (Please don’t run your nails down the chalkboard. Would you mind putting the toilet seat down?) we’re often afraid to say anything or complain so we hold it all in. (I have more thoughts on this and the consequences for everyone but we’ll get to that another time). It’s incredibly reassuring to me to know that I’m allowed, and capable of expressing a legitimate concern, and having a healthy, productive conversation about it. Without driving him away. Without my feelings being hurt or my fears being realized. In fact, it gave me the opportunity to see the amount of concern and care he had in regards to treating me well. Which as it turns out, is a lot. Initiating this conversation after it happened was really frightening. The thoughts and the scenarios of how I feared it would turn out all running around, smashing into each other, creating monstrous hybrid scenarios… all turned out to be massively unjustified. He didn’t run away. He accepts and respects my boundaries. Is, in fact, grateful that I brought this to his attention so we could figure it out. Who knew people did this? It’s as if I can have conversations about life stuff like an adult. Strange. ::smiles::
Also, Ben Henderson won the match. The man is a beast in the ring. A ripped, sexy beast, but a beast.
So yeah. Went back to my place, made with the sexy time, and slept in. He’s so cuddly! I adore it. That time in the morning when we’re not wanting to get out of bed and just want to stay wrapped up in each other…. That… is one of my favorite things in the world. Simple human contact is probably my biggest kryptonite. The Gold kryptonite, though. The kind that robs me of my ability to absorb the crazy from life and just live like a normal person for as long as I’m in contact with it. And I’m a geek.
- May 25
- , 2012
(Source: ohbabyitsnatalie, via ourlivesarechangingfast)
- May 24
- , 2012
