[_Hope_]

i know some people don 't like the label borderline, i have read many times how we should come up with a better name for it , but i think it fits just fine. i literally balance on the line of sanity and insanity . sometimes i wish i fell off then maybe i wouldn't realize just how insane i am.

i heard a story once about hiring a truck driver for a rocky hilly dangerous route. the interviews went as such; the first one claimed he could get right up to the edge of the cliff an handle it prefect. the next guy said well i can get even closer with one tire hanging over the edge of the cliff (this is me of course) and the third one said i can drive so that i am nowhere near the edge of the cliff. can you guess who got hired.

i so wish i could be like driver number three but i just don't think i will ever get there.

Linda

[Rapunzel]

I've heard that story before, and I relate to it too. I guess I push the limits. Once I was driving home after therapy - it was a 3 1/2 hour drive then (now it's 2 1/2), and I noticed that I had a little less than a quarter of a tank, and it was 80 miles of nothing to get to the next town. My car is supposed to get 40 mpg, and I figured I had about 2 gallons, so I didn't get gas. I made it, and when I got home I wrote to T about what I did, and she was not impressed. I guess that's a metaphore for life too. Always pushing the edge. I meet the criteria for bpd too, although none of the therapist I have gone to have wanted to diagnose it. It might limit my career options. But I say call it what it is. Yup, pushing the edge again. And I know that labels are not particularly helpful, but there I go collecting them.

[pachyderm]

I have been reading some books on "borderlines" recently. Borderline mothers, actually. They will produce borderline children (us). Though the books are not perfect, here are two references:

Surviving a Borderline Parent

Understanding the Borderline Mother

(These books have longer titles, but these will serve for searches.)

Another book I got recently, and that fits into my understanding, is

The General Theory of Love

As I said, none of these books is perfect; I see things in all of them that I disagree with. But they are quite helpful for me.

[_Hope_]

thanks pachyderm

i have read both of those books and they were helpful becuase i felt like i was not alone in this and that it is not all in my head. What i am really looking for when reading these kind of books is a road map out of this illness, i have yet to find it .
Linda

[greenfairy]

wish there were a roadmap. or at least a few signs. personally havent found meds that worked. therapy always a bust. and i am an expert in self-destruction. its tiring teetering on the edge all the time. an ex of mine had a great book, "i hate you dont leave me". (checked for authors name just before posting but forgot it. sure you can find by title though). ive found that if absolutely nothing else, having one person who understands you, understands the illness, and accepts all of it, can be as good or even better than any drug or therapy. i of course drove that person away, but learned from the relationship to be honest bout what im going through, even if its just with people here. bottling it up seems to be the worst. (in my case anyways).
Hope you find something that works. if you do be sure to let us know.

[_Hope_]

I hate you don't leave me was the first book i ever read on the subject of BPD it was great to finally find out a name for what i was living with. I thought that finding the right dx would help me find treatment but i was wrong. I am currently reading marsha linehan's book cognitive-behavioral treatment of borderline personality disorder. It is my way of self treating. It is avery dense book with a lot of clinical research and observations to back up her theories and conclusions. I can only read a few pages a day because of the heavy material and my emotional state when reading it. I am still looking for a good T that can help me help myself but i have just about given up hope.

Linda

[greenfairy]

I looked up the book you mentioned and will probably buy a copy. librarything.com has great list of recommended reading if you're interested in other approaches (librarything.com ).
i didn't have any success with therapy, but i think that has alot to do with finding the right person. i've had therapists who wanted to talk everything to death and pdocs who medicated me into a zombie-like state. neither approach worked. if i had the time and health coverage i'd keep trying.

i too read linehan's book and it was lifesaving for me. i ended up doing the course formally - but what kept me dropping out of the dreaded group therapy was reading the manual... reading the manual...

Linehan is terrific. absolutely %#@&#! amazing. finally... a theorist who presents things in such a way that there IS hope and where i'm not blamed or judged or condemned for my distress. bravo.

i also read a lot of stuff on "self psychology". stuff available from the trauma pages (I think I posted a link to them in the 'resources' thread pinned to the top of the forum). there are lots of articles available from there that talk about therapy with people who have had relational trauma (which we have had). non-judgemental and hopeful. helps me a great deal.

hang in there. it DOES get better. just like the pantene commercial (except ACTUALLY true) 'it won't happen overnight - but it will happen'.

PS linehan thinks that 'borderline personality' would be best construed as a disorder of 'emotion regulation'. i think she is on the ball with that, but don't really see that a change in nomenclature (name) would do a great deal...

the 'halfway between crazy and not crazy' idea comes from this idea: 'on the borderline between neurotic and psychotic'. it is fairly deeply entrenched in psychoanalytic theory. the psychotic disorders were thought to result from very early developmental problems whereas the neuroses were thought to result from later developmental problems (around 2 or 3 for oedipus complex, i think). people with 'narcissistic disorders' (narcisstic personality, histrionic personality, histeroid personality, borderline personality, anti-social personality etc) were thought to have a developmental problem half-way between those two. so... would regress to a psychotic state under traditional psychoanalysis (like the psychotic people would) even though they appeared as your average (treatable) neurotic when they weren't stressed ( or we might say emotionally dysregulating in the context of a relationship due to their relational trauma).

so... the terms 'psychotic' and 'neurotic' have been taken out of the DSM becaue there wasn't any empirical basis for that distinction (and i don't think there was good inter-rater reliability, in the sense of agreement between clinicians, either. that being said unofficially a fair number of psychiatrists still think in terms of the neurotic/psychotic/borderline distinctions. especially those seeped in psychoanalytic theory...

[pachyderm]

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
pachyderm said:

Understanding the Borderline Mother


</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

Although I see all of the four categories in my mother, the one that really resonates with me is the Witch Mother.

[_Hope_]

same here pachyderm. when i was in high school i tried confiding in my friends. one of them came right out and told me to stoop making things up. wouldn't Know she went on the become a children's therapist.

linda

[pachyderm]

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
bpdsufferer said:
i have read both of those books and they were helpful becuase i felt like i was not alone in this and that it is not all in my head. What i am really looking for when reading these kind of books is a road map out of this illness, i have yet to find it .
Linda

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

You might try the books of Marsha Linehan. I have not read them, but here is what one reader reviewer on Amazon says of "Skills Training Manual for Borderline Personality Disorder":

I suffer from borderline personality disorder, and the content of this book has been a great help when dealing with my emotional disability. I love this book because it focuses on "treating" the disorder, whereas other books' focuses are often the cause of the disorder or pathology of it. The positive attitude of facing the real issues of those who suffer from borderline personality disorder is encouraging. I can see the author's deep understanding of the disorder, and I appreciate her efforts to explain what the probrems [sic] really are and how to deal with them.

From the reviews I have read about Linehan's books, and from the references I have seen, it appears to me that she is one of the leading researchers and clinicians in the field. I am a little leery of the workbook approach of the book, and I also feel I have probably developed a lot of the techniques independently for myself. Her therapy has been named as "Dialectical Behavior Therapy" (DBT) so you might look that up too.

Hey. You probably have independently discovered a lot of the skills for yourself. The notion is that they are meant to be descriptive of the ways that people cope with stressful things. It is just that some people don't seem to do those things, and those people seem to have trouble coping. So the idea is that to start with you have to practice the skills practice the skills make a conscious effort to practice the skills. Over time they become automatic ways of coping just like how they are automatic ways of coping for other people.

There has been some talk of whether other patient populations would also find a benefit to the skills (even though the skills were developed with BPD in mind). I think they could really help most people just by giving them some ideas of other things to do to help them cope.

The skills training manual is something that is worked through in group therapy.

The clinicians handbook is the theory behind both the group therapy and the individual therapy.

She does talk a bit about different conceptions of BPD that have been offered etc. But the main focus is to introduce and really explain her treatment approach such that therapists can be trained to consistently apply the approach (which helps when you want to run controlled trials on the effectiveness of the approach).

Her work also fits in quite nicely with some of the stuff that is being done in psychodynamic therapy with a focus on 'mentalization' where borderline personality is conceptualised as a 'failure to mentalize when the attachment system is active'. Sounds like another way of saying 'emotional dysregulation' to me, but I guess that makes it clearer that it is in a RELATIONAL context that the emotional dysfunction typically occurs.

[pachyderm]

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
alexandra_k said:
So the idea is that to start with you have to practice the skills practice the skills make a conscious effort to practice the skills...

There has been some talk of whether other patient populations would also find a benefit to the skills (even though the skills were developed with BPD in mind)...

Sounds like another way of saying 'emotional dysregulation' to me, but I guess that makes it clearer that it is in a RELATIONAL context that the emotional dysfunction typically occurs.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

Yes, I practice. Even though it is hard, it does have its rewards.

I think people with many other labels of "mental illness" would be helped. I myself have had many labels!

Yes, emotional dysregulation. The authors of the book "A General Theory of Love" would agree with you. It sounds good to me too.

[_Hope_]

i do have both those books and am working throught them. It is helping some but i can really see why you would need to work things out with a T and in group.

So often borderlines thinking is somewhat skewed because we are so sensitive to so many things . i would think with a T and group they would step in if i was over reacting.

much of what goes on happens in my mind without the help of a third party i could think i was doing fine learning the skills but what i really need is to use the skills in real life situations with appropriate feedback on my progress. I don't think i can be completely objective on my own progress.

Linda

[pachyderm]

Quote by Christine Ann Lawson in "Understanding the Borderline Mother" [p 159] -- supposed to be from Linehan's book "Skills Training Manual for Borderline Personality Disorder":

"It is by making these individuals different in principal from ourselves that we can demean them. And perhaps, at times, we demean them
to make them different. Once we see, however, that the principles of behavior influencing normal behavior (including our own) are the same principles influencing borderline behavior, we will more easily empathize and respond compassionately to the difficulties they present us with. [p. 26]"

[_Hope_]

same here. one of the most upsetting things she did happened about several years ago. I had just gone through a divorce and moved home with my son. i got a job that required more than the standard 40/hrs a week. i was working my way up the managment ladder and had to be flexible.
typically my mom would pick up my son at preschool/daycare because i worked late and over an hour away. This particualr night i had to work 7 AM until 11PM because a new project was starting and i was in charge. I had asked my mother weeks prior if she was ok with this. She said yes.

that night i called her to see how everything was going and to say goodnight to my son. She flipped out on the phone.
assused me of being a horrible mother, never there for my son, that she beleved i was not at work , that i must be at some wonderful party doing things that i cannot repeat here.

all i could do was cry, i was hurting for myself but terrified for my son. If she was doing this to me on the phone what was she doing to him at home. i hung up the phone crying even harder. the secretary asked me what was wrong and i told her. She couldn't believe it she said moms love their kids and she couldn't possibly have meant it.

She called my mother right back to ask what happened and to tell her i was leaving to come home becuase i was so upset. My mom said even more horrible things to her which i cannot repeat. So i raced home to protect my son from the Witch.

When i got home she was surprised to see me. She very calmly asked me why i was home when i referenced the phone call, she said "oh honey i know you were working. you didn't have to come home right now. i was't really upset i was just tired from babysitting so much."

my mouth dropped and i could say nothing. I carried my sleeping son into my room (for protection in case the witch reemerged) and tried to sleep, wondering what retribution would be waiting at work in the AM for leaving early.

i have enough storied like that to fill these forums but even when i recount the extremes my mother has put me through they sound so far fetched, Like the secretary said moms love their kids she couldn't have meant it .

Linda

[pachyderm]

> Like the secretary said moms love their kids she couldn't have meant it .

Yeah. For sure.

[BorderlineAnn]

I too agree with the bordeline label. it's great to see that there's a reason i am the way i am, and cool to know i'm not the only one. only one i know maybe, but not in the world. i hate you don't leave me was the book my t at the time of diagnosis recomended me to read. i knew i'd love it from the moment i heard the title. the bpd is the main reason i don't want to have kids. don't want them to suffer thru me, don't want them to suffer thru having it. i forget what else i was gonna say.