In response to my blog last week a reader commented:
I am a (borderline personality) BPD in love with a sociopath, I want to share the depth of sadness and emptiness that occurs in my soul knowing, I will never know the love and security that regular people have, Imagine how long life would be knowing you are not equipped with the same emotion’s as everyone else.
I have never understood why there is no compassion for those of us who were abused when we should’ve bonded. I did not ask to be this way and every day watch and listen to what others do in their relationships so I can do it too ( not that I have been successful , but I try).
It is not that I can’t love, it’s the opposite actually, that I am so consumed by not being loved that pushes me to that bored space that propagates my self destruction. I just feel that most socio/bpd’s wish that they had the same emotions as others, it is exhausting pretending and I wish I could go back and be my own mother and love me in a way that created a secure human not a scared , detached one like me. Bless”¦
PS , I pray every night for healing of my heart and my emotions”¦ still I am who I am.
I debated on whether to respond as a comment but the above is so well written and so touching that it deserves more visibility.
The scientific literature has documented that it is common for women with borderline personality and psychopathic personality traits to hook-up with males who are more pathological than they are. These hook-ups drag already vulnerable women down a path of terror and destruction. In speaking with many victims, I too have noted that a subset have borderline personality disorder.
To make matters worse, relationships between women with BPD and sociopathic men typically begin when the women are in their late teens and result in early pregnancy. The pair is unprepared emotionally and financially to be a couple and to care for their children, who are also then exposed to domestic violence and the sociopath’s “friends.”
Please consider that treating borderline personality in young women will reduce/prevent sociopathy in the next generation for two reasons. Treatment will reduce partnering with sociopaths and also improve parenting ability.
Why do women with BPD and sociopathy have such a high rate of partnering with sociopaths? I think the answer lies in their anxiety and in dominance motives. Sociopaths portray dominance and so are sought after as a source of security. Men who have lower levels of dominance and anxiety themselves are a turn off for insecure women. However, it is those more normal men who have the best chance at helping a borderline woman recover.
Also many women with BPD have a high level of power/dominance motivation themselves, so if they do get into a relationship with a less pathological male, they quickly make mince meat out of him. A dominant woman with BPD has the ability to destroy a normal man psychologically, just like a sociopath can.
If I had no hope I wouldn’t bring any of this up, because what is the point of spreading gloom and doom about human nature. I write this week because I don’t believe these scenarios have to play out in this way. As humans, we not only have the primitive brain with its unconscious motives of fear and dominance, we also have a “wise mind.”
If you have borderline personality (or sociopathy for that matter), your life challenge is to find your wise mind and work to connect with it. Your wise mind should dictate your actions not your primitive brain.
To discover your wise mind, you have to learn techniques of anxiety management. Anxiety interferes with the functioning of the wise mind.
Having a wise mind means deciding on values based on facts, not how I feel in the moment. For example, as I raise my son I am teaching him to have a wise mind. He knows that if left to his own devices at the age of 6 he would eat unhealthy food, not get enough sleep and entertain himself in a way that harmed him.
My son says, “I want to be the boss of myself!” Well to the extent that our primitive pleasure/fear brains choose our actions, whatever feeling of being the boss of ourselves we have is an illusion. It is only when we use our wise minds to make thoughtful decisions that we are really the boss.
Disordered parents are unable to impart the wise mind to their kids. This failure to teach impulse control is just as bad as a failure to teach love. In fact as you see by this writing, poor impulse control leads directly to an inability to love.
That gets me to the pleasure balance. In order to experience pleasure we have to be relatively free from anxiety. Thankfully, there are also medications for that.
So starting from a relatively low anxiety state, we have social and non-social pleasures. People with borderline and antisocial personality disorder also have trouble with non-social pleasures. They never learned to manage their entertainment/recreational needs. Most turn to substances for this purpose.
The wise mind knows that exercise, playing music, doing art, having hobbies and intellectual interests are important for personal growth, mental and physical health. The wise mind can choose to do these things.
The wise mind can also choose to do work to earn a living.
Social pleasures come in three forms, sex, power/dominance and affection. To the extent that sex is tied to affection and a healthy relationship, that pleasure can be fulfilling. Dominance/power that robs another person of autonomy never brings fulfillment. Love is the only real healthy social pleasure.
Our pleasure balance is not fixed and can be modified with time and practice. So my friend you can “go back and be my own mother and love me in a way that created a secure human not a scared , detached one like me.”
To start you have to use your wise mind to understand your own pleasure balance. Begin by developing healthy non-social pleasures. Every person needs a healthy diet, exercise and meaningful hobbies. Stop using recreational drugs. These things will not feel good to you when you first start them, but over time as you apply yourself you will feel better.
Then really look at your social behavior, not how you feel. Most sociopaths and people with BPD think they do feel “love.” If you dominate and control others, no matter what your reason for this is, you have to stop. As long as your relationships center around dominance you will never experience love.
To learn more about the wise mind, enter a DBT treatment program. If anyone has used a good self-help DBT book, please give us the title.
Shabbychic—-EVERY personality trait has its strengths and weaknesses. My hypervigilance and sensitivity to what people think of me (traits I HATE that are a result of childhood abuse), make me a great fundraisier! I’m very sensitive to picking up what a donor really hopes to accomplish with their philanthrophy and I help them fulfill their goals. (I have a huge dose of empahty that keeps me from using those traits a way a sociopath would!)
Interacting with a sociopath, those same traits get me in deep doo doo! NOW that I know that, I can watch out for it.
We don’t always need to change who we are, but learn ways to use what is positive about our traits and avoid what is negative.
The entire article by Dr. Michael Conner is posted on a few website addresses. I am fair use excerpting it here:
“………. The clearest case involved an older teen who had no sense of guilt. He could learn the rules, but he had no sense of conscience. The only thing that saved him was a mother who loved him, took him to counseling for years and spent a great deal of time patiently teaching him right from wrong. I remember a conversation where he told me, “People know when something is wrong because it feels wrong. I have to remember or be reminded that stealing from someone is wrong. I don’t feel bad if I take something.”
Meeting this young boy changed my opinion of a psychopathic personality. Why? Because children with this condition are “emotionally blind.” And while I do not excuse cruelty or criminal behavior, I have sympathy and appreciate how hard it is for some people to learn how to act responsibly.”
There are various “levels” of personality disorders, and though the genetic component is there forever, that does not mean that they cannot learn appropriate behavior.
For example, a person with the GENETIC component for alcoholism CAN STOP DRINKING even though s/he craves it.
It may be more difficult for th epersonw ith the genetic incliniation to crave alcohol to stop than it would be for me, but it is DOABLE if they want to. Problem is, many times the psychopath does NOT want to quit what gives him pleasure—hurting others, or it may be that s/he is rewarded for their bad behavior by money, sex, etc. and they have no motivation to quit.
Even going to prison doesn’t stop many of them from doing bad things because they blame others for going to prison, not their own behavior.
Even a flat worm can learn if you shock it enough times, but psychopaths sometimes are so “set in their ways” that no matter what you do to punish them, they keep on with that behavior unless physically restrained.
I do not think that a PPD can be “cured” but I do think they can be taught to make better choices, but sometimes they just don’t care, and you can’t MAKE someone care.
My therapist put it this way.
Most easy for people to get over are phobias. That sort of surprised me, because I had gotten over a phobia and had considered it the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. (that was before the last P attack!) But I though, wow, if that is easy, what is hard?
Next are neuroses. (I may be leaving somethings out). Next was alcoholism and other addictions.
Psychosis were in there somewhere too.
all those things have treatments and are covered by some insurance.
but she said most difficult, and at this point impossible, to treat are personality disorders. Rarely has she found insurance will pay for treatment of a personality disorder per se, because there is no treatment proven to work.
That sort of put it in perspective for me, how hard it is for people with a personality disorder to change.
The sociopath is the tin man without a heart….but he thinks he’s the wizard.
Thank you so much for posting the above article. I have struggled for years fearing I had BPD. Because I have an MSW and know the DSM IV pretty well, I sometimes knew just enough to be dangerous to myself and others!!!
Although 4 therapists told me I did not have BPD, the one who did had me convinced I was hopeless.
Over the years, the TRAITS of BPD that I was concerned with (fear of abandonment, pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships, identity disturbance and the inability to feel a sense of self, overeating and spending money impulsively, chronic feelings of emptiness), have gone away. All that is left is as fear of abandonment.
There has been tremendous healing 4 months out of the ending of a LONG history of a relationship with my ex-husband who is a Psychopath. Not only is he out of my life, but the trauma bonding is healed. I hardly think about him, and I spent the last 42 years longing and yearning for him every day. I had NO identity of my own. I felt like I WAS him.
I believe many of these traits overlap. I come from a childhood where I witnessed Domestic Violence no little girl should have to see. I have empathy for people with BPD or any other form of Dis-Order. I cannot be another’s judge and jury, but I can definitely keep myself from harm’s way by working on my own physical, emotional and spiritual recovery.
As the saying goes, “Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.”
I looked over the DSM-IV criteria for BPD and have diagnosed myself as BPD. I always knew there was something wrong with me, just didn’t know what it was! It does not say anything about not being able to love someone, I obviously love my daughter and family, but the N/S’s… maybe I just feared abandonment above anything else, even above my “self”… and chronic feelings of emptiness? Step right up! I can sell tickets to that event, it’s happening everyday right here in person!! Not a a pity party! I am not asking for pity! The last year I have felt like I am just barely holding on to a semblance of normalcy. I smile and show a face to people that seems normal, but on the inside… now that’s another story that I’ll keep to myself.
Dr. Leedom,
Excellent article, Very thoughtful and hopeful. I too think that all persons are capable of learning throughout their lives if they so choose. To answer Justabout’s question, some people are naturally thin and naturally muscular. Others have to work hard to maintain weight. Personality too CAN change, if the growth factors are addressed and symptoms and disorders (on Axis I) are controlled. The problem with Ps and Ns is that they feel they do not need to change. they are just fine and misunderstood at best.
The more conservative treatment for BPDs was setting boundaries, not “sucking into the drama”. I forget the name of the psychiatrist who had made a breakthrough revelation that BPDs need to be helped in growing. He essentially closed his practice and focused but on one woman with BPD. He attended to her emotional needs, made himself available 24/7, parented her and provided with unconditional love and support. The growth and emotional maturity within that one person was incredible. She was BPD “free” within two years. Now, how many professionals (and/ or family members and / or friends) can totally give of themselves for years to help someone Grow? But, I think it’s a powerful finding. And – I think that empathy and sympathy go a long way (but not for Ps who will use it to their benefit, to con and manipulate, because from get go they have no Need to Change). I hope that I did not misrepresent myself: these are my ideas only and I don’t have hard evidence to support my claims. But, I think Jan2008’s powerful blog story shows that if the values are delivered early enough, even the “emotionally blind” can become contributors to society. I recall being a 5-7 year old and tearing off butterfly’s wings. An adult told me that it’s like tearing out human arms and said: “would you like this done to you?” Not only did I stop, but even years and years later – My shoulder blades hurt just from mere memory of this verbal exchange. I forever felt guilty for wounding the butterflies and went through a long period of time when I was afraid to step on an ant. This is no small task, believe me: try to walk and avoid stepping on an insect.
This article has struck a nerve, it is good to see that I am not the only one that feels miswired. I dont like playing the victim but I am one. A childhood of abuse, neglect, incest and a major dysfunctional narcissist mother. I am not a victim now and I do take responsibilty for my actions and how I treat others. I know I have a conscience and am capable of love, affection comittment. I have values, morals. But nothing can undo the damage done as a child. I would have to describe my past relationship with the ex S as a gasoline and fire relationship. I dont feel hopeless tho, I am better equiped to make wise choices now, now that I know all the ugly truths….
Dear Blueskies,
Every child must have a conscience instilled into them, the content of teh conscience which comes from the culture’s “rights and wrongs” varies with each culture. When I was in South Africa, the Bantu natives at that time, if there were twins born, thought that only one of those children had a soul. they were not sure which child had the soul and which one was the witch, so in order to get the witch out of the kraal, and not literally kill both children, they would lay the children in the path that the cattle came back in from the fields and so the cattle would tread on the babies and both would die. Their conscience was clean, because this was what they were TAUGHT was RIGHT. Of course, OUR conscience would not be “clean” as we are taught what they did was “wrong.”
In some cultures is is permissable for a man to have sex with any woman he wants to, or have plural wives because that is what he was taught is RIGHT and OK. In (most of) our culture that is considered WRONG.
Whatever the content of the conscience as to what is right and what is wrong, which is instilled in the child by TEACHING the child, whether or not a person abides by that conscience or does what he thinks is wrong is up to the individual.
Unfortunately, because different cultural groups have different ideas of what is right and what is wrong. I have no doubt that the men who caused the 9/11 attack THOUGHT they were doing “right.” It doesn’t bring back the dead though.
Henry, I am so proud of you!!! What you have over come to be the loving kind person that you are, able to love and be committed is remarkable for what a kind and compassionate person you are inspite of where you “came from.”
I remember laughing over you putting your X’s cell phone in the microwave (a really tacky thing to do, but none-the-less FUNNY!) But I think many of us have been “driven” (allowed ourselves) to be “tacky” and “act ugly” as my granny would have said—-but we are learning, growing, etc.
Today was a very stressful day when I had to set boundaries for someone who reacted rather badly and “tacky and ugly” to me, and I am proud to say, I ACTED LIKE A LADY!!! YEP, believe it or NOT!!! I didn’t raise my voice, I didn’t accuse her back, I didn’t J.A.D.E.—justify, argue, defend or explain—. I just told her like it was. “This is not working for me.” “It is your responsibility.” “I am not responsible for your problems. I did not cause them. I am not responsible for fixing them when you are not interested in doing so.”
Henry, we can’t fix or change the past, but we can rise above it. I’m proud of myself today, both in acting like a lady and in not getting caught up in the F.O.G.