-
My husband DOES have aspergers(and ADHD), as did his father and uncle.
It is stressful and I am exhausted. The groups I've tried to join
basically say the same thing:
Be positive,accept him, it's not his fault. I'm not a good wife for not "enduring".
I understand that. I really do-but I am losing it. Fast. It's been 15 years and I am EXHAUSTED.
But THIS is not funny:http://forums.ivillage.com/t5/Self-Esteem-Support/Married-to-someone-with-Aspergers/td-p/4989427
15. What can you expect if you divorce an AS man?
Unfortunately he will not understand why the woman wants a divorce and he is likely to be
quite angry about it. Not knowing how to handle his distress he may turn the energy into
revenge. Many high conflict divorces are the result of the negativity and obsessing of the
AS partner regarding the wrongdoing he perceives of his NT spouse. It is likely to be a
long, painful and expensive divorce where all suffer, including the children. Some men
with AS, however, just leave quietly and never remarry, because they cannot quite figure
out how to rebuild a life separately from their former spouse. Some NT former spouses
report that their ex-husband even still refers to her as his "wife" years after the divorce.
7. Why can't these men connect?
If you don't have much of an interior life yourself and you cannot comprehend the interior
life of another, then connection is very difficult. An Aspie husband and Neuro-typical (NT)
wife are often described as like two insulated wires wrapped around each other, . . .
touching but not connecting.
8. Why do Asperger men and Neuro-typical women get married?
AS men are attracted to strong, intelligent, compassionate women who can handle the
social world for them. These same women are attracted to the unconventional nature and
boyish charm of AS men. They feel he will allow them their independence. It is only later
that they learn their AS partner is quite conservative. Instead of supporting her
independence the NT wife realizes that her AS husband is merely disinterested in her
interests. His attention is narrowly focused on his interests.
10. What kind of parents are people with Asperger Syndrome?
We are just learning about this tragedy from adults coming forward to tell about being
raised by AS parents. So far these people are reporting that they have coped with severe
depression and self esteem problems because they lived with a parent who could not
nurture them or get to know who they really are. It is very debilitating to experience
emotional rejection daily as a child, even if your physical needs are provided for. This does
not mean the AS parent does not love their child. But the communication and relating
deficits confuse the child and can lead to the child feeling unloved.
11. Why is it so emotionally debilitating for NTs to live with these people?
When the person you love does not respond to your bids for affection, or attempts to
share your inner world, you come to doubt your perception of reality. Slowly your self-
esteem is eroded. You walk on eggshells wondering what abuse the AS parent or spouse
will dish out next. If your mate, child or parent has not yet been diagnosed, you do not
know that they have a developmental disability. So you keep trying to reach them or solve
the problem and often blame yourself. You find a way to cope and often this creates
severe depression or extreme resentment. Many NTs who have grown up with AS parents
report a lifetime of severe depression, "nervous breakdowns" and a string of broken
relationships because they came to believe that they had no worth. Remember it is the
child's experience that defines the parenting, not whether the AS parent loves their child.
12. What do you mean by walking on eggshells in an Asperger marriage?
Men with undiagnosed AS often feel as if their spouse is being ungrateful or "Bitchy" when
she complains he is uncaring or never listens to her. He knows what he thinks and how he
feels, so should she. He has no need to understand her so her complaints are bothersome
to him. He can come to be quite defensive when she asks for clarification or a little
sympathy. The defensiveness turns into verbal abuse (and sometimes physical abuse) as
the husband attempts to control the communication to suit his view of the world.
13. Is there a cure for Asperger Syndrome or for the marriage?
Asperger Syndrome is an incurable form of autism. The usual methods of psychotherapy
used to teach clients communication and interpersonal skills will not work with AS. The AS
client can master some simple behaviors to get them by in the world, but they will fall
short in the intimacy of marriage. In the marriage the NT spouse will need to adapt to the
handicap. She must learn to translate the language to make her needs and wants as
explicit as possible because her partner cannot read her non-verbal communication. She
must also look to others for the type of personal and spiritual connection she can never
have with her husband.
14. How can you have a marriage without connecting personally or spiritually?
Again it is a matter of quality. If you have many interests in common, such as music or
sports, you may enjoy the companionship of your AS spouse. However, the strain of
raising children who may have inherited AS from their parent, often puts an end to the
marriage. The NT spouse cannot handle the loneliness and abuse, and care for dependent
children as well. Often she is the one to finally call an end to the marriage. On the other hand, some NT spouses report that the marriage can be quite gratifying if their AS spouse acknowledges his limitations and works with his wife to create a kind of loving connection.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
My Husband has Asperger's
Monkeys versus Apes
Monkeys versus Apes
I have studied the development of vocalizations and communication in rhesus macaques monkeys at NIH during a summer as a research intern at an animal research facility. Yes, I felt horrible about the research on the animals, and we joked about hearing animal sounds from the farm section that were like they had Frankenstein-style mixed several animals together. And I felt bad about what they were doing to the monkeys, and how callous the researchers and research assistants and animal handlers could be about joking that "yeah, once you do something to them, they will never trust you again". So what makes US humans so special? We are certainly not more humane than other animals, and we are certainly more destructive BECAUSE of our socially and self-destructive tendencies.
You know, we human are "great Apes". We are not on the same tree at all from "monkeys". So we are not "monkeys" and we should call ourselves and our children for cuteness purposes "little apes" if we are going to be accurate. Apes include: chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans.
Anyway... people can recognize faces better than any other monkeys or apes, right? There is some research about facial recognition in animals including monkeys and apes. With the invention of facial recognition software, now in use everywhere - and your DMV picture is on a list somewhere, btw... I guess it makes some of this research kind of obsolete in a way, but it is probably based on all that research. But I just saw a show on the Nature channel or something like that about chimpanzees or baboons... OK, there's a big difference, I'll have to find that show on Youtube or Animal Planet website. Anyway, it talked about the animals being especially good at facial recognition - and it's importance for their survival, in that they need to be able to know who is in their family line so there is no in-breeding, they can keep track of who is an alpha or where they are in the lineup so they don't make the wrong move with the wrong one, etc.
We know it's about the combinations of differences in surface features:
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/278/1714/1964.abstract:
"These results confirm the importance of surface-based cues for face processing in chimpanzees and humans, while the results were less salient for rhesus monkeys."
And so far, not even apes, who can learn sign language when taught explicitly in short sessions, are really learning a language through immersion as humans can do. Humans create their own language version within their head to imitate the one they are using around them as babies and children. Each generation is a new language, basically, but hopefully mostly the same.
Wikipedia says that the crucial difference between humans and apes might be the ability to ask questions. Perhaps this is why they make such a big focus on teaching kids to ask questions in school. It is how we learn. It is not because of us having "language" either:
"Joseph Jordania suggested that the ability to ask questions could be the crucial cognitive threshold between human and ape mental abilities.[22] Jordania suggested that asking questions is not a matter of the ability of using syntactic structures, that it is primarily a matter of cognitive ability. Questions can be (and are) asked without the use of syntactic structures, with the help of the questions intonation only (like this is the case in children's early pre-linguistic development).
Apes and humans use tools. Apes don't seem to learn it from trial and error either. They pick it up from observation.
Also, there is this idea that the amount of apes' ability to use language is directly related to their general mental abilities, especially about humans asking "why does it not work?": "One evidence that the limitations of ape language is inseparably intertwined with the limitation of ape non-linguistic cognition is that their inability to ask questions do have a counterpart in their investigation of their physical environment. Apes who fail to perform a practical task that is a modification of one they previously accomplished, but has been modified to be physically impossible, do not investigate why it failed. Instead they just keep trying in the same way for different periods of time, varying depending on their level of patience. It has been suggested that this skill may have emerged in early Homo as a result of increased brain capacity adaptive to regular problem solving through toolmaking.[23]
There is also this article about the apes lacking the ability to create their own grammars (manipulate syntax) and why they can't talk like us being because their vocal chords don't close completely. I DID not know that, so the Planet of the Apes thing with the frontal lobotomy or whatever they did was not real in the original - but I think in the modern ones they did something to their throats...
"Sign language and computer keyboards are used in primate language research because non-human primate vocal cords cannot close fully,[11][12] and they have less control of the tongue and lower jaw.[13] However, primates do possess the manual dexterity required for keyboard operation.
Many researchers into animal language have presented the results of the studies described below as evidence of linguistic abilities in animals. Many of their conclusions have been disputed.[14][15]
It is now generally accepted that Apes can learn to sign and are able to communicate with humans. However, it is disputed as to whether they can form syntax to manipulate such signs."
I have studied the development of vocalizations and communication in rhesus macaques monkeys at NIH during a summer as a research intern at an animal research facility. Yes, I felt horrible about the research on the animals, and we joked about hearing animal sounds from the farm section that were like they had Frankenstein-style mixed several animals together. And I felt bad about what they were doing to the monkeys, and how callous the researchers and research assistants and animal handlers could be about joking that "yeah, once you do something to them, they will never trust you again". So what makes US humans so special? We are certainly not more humane than other animals, and we are certainly more destructive BECAUSE of our socially and self-destructive tendencies.
You know, we human are "great Apes". We are not on the same tree at all from "monkeys". So we are not "monkeys" and we should call ourselves and our children for cuteness purposes "little apes" if we are going to be accurate. Apes include: chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans.
Anyway... people can recognize faces better than any other monkeys or apes, right? There is some research about facial recognition in animals including monkeys and apes. With the invention of facial recognition software, now in use everywhere - and your DMV picture is on a list somewhere, btw... I guess it makes some of this research kind of obsolete in a way, but it is probably based on all that research. But I just saw a show on the Nature channel or something like that about chimpanzees or baboons... OK, there's a big difference, I'll have to find that show on Youtube or Animal Planet website. Anyway, it talked about the animals being especially good at facial recognition - and it's importance for their survival, in that they need to be able to know who is in their family line so there is no in-breeding, they can keep track of who is an alpha or where they are in the lineup so they don't make the wrong move with the wrong one, etc.
We know it's about the combinations of differences in surface features:
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/278/1714/1964.abstract:
"These results confirm the importance of surface-based cues for face processing in chimpanzees and humans, while the results were less salient for rhesus monkeys."
And so far, not even apes, who can learn sign language when taught explicitly in short sessions, are really learning a language through immersion as humans can do. Humans create their own language version within their head to imitate the one they are using around them as babies and children. Each generation is a new language, basically, but hopefully mostly the same.
Wikipedia says that the crucial difference between humans and apes might be the ability to ask questions. Perhaps this is why they make such a big focus on teaching kids to ask questions in school. It is how we learn. It is not because of us having "language" either:
"Joseph Jordania suggested that the ability to ask questions could be the crucial cognitive threshold between human and ape mental abilities.[22] Jordania suggested that asking questions is not a matter of the ability of using syntactic structures, that it is primarily a matter of cognitive ability. Questions can be (and are) asked without the use of syntactic structures, with the help of the questions intonation only (like this is the case in children's early pre-linguistic development).
Apes and humans use tools. Apes don't seem to learn it from trial and error either. They pick it up from observation.
Also, there is this idea that the amount of apes' ability to use language is directly related to their general mental abilities, especially about humans asking "why does it not work?": "One evidence that the limitations of ape language is inseparably intertwined with the limitation of ape non-linguistic cognition is that their inability to ask questions do have a counterpart in their investigation of their physical environment. Apes who fail to perform a practical task that is a modification of one they previously accomplished, but has been modified to be physically impossible, do not investigate why it failed. Instead they just keep trying in the same way for different periods of time, varying depending on their level of patience. It has been suggested that this skill may have emerged in early Homo as a result of increased brain capacity adaptive to regular problem solving through toolmaking.[23]
There is also this article about the apes lacking the ability to create their own grammars (manipulate syntax) and why they can't talk like us being because their vocal chords don't close completely. I DID not know that, so the Planet of the Apes thing with the frontal lobotomy or whatever they did was not real in the original - but I think in the modern ones they did something to their throats...
"Sign language and computer keyboards are used in primate language research because non-human primate vocal cords cannot close fully,[11][12] and they have less control of the tongue and lower jaw.[13] However, primates do possess the manual dexterity required for keyboard operation.
Many researchers into animal language have presented the results of the studies described below as evidence of linguistic abilities in animals. Many of their conclusions have been disputed.[14][15]
It is now generally accepted that Apes can learn to sign and are able to communicate with humans. However, it is disputed as to whether they can form syntax to manipulate such signs."
Couples With Children With ADHD At Risk Of Higher Divorce Rates, Shorter Marriages
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081021185207.htm
Other factors associated with divorce in couples with a child with ADHD included antisocial behavior in the father; a maternal and paternal history of divorce; parent substance abuse; and depression in the mother.
Of the characteristics that may contribute to risk of divorce, a father's antisocial behavior proved to be the largest factor. The rate of divorce also increased when mothers had substantially less education than fathers; children were diagnosed with ADHD at a younger age; families had racial or ethnic minority children and children had serious ODD or CD behavior problems. "With these findings in mind," Wymbs and Pelham said, "those who treat children with ADHD and disruptive behavior problems should take note if parents are having marriage problems and try to intervene to prevent the children from going through the trauma of divorce."
This is about the myths related to divorce and autism and ADHD etc, all the studies:
http://www.autism-pdd.net/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=31931
And I didn't know there were support groups for spouses of partners with Asperger's:
http://www.aspia.org.au/pdf/AS_Marriage_brochure.pdf
Well, THIS explains a LOT! But it also just validates things I've experienced, and makes quite real the things I had been hoping were just my imagination or were under his control or not as bad as I thought. Now it's just so damn scary! Unfortunately, this particular support group is in Australia? They seem to think everyone in the world knows their abbreviations for their states there too.
Other factors associated with divorce in couples with a child with ADHD included antisocial behavior in the father; a maternal and paternal history of divorce; parent substance abuse; and depression in the mother.
Of the characteristics that may contribute to risk of divorce, a father's antisocial behavior proved to be the largest factor. The rate of divorce also increased when mothers had substantially less education than fathers; children were diagnosed with ADHD at a younger age; families had racial or ethnic minority children and children had serious ODD or CD behavior problems. "With these findings in mind," Wymbs and Pelham said, "those who treat children with ADHD and disruptive behavior problems should take note if parents are having marriage problems and try to intervene to prevent the children from going through the trauma of divorce."
This is about the myths related to divorce and autism and ADHD etc, all the studies:
http://www.autism-pdd.net/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=31931
And I didn't know there were support groups for spouses of partners with Asperger's:
http://www.aspia.org.au/pdf/AS_Marriage_brochure.pdf
Well, THIS explains a LOT! But it also just validates things I've experienced, and makes quite real the things I had been hoping were just my imagination or were under his control or not as bad as I thought. Now it's just so damn scary! Unfortunately, this particular support group is in Australia? They seem to think everyone in the world knows their abbreviations for their states there too.
Pain 101
I have learned about all types of pain in the past few years. I know emotional pain from working on traumatic PTSD memories - that actually "hurts", you can feel it - using eye movement therapy and retelling/ reliving the event. It wears you out too. Perhaps, rather, it brings the pain to the surface where you can deal with it and acknowledge it. The pain goes places in your brain, as guided by your eye movements. I also really think my brain hurt after that - it was like it forcefully ripped something from a place where it had been somewhat "safely" encased, although it was obviously not fully contained. I guess it's like having stored some waste products in your brain and they slowly poison you through your subconscious. And there was pain in the making of new neural connections to make that memory spread out more broadly across your brain.
I know physical pain too, from injuries that have caused 3 joints to completely fail me: hip, knee, shoulder. The knee had surgery last year where they gave it a knee cap relocation surgery. If you want details, I'll let you see the surgery photographs, in full color, and you can throw up in the place of your choosing. :) It was painful - but since I was blissfully unaware of the actual details, I was surprisingly brave before the surgery, and it really took me by surprise that I had never experienced that level and type of pain before. I'm glad I didn't know the locations they would be screwing into and cutting bone apart. I didn't know it was my funny bone under my knee they'd screw into with 2 screws that would stick out somewhat forever at an angle. I never needed drugs so powerful in my life, and I've given birth to kids while having debilitating dislocating inflamed hips. I saw purple flying elephants on that Dilaudid. Hydrocodone didn't touch it even. Percocet made me throw up.
Then there is the pain of physical therapy, within 3 weeks of the surgery. And the body's and mind's reaction to pain is of course to try to escape it, so you just have to force yourself to do it, with lots of tears and shaking. And you are afraid you will rip something apart so early, because that is still possible if you're not careful. You have to learn how to walk again - it is very humiliating, yet another type of pain.
Then there is the strange type of pain that comes from not having sensation in the area of your leg where they sliced out 3 inches of bone to detach the knee cap tendon beneath your knee, and left a possibly permanent damage to the neurons. You can't be touched there sometimes because everything is either hyper sensitive or under sensitive, you can never tell what it will do or how it will feel. But it usually feels very wrong, because I can feel things about a cm beneath the skin, but nothing on top of that so it feels like skin slipping around on a robotic frame. And I don't know if the object touching it is sharp or will burn me - THAT causes me to have to constantly check what is going on visually when usually your skin would tell you. And the nerves are apparently trying to "grow back" and zap me quite often, and sometimes it feels like cold water drops.
And I also have a problem with my shoulder where it disconnects at the joint or "dislocates" too easily since there was a traumatic tear in it a few years ago. It happens about every 2 months now, especially if I actually do the exercises I'm supposed to be doing. Very painful, sharp, scary pain too. Then burning and constant aching and pain. Instability. Weakness.
Well, I probably have this disorder, but in a more mild form called "familial loose joint syndrome": http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/ehlers-danlos-syndrome/DS00706/DSECTION=symptoms
Unless I work on keeping very fit and strong, and do sports constantly it will probably happen more and more. This is an interesting blog about this disorder:
http://combatsportsreviewblog.wordpress.com/2011/07/02/familial-loose-joint-syndrome/
I know physical pain too, from injuries that have caused 3 joints to completely fail me: hip, knee, shoulder. The knee had surgery last year where they gave it a knee cap relocation surgery. If you want details, I'll let you see the surgery photographs, in full color, and you can throw up in the place of your choosing. :) It was painful - but since I was blissfully unaware of the actual details, I was surprisingly brave before the surgery, and it really took me by surprise that I had never experienced that level and type of pain before. I'm glad I didn't know the locations they would be screwing into and cutting bone apart. I didn't know it was my funny bone under my knee they'd screw into with 2 screws that would stick out somewhat forever at an angle. I never needed drugs so powerful in my life, and I've given birth to kids while having debilitating dislocating inflamed hips. I saw purple flying elephants on that Dilaudid. Hydrocodone didn't touch it even. Percocet made me throw up.
Then there is the pain of physical therapy, within 3 weeks of the surgery. And the body's and mind's reaction to pain is of course to try to escape it, so you just have to force yourself to do it, with lots of tears and shaking. And you are afraid you will rip something apart so early, because that is still possible if you're not careful. You have to learn how to walk again - it is very humiliating, yet another type of pain.
Then there is the strange type of pain that comes from not having sensation in the area of your leg where they sliced out 3 inches of bone to detach the knee cap tendon beneath your knee, and left a possibly permanent damage to the neurons. You can't be touched there sometimes because everything is either hyper sensitive or under sensitive, you can never tell what it will do or how it will feel. But it usually feels very wrong, because I can feel things about a cm beneath the skin, but nothing on top of that so it feels like skin slipping around on a robotic frame. And I don't know if the object touching it is sharp or will burn me - THAT causes me to have to constantly check what is going on visually when usually your skin would tell you. And the nerves are apparently trying to "grow back" and zap me quite often, and sometimes it feels like cold water drops.
And I also have a problem with my shoulder where it disconnects at the joint or "dislocates" too easily since there was a traumatic tear in it a few years ago. It happens about every 2 months now, especially if I actually do the exercises I'm supposed to be doing. Very painful, sharp, scary pain too. Then burning and constant aching and pain. Instability. Weakness.
Well, I probably have this disorder, but in a more mild form called "familial loose joint syndrome": http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/ehlers-danlos-syndrome/DS00706/DSECTION=symptoms
Unless I work on keeping very fit and strong, and do sports constantly it will probably happen more and more. This is an interesting blog about this disorder:
http://combatsportsreviewblog.wordpress.com/2011/07/02/familial-loose-joint-syndrome/
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
DSM-V and ICD-10
OK here is a problem I just found out about because it happened just last month: the United States has no intention of ever adopting the international disease identification resource called ICD-10. No, that's because we want to hang onto our DSM-V and not do what is essentially "buying into the Euro" and getting rid of all our psychology dollars. There WAS going to be an adoption of it in 2013, but that was pushed already from 2009 and 2011. Now the US Dept of Health and Human Services (who knew they existed, where's the FDA?) has indefinitely called it off, basically. See the Wikipedia article on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICD-10
The ICD-10 is much more reliable (stable, consistent across cultures and languages, resistant to trends and fads) and valid (accurate, and resistant to favorable interpretations and bribes from drug companies).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classification_of_mental_disorders:
There are currently two widely established systems for classifying mental disorders—Chapter V of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) produced by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) produced by the American Psychiatric Association (APA).
Apparently, only the U.S. and China think they are special enough to have their own separate diagnostic categories systems: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Classification_of_Mental_Disorders
And there's one that most people don't even know about: A modern system based on Freud's psychotherapy system from way back in like 1926 or before (but they swear on the Wikipedia page that it is based on modern neuroscience):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychodynamic_Diagnostic_Manual
The ICD-10 is much more reliable (stable, consistent across cultures and languages, resistant to trends and fads) and valid (accurate, and resistant to favorable interpretations and bribes from drug companies).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classification_of_mental_disorders:
There are currently two widely established systems for classifying mental disorders—Chapter V of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) produced by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) produced by the American Psychiatric Association (APA).
Apparently, only the U.S. and China think they are special enough to have their own separate diagnostic categories systems: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Classification_of_Mental_Disorders
And there's one that most people don't even know about: A modern system based on Freud's psychotherapy system from way back in like 1926 or before (but they swear on the Wikipedia page that it is based on modern neuroscience):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychodynamic_Diagnostic_Manual
Sociopathic multiple identity mood dysregulation disorder
http://loquaciouslyyours.com/2010/08/01/dont-call-me-borderline/
I totally agree with this person's blog post. However, her stories seem a little too dramatic, depicts herself as self-proclaimed civil rights activist, seems a little too sappy and sensational, so I wonder if all of it is real and if she isn't slipping in her grip on reality sometimes. Some people don't like to be required to "keep it real" or be confined by that annoying thing called "reality". But if it is true, at least about the court case, I am very sorry that this happened, and glad that she won - but I wonder what "winning" meant in this case, and how and why did she get into a situation where a -pair- of therapists tied her down and stuffed a piece of paper with the letters "BPD" down her throat? :)
No, I get it... Although it would seem that unless you are constrained in a mental hospital against your will, you have the right to walk out of the therapist's office... but the more horrible truth is that this happens every day because it's really a great power trip for the budding sociopathic and insecure therapist who wants to be "cool" and label someone with the newest thing so they can try out th newest thing, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. Oh yes, they do not have a "crazy people filtering" process for people who are smart enough to make it through social work school, counselor programs, PhDs, or medical degrees, and some schools don't even require you to be so smart. Some people get a PhD in calling other people crazy so they take the focus off of themselves and acquit themselves of all wrong doing and create a perfect infallible image for themselves.
Anyway, it happens like this: you go for therapy because you want to make your life better or you are so anxious from trauma and abuse issues that you think you are crazy, and you tell them some things that have been stereotyped as mistakenly belonging only to 1 particular disorder in the common people's psychology that most good psychologists don't follow... and as a result of this 1 hour interview, 1 time, never seen you before, hasn't talked to anyone else in your family, just going on the story of someone with huge amounts of guilt for something that's not their fault, depressed, hopeless or desperate (you can do some strange things when you're desperate), brain-washed, manipulated, forcefully coerced (this is why I think she was probably not in this situation by her own choosing), traumatized person who has been groomed to take all blame and blame nobody else and believe they are crazy, and made to be completely dependent (or else bad things will happen to them from the abuser), and never mind the essential criteria... which you only have to have 5 of the 9 to fit the diagnosis... which is a pretty broad and variable system compared to most others, and as I've said before, shouldn't include things that are better explained or found in many other disorders (although nobody will admit they did this too)... and wham...
This diagnosis means nobody can help you, ever, so definitely if that therapist can't fix it, no medications will help you (in fact, if the medications aren't helping you, it's a SURE sign like a wart on a witches nose, even though the drug failure might be because you didn't take them the right way or were prescribed conflicting counteracting drugs, or had allergies to them), then it's not THEIR fault and nobody can help you (did you check how many people that therapist ever did really help?).. and it is a problem of your own cause and under your own control (because you are really "sane", just evil), and you are evil incarnate and poison to everyone around you, and they believe you had a bad childhood, sure, but not all neglected or abused children end up crazy, so you must just have been crazy already or chose to become crazy.
And trust me, you will have no empathy for these real borderlines when you end up on the receiving end of their lavishing of negative attention. So much attention is given out to others, in fact, that I think it's a problem of where your center is - it's another personality disorder characteristic probably more commonly acknowledged in Asian medicine.
She is right about the abuse and trauma causing much of the symptoms that are often mistaken for BPD. There is another DSM-IV category called "trauma or abuse victim, or PTSD". And there is another one called "Dependent personality disorder", or you could have some "traits" of one or both. The 2 combined together are VERY often mistaken for Borderline personality disorder.
Oh - and this is a GOOD one - the DSM-V (next one coming out) is proposing (as of 2011) to drop like 5 personality categories but somehow keep "borderline". Their reasons? Because it can be explained in other disorders instead. Uh, no. Not true. They were even proposing dropping narcissistic personality disorder and dependent personality disorder. I'm Ok with dropping schizotypal or schizoid - it never did make much sense. But just because current practitioners aren't using them as much as more "popular" ones, doesn't mean they aren't prevalent and thus not important, like the U.S. is saying. If anything this supports the case that there are some greedy, horrible diagnostitions in this country and a lot of idiots who take Medicaid or Medicare who are contributing to ripping off the government. What the hell? Ok, fine, just drop them all please... and focus on the essentials behind all of them. Give out labels like on the personality tests: Oh, I'm an INFJ. Oh, I'm a "don't care for boundaries on ego size or self-love, emotions, identity, empathy for others, existence of others, and impulsivity". They don't even believe in personality disorders in Germany - they say it's a abnormal variation of psychic life. Well, I can't stand it any longer... this whole "personality disorder" was completely a psychoanalytical creation based on Freud and others around his time in 1910. There is also Theodore Millon. He is a God in the study of personality disorders, and without its existence he would have nothing else to do. He is still alive, so we still have personality disorders. In fact, I have no doubt that it's because of him that we aren't using the ICD-10: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Millon
And a lot of people believe that "cutting" is the tell tale heart of this disorder - and like a sink or float test for witches, it's pretty baseless and stupid. Self-harm happens in many different situations, from depression to full blown all encompassing personality disorders.
The other problem is, as other bloggers have noted, you could momentarily appear for a short period of time as something if you don't take into account the requirement for 6 months of knowing the person. Again, the DSM-IV says 6 months.
And you don't have to have a full blown definition of "dependent" or "PTSD" to have something that mixes together in a critical moment at the time of the evaluation - and if you have a therapist who is apparently out for blood because they were pissed off or insulted by something that happened before you even got in there, or a disgust for anyone who doesn't walk around naked through the halls, drool and scream incoherently, and bow their head down like a zombie in the mental hospital, and wants to be a part of the BPD craze... and WHAM. YOU obviously didn't know how to play that game! OOPS! YOU lost.
Anyone can look momentarily like they have just about any particular disorder if you don't follow the criteria and are dealing with something that the psychological community think is a fun new way to get rid of whiners by blaming and accusing the victims like it is a 17th century New England WITCH hunt.
There is no doubt that there is something VERY wrong with a "disorder" that is mostly given to women - 75% of the diagnosed are women. That is a red flag of bias and stupidity to me. The real essence at the bottom of this disorder is what is common in all personality disorders: unwillingness to respect boundaries for emotions, ego, reality, other people and animals, substances, and self-identity. THAT is another blog - I will find that blog I'm referring to soon.. promise... Men are usually diagnosed as "narcissists" (for alcoholics and assholes usually) or "anti-social personality" (that's reserved for drug addicts usually, and robbers)... when their instability in their self-image and emotional control is more easily hidden or more easily excused as acceptable testosterone issues or addiction problems. Women are naturally more flamboyant and emotionally expressive, and would have relationship issues that would be harder to hide because that is really important to most women and they will talk about things like that more easily. And it's a societal thing - in other cultures, it's different ratios for many different types of disorders because of how society influences our behaviors. And we just somehow associate "borderline" with females, but I know there are males with "borderline personality disorder" aka "emotional and self-image disregulation (and sociopathic tendencies) trauma complex"... but it's at a prevalence in men that is not high enough, but is WAY over diagnosed in women.
Why do the 'personality' disorder diagnosis anyway? It is supposed to be reserved for the very serious cases where functioning is severely compromised and the person clearly does not want to help themselves or stop their behaviors. All personality disorders are supposed to be a diagnosis of DOOM - and just referred to in whispers as the "thing that should not be named"... except by those wishing to dismiss the person's actions as a total crazy person, a hopeless cause. Like this situation: "why is THIS guy in here (ie. locked high security mental hospital)? Oh, whenever they let him out, he goes home to his mom and then robs a bank. He has narcissism." Psychology is supposed to give out smaller, more specific, and more accurate diagnosis of "reactive attachment disorder" or "trauma/ abuse" or "dependency issues". Good therapists will do this.
And stop throwing it around like it's the new cool thing to call yourself too- that makes it seem "OK" and not what it is: a damning witch hunt to protect the therapist's ego and their denial of the existence of emotional and physical damage from trauma and abuse - THAT is another blog.
But the disorder still does exist and really is from abuse and trauma but with a major and very important sadistic angry narcissistic twist where they take on the persona of REAL people around them, not imagined people. See, these people were not deprived of interactions with others, although they were deeply damaged, and continued to be damaged and damned under this extreme rejection and abuse throughout their first 25 years of life. They just don't think anyone wants to see the real them. Trying to be somebody else is like driving the car from the passenger's side. I have nightmares about that, so I wouldn't try that either. Yeah, that's another blog.
Nobody seems to care much for the DSM-IV rules on diagnosing or the definitions of the disorder, however. It is much more similar to multiple personality disorder - the real definition of it is a problem with their "personality rutter" or the stability of their self-image. It is a problem created by their expectations (world view): that everyone will eventually neglect them, or deprive them of love or interaction, and at some dark point they believe they deserve it, unless they take drastic measures and attack first and drop others before they are dropped, or control and manipulate to keep it all suffocatingly close.
And there is a problem with how important reality is to them - it isn't- they pretend to be some dramatic false projection ALL the time until even THEY don't know where their real center is, and can go flying off the handle in any direction and very quickly because that other character doesn't have to follow the normal boundaries of emotions or human interactions.
And if all their attention is put on filling a void within themselves where they lack a stable self-image and genuine self-confidence, AKA the thing that allows you to not be completely taken down to a puddle of mitochondrial mush at the bat of an eyelash in the wrong direction or upon noticing any negative emotions or blemishes in their over blown ego, they are not centered or grounded in themselves, and are instead act like someone trying to stand still on a slippery soapy floor. At the center is calm - it is "live and let live", it is generosity, it is pure love, acceptance and letting go. Visualize it as your mental backbone, the center of your body. Instead, they go in a "bad" direction and when they don't like it, it doesn't seem appropriate, or they realize they're dangerously teetering on the edge of hysteria with their forcing of their grand illusions and denials on those around them (a realization and act of self-control which doesn't happen quite often enough)... then instead of "calming down" and re-centering, they try another "personality" or "perspective" on for size. Oh you want something else? What do you want to see? Certainly you don't want to see ME - because even I don't want to see the REAL me, right? And because I'm not even in touch with that real me anymore, since it was so abused and traumatized that it never fully developed and matured. And I have distanced myself from it completely and it's nothing more than an angry dream now, unless I'm pretending to be my abuser or someone similar from that dream.
And they have the gall to think they can copy you accurately, and it's often demeaning and shallow, mocking image of their own creation because they dismiss anyone as having an individual soul that can't be imitated. There should be a copyright on certain personal traits and expressions. God or Nature or whatever... we were all created individually. Even kids know to say "don't imitate me" and know it's annoying. But borderlines take their talent on the road - they use it against you if you take one wrong step to cross them in a slight way - and start imitating anyone who might have some potentially useful attitude and happens to be in a position of control or power over you, while going into hyper active sensitive mode to any potential validations of their fear of abandonment. Oh it's true, it's true, it's true, they are really horrible and evil, destroy them (oh yes, they want you dead or destroyed at that point when it's for self-preservation) - But oh my GOD, you MADE it happen! Problem is, anything can start their obsessive ruminations cycle going - once they start to feel some self-doubt about anything and get a little depressed and obsessive.
And there's a boundary problem in a certain way in the division between themselves and others: Unlike the narcissist, who sees himself in all others but does not have a mirror image for "others" in his mind and hence no boundaries there since you don't really exist except to uphold his perfect gleaming image (or else all is dark)... the borderline thinks you exist as non-integrated "vignettes" or "skits", pieces of a person just as they see themselves, who are there to fulfill their insecure needs for attachment and control of their perfect image (or else all is black), and they believe that to achieve this unrealistic level of constant symbiotic attachment, they should flatter you with their impersonations of you or anyone important in your life that you have recently described to them, and bombard you with attention and gifts, forcefully, because it's a way to keep you on a short leash, and if you don't appreciate it the right way you are damned to their own home baked version of borderline abuse, and that will give anyone diabetes and want to crawl in a cave for months afterwards (unless you're a narcissist and bask in that attention quite naively).
Here is the weak point of the borderline: rejection. http://bpd.about.com/od/glossary/g/abandon.htm
"Abandonment sensitivity is a symptom of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), abandonment sensitivity is described as "frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment." People with BPD can be very sensitive to any cue (real or perceived) that they are being rejected or abandoned. This can include strong reactions to seemingly minor rejections by others (e.g., becoming terrified or enraged when someone cancels plans)." BUT NO IT IS NOT THE SOLE DEFINING CHARACTERISTIC. Just their Achilles heal, got it peeps? This is what sets them off.
Here is the problem of the narcissist- the Achilles heal of narcissists is their actually quite vulnerable and insecure self-esteem. That is how they are set off: http://www.mentalhealth.com/dis/p20-pe07.html
"Vulnerability in self-esteem makes individuals with this disorder very sensitive to criticism or defeat. Although they may not show it outwardly, criticism may haunt these individuals these individuals and may leave them feeling humiliated, degraded, hollow, and empty. They may react with disdain, rage, or defiant counterattack. Their social life is often impaired due to problems derived from entitlement, the need for admiration, and the relative disregard for the sensitivities of others. Though their excessive ambition and confidence may lead to high achievement; performance may be disrupted due to intolerance of criticism or defeat. Sometimes vocational functioning can be very low, reflecting an unwillingness to take a risk in competitive or other situations in which defeat is possible. Individuals with this disorder have special difficulties adjusting to growing old and losing their former superiority. "
And many borderlines them also being simultaneous narcissists, they will lie, intimidate, and attack in a psychotic assault of emotional or physical abuse and rage if anyone questions them (in this case, that rage IS under their control, since their personal rage to protect themselves IS just about the only real part about them and is also actually an act like turning on a switch, that they can turn off).
And it's just so funny when someone who apparently is a psychologist or psychiatrist goes on a rant against their own family members in the guise of a scientific study. They get a little too detailed and off on tangents too. You know it's happening when their story confirms that all of their description of this "story" is characteristic of that borderline person, but you know for a fact that it isn't, and that person has some real issues: http://www.primals.org/articles/hannig03.html
Here is a piece of this guy's bullshit, for shits and giggles: "Trauma during gestational attachment creates disordered adults who have difficulty connecting emotionally with other people. The bad, rejecting, destroying uterus is a real threat. The BP is constantly seeking a connection with the good womb in order to escape or avoid the death womb." Yep, he's on crack!
The other real part about them is a very deep morbid self-centered sadness, an occasional sorrow that might be perceived as guilt and which they might say "sorry" during but is not really about YOU or anyone else at all, but is instead a frustrated rejection of all people and attachments in response to the perceived failure to fill their void of self-validation and self-love through the only ways they know how. Oh but beware, they will have the memory of a goldfish, and the ability to forget or turn to "distant memories" this most recent failure, and soon they'll go back to turning against anyone and everyone, and will again manipulate and laugh in your face the minute they feel it necessary (which is usually ALL the time).
This is a quote:
Some therapists really get off on putting people in a box and shunting them on through the system. In the past decade, especially in the court system in every state, more and more women have been assigned this label and told that they must undergo years of therapy– notably, Dialectical Behavior Therapy or DBT– to even be able to function.
Last year, in a dehumanizing and unethical ambush attempt by a pair of therapists who should be stripped of all licensure, I was force-fed the diagnosis of BPD. We fought it out in Court and I won. I won the right of self-determination– to call myself a writer and a human being with a history of trauma. But don’t think that I don’t fight that tape within that says, “You’re a mess. You’re a sicko. You belong in a mental hospital” night and day.
As a civil rights activist, I have advocated and claimed and perpetuated the idea wherever I can that those diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder are in fact trauma survivors whose pain must be validated and whose ability to heal must be reinforced. Thank God I am not alone in this fight:
I totally agree with this person's blog post. However, her stories seem a little too dramatic, depicts herself as self-proclaimed civil rights activist, seems a little too sappy and sensational, so I wonder if all of it is real and if she isn't slipping in her grip on reality sometimes. Some people don't like to be required to "keep it real" or be confined by that annoying thing called "reality". But if it is true, at least about the court case, I am very sorry that this happened, and glad that she won - but I wonder what "winning" meant in this case, and how and why did she get into a situation where a -pair- of therapists tied her down and stuffed a piece of paper with the letters "BPD" down her throat? :)
No, I get it... Although it would seem that unless you are constrained in a mental hospital against your will, you have the right to walk out of the therapist's office... but the more horrible truth is that this happens every day because it's really a great power trip for the budding sociopathic and insecure therapist who wants to be "cool" and label someone with the newest thing so they can try out th newest thing, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. Oh yes, they do not have a "crazy people filtering" process for people who are smart enough to make it through social work school, counselor programs, PhDs, or medical degrees, and some schools don't even require you to be so smart. Some people get a PhD in calling other people crazy so they take the focus off of themselves and acquit themselves of all wrong doing and create a perfect infallible image for themselves.
Anyway, it happens like this: you go for therapy because you want to make your life better or you are so anxious from trauma and abuse issues that you think you are crazy, and you tell them some things that have been stereotyped as mistakenly belonging only to 1 particular disorder in the common people's psychology that most good psychologists don't follow... and as a result of this 1 hour interview, 1 time, never seen you before, hasn't talked to anyone else in your family, just going on the story of someone with huge amounts of guilt for something that's not their fault, depressed, hopeless or desperate (you can do some strange things when you're desperate), brain-washed, manipulated, forcefully coerced (this is why I think she was probably not in this situation by her own choosing), traumatized person who has been groomed to take all blame and blame nobody else and believe they are crazy, and made to be completely dependent (or else bad things will happen to them from the abuser), and never mind the essential criteria... which you only have to have 5 of the 9 to fit the diagnosis... which is a pretty broad and variable system compared to most others, and as I've said before, shouldn't include things that are better explained or found in many other disorders (although nobody will admit they did this too)... and wham...
This diagnosis means nobody can help you, ever, so definitely if that therapist can't fix it, no medications will help you (in fact, if the medications aren't helping you, it's a SURE sign like a wart on a witches nose, even though the drug failure might be because you didn't take them the right way or were prescribed conflicting counteracting drugs, or had allergies to them), then it's not THEIR fault and nobody can help you (did you check how many people that therapist ever did really help?).. and it is a problem of your own cause and under your own control (because you are really "sane", just evil), and you are evil incarnate and poison to everyone around you, and they believe you had a bad childhood, sure, but not all neglected or abused children end up crazy, so you must just have been crazy already or chose to become crazy.
And trust me, you will have no empathy for these real borderlines when you end up on the receiving end of their lavishing of negative attention. So much attention is given out to others, in fact, that I think it's a problem of where your center is - it's another personality disorder characteristic probably more commonly acknowledged in Asian medicine.
She is right about the abuse and trauma causing much of the symptoms that are often mistaken for BPD. There is another DSM-IV category called "trauma or abuse victim, or PTSD". And there is another one called "Dependent personality disorder", or you could have some "traits" of one or both. The 2 combined together are VERY often mistaken for Borderline personality disorder.
Oh - and this is a GOOD one - the DSM-V (next one coming out) is proposing (as of 2011) to drop like 5 personality categories but somehow keep "borderline". Their reasons? Because it can be explained in other disorders instead. Uh, no. Not true. They were even proposing dropping narcissistic personality disorder and dependent personality disorder. I'm Ok with dropping schizotypal or schizoid - it never did make much sense. But just because current practitioners aren't using them as much as more "popular" ones, doesn't mean they aren't prevalent and thus not important, like the U.S. is saying. If anything this supports the case that there are some greedy, horrible diagnostitions in this country and a lot of idiots who take Medicaid or Medicare who are contributing to ripping off the government. What the hell? Ok, fine, just drop them all please... and focus on the essentials behind all of them. Give out labels like on the personality tests: Oh, I'm an INFJ. Oh, I'm a "don't care for boundaries on ego size or self-love, emotions, identity, empathy for others, existence of others, and impulsivity". They don't even believe in personality disorders in Germany - they say it's a abnormal variation of psychic life. Well, I can't stand it any longer... this whole "personality disorder" was completely a psychoanalytical creation based on Freud and others around his time in 1910. There is also Theodore Millon. He is a God in the study of personality disorders, and without its existence he would have nothing else to do. He is still alive, so we still have personality disorders. In fact, I have no doubt that it's because of him that we aren't using the ICD-10: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Millon
And a lot of people believe that "cutting" is the tell tale heart of this disorder - and like a sink or float test for witches, it's pretty baseless and stupid. Self-harm happens in many different situations, from depression to full blown all encompassing personality disorders.
The other problem is, as other bloggers have noted, you could momentarily appear for a short period of time as something if you don't take into account the requirement for 6 months of knowing the person. Again, the DSM-IV says 6 months.
And you don't have to have a full blown definition of "dependent" or "PTSD" to have something that mixes together in a critical moment at the time of the evaluation - and if you have a therapist who is apparently out for blood because they were pissed off or insulted by something that happened before you even got in there, or a disgust for anyone who doesn't walk around naked through the halls, drool and scream incoherently, and bow their head down like a zombie in the mental hospital, and wants to be a part of the BPD craze... and WHAM. YOU obviously didn't know how to play that game! OOPS! YOU lost.
Anyone can look momentarily like they have just about any particular disorder if you don't follow the criteria and are dealing with something that the psychological community think is a fun new way to get rid of whiners by blaming and accusing the victims like it is a 17th century New England WITCH hunt.
There is no doubt that there is something VERY wrong with a "disorder" that is mostly given to women - 75% of the diagnosed are women. That is a red flag of bias and stupidity to me. The real essence at the bottom of this disorder is what is common in all personality disorders: unwillingness to respect boundaries for emotions, ego, reality, other people and animals, substances, and self-identity. THAT is another blog - I will find that blog I'm referring to soon.. promise... Men are usually diagnosed as "narcissists" (for alcoholics and assholes usually) or "anti-social personality" (that's reserved for drug addicts usually, and robbers)... when their instability in their self-image and emotional control is more easily hidden or more easily excused as acceptable testosterone issues or addiction problems. Women are naturally more flamboyant and emotionally expressive, and would have relationship issues that would be harder to hide because that is really important to most women and they will talk about things like that more easily. And it's a societal thing - in other cultures, it's different ratios for many different types of disorders because of how society influences our behaviors. And we just somehow associate "borderline" with females, but I know there are males with "borderline personality disorder" aka "emotional and self-image disregulation (and sociopathic tendencies) trauma complex"... but it's at a prevalence in men that is not high enough, but is WAY over diagnosed in women.
Why do the 'personality' disorder diagnosis anyway? It is supposed to be reserved for the very serious cases where functioning is severely compromised and the person clearly does not want to help themselves or stop their behaviors. All personality disorders are supposed to be a diagnosis of DOOM - and just referred to in whispers as the "thing that should not be named"... except by those wishing to dismiss the person's actions as a total crazy person, a hopeless cause. Like this situation: "why is THIS guy in here (ie. locked high security mental hospital)? Oh, whenever they let him out, he goes home to his mom and then robs a bank. He has narcissism." Psychology is supposed to give out smaller, more specific, and more accurate diagnosis of "reactive attachment disorder" or "trauma/ abuse" or "dependency issues". Good therapists will do this.
And stop throwing it around like it's the new cool thing to call yourself too- that makes it seem "OK" and not what it is: a damning witch hunt to protect the therapist's ego and their denial of the existence of emotional and physical damage from trauma and abuse - THAT is another blog.
But the disorder still does exist and really is from abuse and trauma but with a major and very important sadistic angry narcissistic twist where they take on the persona of REAL people around them, not imagined people. See, these people were not deprived of interactions with others, although they were deeply damaged, and continued to be damaged and damned under this extreme rejection and abuse throughout their first 25 years of life. They just don't think anyone wants to see the real them. Trying to be somebody else is like driving the car from the passenger's side. I have nightmares about that, so I wouldn't try that either. Yeah, that's another blog.
Nobody seems to care much for the DSM-IV rules on diagnosing or the definitions of the disorder, however. It is much more similar to multiple personality disorder - the real definition of it is a problem with their "personality rutter" or the stability of their self-image. It is a problem created by their expectations (world view): that everyone will eventually neglect them, or deprive them of love or interaction, and at some dark point they believe they deserve it, unless they take drastic measures and attack first and drop others before they are dropped, or control and manipulate to keep it all suffocatingly close.
And there is a problem with how important reality is to them - it isn't- they pretend to be some dramatic false projection ALL the time until even THEY don't know where their real center is, and can go flying off the handle in any direction and very quickly because that other character doesn't have to follow the normal boundaries of emotions or human interactions.
And if all their attention is put on filling a void within themselves where they lack a stable self-image and genuine self-confidence, AKA the thing that allows you to not be completely taken down to a puddle of mitochondrial mush at the bat of an eyelash in the wrong direction or upon noticing any negative emotions or blemishes in their over blown ego, they are not centered or grounded in themselves, and are instead act like someone trying to stand still on a slippery soapy floor. At the center is calm - it is "live and let live", it is generosity, it is pure love, acceptance and letting go. Visualize it as your mental backbone, the center of your body. Instead, they go in a "bad" direction and when they don't like it, it doesn't seem appropriate, or they realize they're dangerously teetering on the edge of hysteria with their forcing of their grand illusions and denials on those around them (a realization and act of self-control which doesn't happen quite often enough)... then instead of "calming down" and re-centering, they try another "personality" or "perspective" on for size. Oh you want something else? What do you want to see? Certainly you don't want to see ME - because even I don't want to see the REAL me, right? And because I'm not even in touch with that real me anymore, since it was so abused and traumatized that it never fully developed and matured. And I have distanced myself from it completely and it's nothing more than an angry dream now, unless I'm pretending to be my abuser or someone similar from that dream.
And they have the gall to think they can copy you accurately, and it's often demeaning and shallow, mocking image of their own creation because they dismiss anyone as having an individual soul that can't be imitated. There should be a copyright on certain personal traits and expressions. God or Nature or whatever... we were all created individually. Even kids know to say "don't imitate me" and know it's annoying. But borderlines take their talent on the road - they use it against you if you take one wrong step to cross them in a slight way - and start imitating anyone who might have some potentially useful attitude and happens to be in a position of control or power over you, while going into hyper active sensitive mode to any potential validations of their fear of abandonment. Oh it's true, it's true, it's true, they are really horrible and evil, destroy them (oh yes, they want you dead or destroyed at that point when it's for self-preservation) - But oh my GOD, you MADE it happen! Problem is, anything can start their obsessive ruminations cycle going - once they start to feel some self-doubt about anything and get a little depressed and obsessive.
And there's a boundary problem in a certain way in the division between themselves and others: Unlike the narcissist, who sees himself in all others but does not have a mirror image for "others" in his mind and hence no boundaries there since you don't really exist except to uphold his perfect gleaming image (or else all is dark)... the borderline thinks you exist as non-integrated "vignettes" or "skits", pieces of a person just as they see themselves, who are there to fulfill their insecure needs for attachment and control of their perfect image (or else all is black), and they believe that to achieve this unrealistic level of constant symbiotic attachment, they should flatter you with their impersonations of you or anyone important in your life that you have recently described to them, and bombard you with attention and gifts, forcefully, because it's a way to keep you on a short leash, and if you don't appreciate it the right way you are damned to their own home baked version of borderline abuse, and that will give anyone diabetes and want to crawl in a cave for months afterwards (unless you're a narcissist and bask in that attention quite naively).
Here is the weak point of the borderline: rejection. http://bpd.about.com/od/glossary/g/abandon.htm
"Abandonment sensitivity is a symptom of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), abandonment sensitivity is described as "frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment." People with BPD can be very sensitive to any cue (real or perceived) that they are being rejected or abandoned. This can include strong reactions to seemingly minor rejections by others (e.g., becoming terrified or enraged when someone cancels plans)." BUT NO IT IS NOT THE SOLE DEFINING CHARACTERISTIC. Just their Achilles heal, got it peeps? This is what sets them off.
Here is the problem of the narcissist- the Achilles heal of narcissists is their actually quite vulnerable and insecure self-esteem. That is how they are set off: http://www.mentalhealth.com/dis/p20-pe07.html
"Vulnerability in self-esteem makes individuals with this disorder very sensitive to criticism or defeat. Although they may not show it outwardly, criticism may haunt these individuals these individuals and may leave them feeling humiliated, degraded, hollow, and empty. They may react with disdain, rage, or defiant counterattack. Their social life is often impaired due to problems derived from entitlement, the need for admiration, and the relative disregard for the sensitivities of others. Though their excessive ambition and confidence may lead to high achievement; performance may be disrupted due to intolerance of criticism or defeat. Sometimes vocational functioning can be very low, reflecting an unwillingness to take a risk in competitive or other situations in which defeat is possible. Individuals with this disorder have special difficulties adjusting to growing old and losing their former superiority. "
And many borderlines them also being simultaneous narcissists, they will lie, intimidate, and attack in a psychotic assault of emotional or physical abuse and rage if anyone questions them (in this case, that rage IS under their control, since their personal rage to protect themselves IS just about the only real part about them and is also actually an act like turning on a switch, that they can turn off).
And it's just so funny when someone who apparently is a psychologist or psychiatrist goes on a rant against their own family members in the guise of a scientific study. They get a little too detailed and off on tangents too. You know it's happening when their story confirms that all of their description of this "story" is characteristic of that borderline person, but you know for a fact that it isn't, and that person has some real issues: http://www.primals.org/articles/hannig03.html
Here is a piece of this guy's bullshit, for shits and giggles: "Trauma during gestational attachment creates disordered adults who have difficulty connecting emotionally with other people. The bad, rejecting, destroying uterus is a real threat. The BP is constantly seeking a connection with the good womb in order to escape or avoid the death womb." Yep, he's on crack!
The other real part about them is a very deep morbid self-centered sadness, an occasional sorrow that might be perceived as guilt and which they might say "sorry" during but is not really about YOU or anyone else at all, but is instead a frustrated rejection of all people and attachments in response to the perceived failure to fill their void of self-validation and self-love through the only ways they know how. Oh but beware, they will have the memory of a goldfish, and the ability to forget or turn to "distant memories" this most recent failure, and soon they'll go back to turning against anyone and everyone, and will again manipulate and laugh in your face the minute they feel it necessary (which is usually ALL the time).
This is a quote:
Some therapists really get off on putting people in a box and shunting them on through the system. In the past decade, especially in the court system in every state, more and more women have been assigned this label and told that they must undergo years of therapy– notably, Dialectical Behavior Therapy or DBT– to even be able to function.
Last year, in a dehumanizing and unethical ambush attempt by a pair of therapists who should be stripped of all licensure, I was force-fed the diagnosis of BPD. We fought it out in Court and I won. I won the right of self-determination– to call myself a writer and a human being with a history of trauma. But don’t think that I don’t fight that tape within that says, “You’re a mess. You’re a sicko. You belong in a mental hospital” night and day.
As a civil rights activist, I have advocated and claimed and perpetuated the idea wherever I can that those diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder are in fact trauma survivors whose pain must be validated and whose ability to heal must be reinforced. Thank God I am not alone in this fight:
The Sexy Goth
http://www.experienceproject.com/stories/Have-Borderline-Personality-Disorder/461161#caform
The replies on this post are funny, but some are just weird and sick. So, I thought I'd add my own, but I couldn't post, it wasn't working... so here it is:
First of all, young people of your age are often "unstable" in their feelings about their futures and themselves, they may be at a point where they haven't found a purpose or don't feel useful in society yet. And I don't believe you are really age 26-30 either. You might be barely 18. I do believe you are female, however. Nothing you said indicated "unstable sense of self", however, even your picture. You don't kill animals or enjoy hurting people. You actually talk about other people and know they exist as real, whole living beings, not as little vignettes that you can imitate or manipulate (borderlines and hystericals), not mirrors of their own personal greatness or vile scum undeserving of being graced by the king or queen (narcissists), or a means to a way for your very justified success or enjoyment (sociopaths, alcoholics).
You do have some spelling problems and grammar errors though, so you might be interested in college courses to improve that and your future. You have obviously not been to college yet, so that poster up there is just funny! No, I don't think you're a "sociopath" or a "borderline" as much as it might be like "f off" to the world if you don't like it and I'm really "bad" so 'deal with it or leave', or that it's a fashionable title to have... as is apparent from your goth photograph. You also want to not be "normal". There are some really sick people out there who think goth is very hot, but some day you will really want to be "normal" again. For example, there's a guy in a mental hospital somewhere, maybe in his 60's, an active raging nutrient deprived dependent alcoholic who sees that "goth" detective assistant on T.V. and says "wow, she's HOT", and I'd totally have when I get out of here. CREEPY! Do you want that to happen to you? And perhaps you shouldn't pick a personality disorder - because there are a lot of crazy sociopaths and borderlines out there who appear to be the very definition of "normal" for short periods of time.
Also, I think you might have an impulsivity problem, however, regarding the theft - or you like the attention and high you get. It's also very immature, so that's how I know your real age. And with the drugs and alcohol, you are self-medicating for depression or anxiety probably because you are really an "introvert" (hence the expression through the internet), who, unlike the common belief, are actually very "normal" and "healthy" and need interactions with other people just as much as so called "extroverts", maybe with some Asperger's traits or sensory overload issues that makes you need some down time away from it all.
And stop jumping to conclusions... being momentarily self-focused and contemplative isn't the same as "self centered", which isn't the same as "sociopath" or anything worse than that. And societal rules encourages the "cold as ice, nose in the air" attitude among strangers, which can be mistaken for high self-esteem or playing "hard to get", and you're just learning how to play that game and win friends. And you might just not know when to stop the partying until you have to stop because you are burned out. That's where your addictions come in - you need a program for that, pick one.
The replies on this post are funny, but some are just weird and sick. So, I thought I'd add my own, but I couldn't post, it wasn't working... so here it is:
First of all, young people of your age are often "unstable" in their feelings about their futures and themselves, they may be at a point where they haven't found a purpose or don't feel useful in society yet. And I don't believe you are really age 26-30 either. You might be barely 18. I do believe you are female, however. Nothing you said indicated "unstable sense of self", however, even your picture. You don't kill animals or enjoy hurting people. You actually talk about other people and know they exist as real, whole living beings, not as little vignettes that you can imitate or manipulate (borderlines and hystericals), not mirrors of their own personal greatness or vile scum undeserving of being graced by the king or queen (narcissists), or a means to a way for your very justified success or enjoyment (sociopaths, alcoholics).
You do have some spelling problems and grammar errors though, so you might be interested in college courses to improve that and your future. You have obviously not been to college yet, so that poster up there is just funny! No, I don't think you're a "sociopath" or a "borderline" as much as it might be like "f off" to the world if you don't like it and I'm really "bad" so 'deal with it or leave', or that it's a fashionable title to have... as is apparent from your goth photograph. You also want to not be "normal". There are some really sick people out there who think goth is very hot, but some day you will really want to be "normal" again. For example, there's a guy in a mental hospital somewhere, maybe in his 60's, an active raging nutrient deprived dependent alcoholic who sees that "goth" detective assistant on T.V. and says "wow, she's HOT", and I'd totally have when I get out of here. CREEPY! Do you want that to happen to you? And perhaps you shouldn't pick a personality disorder - because there are a lot of crazy sociopaths and borderlines out there who appear to be the very definition of "normal" for short periods of time.
Also, I think you might have an impulsivity problem, however, regarding the theft - or you like the attention and high you get. It's also very immature, so that's how I know your real age. And with the drugs and alcohol, you are self-medicating for depression or anxiety probably because you are really an "introvert" (hence the expression through the internet), who, unlike the common belief, are actually very "normal" and "healthy" and need interactions with other people just as much as so called "extroverts", maybe with some Asperger's traits or sensory overload issues that makes you need some down time away from it all.
And stop jumping to conclusions... being momentarily self-focused and contemplative isn't the same as "self centered", which isn't the same as "sociopath" or anything worse than that. And societal rules encourages the "cold as ice, nose in the air" attitude among strangers, which can be mistaken for high self-esteem or playing "hard to get", and you're just learning how to play that game and win friends. And you might just not know when to stop the partying until you have to stop because you are burned out. That's where your addictions come in - you need a program for that, pick one.
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