People with BPD diagnoses or BPD-like traits are, in my experience, likely to be victims of severe child abuse, and so I find it very hard not to be sympathetic with them.I'm sympathetic towards Aspies, although they are probably very difficult to get along with. I think I knew one once, but he was a real asshole! He was cold and rude, like a machine. He wasn't very nice at all and there was no way whatsoever to connect with him. But could he help it?
I feel the same sympathy towards people with obvious Asperger's Syndrome traits that I've met throughout my school years (I was in special ed when I was young, but I've seen students even in college who fit the classic AS profile perfectly) and in some jobs.
I used to try to befriend them, but I've met some Asperger's adults who desperately want to make friends but can't hold a two-way conversation even with trained therapists, and it makes me feel sad to know that such people exist.
The problem with BPD is it is one of those mental illnesses that turns you into a totally, 100%, fucked in the head asshole! I mean, they are not nice people at all.
My friend said the Borderlines start fights in every group session she was are in with them, and they destroyed every session, forcing it to end early.
Sooner or later, one or more of the Borderlines would be screaming at yelling at the top of their lungs, out of their chairs, threatening to hit people, throwing shit.
My friend befriended one, and the Borderline latched onto her like a lamprey and would not let go. They would go out to eat and the Borderline would ask if they could "Bring the kids." That meant invite her fake "alters". Those were her fake other personalities. They love their stupid alters, and they are snide about us poor souls with only one personality - we are "singletons", they sneer.
This Borderline would suddenly lurch into various fake personalities with no warning.
At a nice restaurant, she broke out dolls, put them on the table, and brought a coloring book and sat there and colored the whole time and talked like a little girl. After a while of this BS, my friend was like, "Fuck you!" and tried to run her out of her life. Then the Borderline was calling my friend all the time in the middle of the night until my friend had to change her phone number.
This is all pretty typical behavior.
They're lousy friends, totally self-absorbed and fucked-up, who fall into a totally "insanely needy but I hate your guts" thing with every relationship they get into. They're so crazy to have in therapy that there are therapists out there who refuse to have anything to do with them.
It's true a lot of them have been abused, but in a lot of cases, it seems like they just made up the abuse for some stupid reason. 85% of Borderlines are female, and male Borderlines tend to be gay or bi.
But some say that BPD in the male is simply diagnosed as Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
If you have an NPD anywhere near your life also, I would advise you to run them out of your life or restrict contact with them. I know an NPD very well, but I have little to do with this person. They have caused a lot of damage to me in life, and when I'm around them, they try to cause more damage. I'm not buying whatever shit these people are selling. NPD's are six years old for their whole lives.
I need to do a longer post on NPD since I know so much about it having been around NPD's for years, but I need to be careful because people I know might get upset.
Frankly, if you don't have a personality disorder yourself, I would advise you or anyone like you to avoid the PD's. The PD's are some of the worst mental illnesses of all because they make a person abrasive, self-centered and very difficult to get along with. A non-fucked up personality (which I'm proudly repeatedly dx'd with) is something to be cherished and maintained for life.
Mood, anxiety and even psychotic disorders (Axis 1) can often be treated. It's like getting a cold or the flu. People with Axis 1 stuff are like a basically healthy person who has temporarily acquired an illness of some sort, but at their core level (the personality) they are often very healthy.
That's the way I like to think of myself. Sure I have an Axis 1 anxiety disorder (OCD) but I really hate it, can't really help it, and will do anything to get rid of it. I spend a good part of my time getting outside of it enough so I can function and get along with others.
It's perfectly possible to some nasty Axis 1 stuff on top of a more or less healthy inner core. It's also possible to have an Axis 2 illness in your inner core but not have any overt Axis 1 symptoms due to it, though in time, lifelong personality disorders tend to lead to depression and often hypochondriasis in middle to old age. They can also cause anxiety and sometimes brief psychosis.
More often, they ruin your life and thrash the lives of just about everyone with the misfortune of getting close to you, while causing you to blame everyone else (the world, this person, that person) for all your troubles.
That's an essential feature. In the PD's, the problem is always other people, never in the PD person themselves.
Understand a PD always comes from a kid. It comes from your childhood - that's where it develops - and it flowers in adolescence.
Personality change in adulthood is not PD and is probably due to other factors, maybe Axis 1 stuff. Axis 1 illnesses can distort one's true personality and create a fake new "personality" that's really just the Axis 1 illness itself. Remove the Axis 1 problem, and "the old you" ought to come right back.
Keep in mind that personality itself is more or less cemented by late adolescence.
Therefore, the treatment goal with a personality disorder not to create a whole new personality. You can't create a whole new personality because you can't stop being yourself - you're always YOU for the rest of your life .
All PD's are just pathological styles that have mirrors in healthy styles. For instance, the pathological Antisocial or Sociopathic Personality has a mirror called Aggressive Personality (not optimal, but valued in modern capitalist America, especially in males).
The pathological Dependent Personality has a healthy mirror called Devoted Personality.
All of the healthy mirrors probably have some drawbacks, but keep in mind that healthy personality and PD exist on a continuum. I doubt if truly healthy personalities really exist. If you went through 20,000 Americans, you might find one healthy person. So really non-PD's are just healthier and less disordered than PD's, who are less healthy and more disordered.
Having a personality disorder is like having a genetic condition that is hard to treat. When you have a cold or the flu, you can often comfort yourself knowing that you are basically healthy deep inside.
Not so with a PD. The essential self is damaged. Worse, the person is blinded to that fact, blames every one else, sees nothing wrong with themselves, sees no need for treatment unless forced into it and then tends to drop out or deliberately fail when shoved into therapy.
PD's are bad news!
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