Borderline Personality Disorder

My wife has borderline personality disorder. The way that I've learned how to support is to be able to validate her experiences. Borderline personality disorder is mostly caused by trauma in their lives, and so the best thing that we can do is to validate, support, and to trust. If we can do those things for them, they're able to feel those things from us, because a lot of the time they don't feel those things from other people. They have a hard time maintaining relationships, so if you know someone, try to validate them. Try to listen and validate, and not try to fix what's going on. There's specialists that can help them, and encourage them to see those specialists, but if they want to talk to you, let them talk to you and validate what they're saying to you.

One of the simplest things I can say if you have someone, a loved one, a friend, a family member who has BPD, is listen to them and believe what they're going through, believe what they're saying because it can get very hard for me personally. Whenever I talked about my feelings, especially around my family, they never really understood me or they invalidated my emotions and it only makes the person feel worse. One of the simplest things you can do really is just listen to them, believe them and help them the best as you can.

Supporting someone with BPD is challenging. You really have to add a balance of acknowledging their feelings but also guiding them in the right direction and letting them know that sometimes their behavior is not acceptable. You have to set boundaries. You have to be a hand to hold and I don't know how anyone could do it because personally I don't even know. I don't know how anyone handles me but all jokes aside like just support them and love them. I mean that's all we need is to kind of just have someone that believes in us and that's good enough.

You can't control how we are and that is difficult and we can't even control how we are and that's difficult. I just think it's important for people to, instead of having a lot of conflict with the person with BPD, if you're living with someone with BPD then you need to give them that time to be working things out calmly. If they're not interested don't sit there and take abuse but just make sure you're being honest, you're being respectful and you're being supportive and yeah, it should work from there. If they blow up, they blow up but then you can remove yourself from the situation and you know that you've done the right thing.

If someone you know and love has BPD, the best thing you can do is not research it to where you're an expert, but little things like, okay, learn the terms such as favorite person. Favorite person is somebody who they are emotionally attached to in not so healthy ways. Or learn the terms like mania and, you know, learn about depressive episodes, anger issues, stuff like that, and then possibly other conditions that can come with borderline personality disorder. It's knowing how to interact with somebody that can really make a difference.

So I feel like everyone who has BPD, like needs different types of support. So honestly, I think the biggest thing you can do is listen to them and try and communicate with them what they need. Because BPD can present itself in so many different ways. And although there's a lot of ways that are common, different things work differently for everyone. Some people they might strive from a lot of physical touch and affirmations and stuff like that, that might be really helpful for them. But for other people, that just makes things worse. So I think the best way to support someone is really to listen to what they need. And really, if they have trouble communicating what they need, work on trying to figure out what works best for them because chances are they know what works best for them, but they're too afraid to say it.

I have found one of the most helpful things for me, as a tip my therapist gave to my boyfriend, and it's something I use for my fellow friends with BPD, is when he asks me, how can I best support you in this moment? And sometimes I'll have an answer, and other times I won't. For the times that I don't, I figured out that treating me like I'm sick works really well, and I found that works for a lot of my friends as well that have BPD. Because oftentimes when we're in the moment, in an emotional swing, or we're having a depressive episode, we fail to do some of the most basic things. So, you know, talk to them and find out, have they drank enough water today? Have they ate? Have they brushed their hair? Taken a shower? Just encouragement, or help, even, if you're able to, to help them be mindful and take care of themselves. Because oftentimes we will neglect ourselves, not because we want to, but because we feel so overwhelmed with so many emotions that it's just difficult, and we don't know where to start.

Please, please, please, please, don't get- I mean, you can get mad when we do something, but if you just- if you take it as a competition, when your partner or someone with BPD is just angry, like, rage and all that stuff, don't try to be more angry just to show that you're stronger. I don't know, just stay calm. I mean, try your best to stay calm, because it's not a competition who's more angry. It's not like that. And when we are angry, it's bad. So don't try to just be angry just to show that you're stronger, because it doesn't help. It doesn't help.

I'm grateful for the friends and family I have and the one thing that they've done is just show me compassion. I know that's such a simple thing. When we're in our rut and we, what I say, we vomit all of our emotions, sometimes it's so intense for people that they just don't know what to do and like, you know, I've had times where I go on Facebook and I'm just like, blah. The best thing that they did was they didn't respond to it and my therapist said that's the best, I mean, because if you respond to it, it's like, it's, I forgot the word, it's reinforcing their negative behavior. And so at first I was like mad, I was like, see, no one cares. But it's like, no, just like your therapist did, he couldn't talk to you for a day because you acted out. One thing that they could do, maybe, I was just reading up on this, is maybe go into therapy for themselves, the people that don't have borderline or bipolar, to kind of understand more of what we go through.

The best way to support someone with BPD is to talk to them while they're calm before they're in a crisis and find out what works for them. Personally, I have a written note on my phone and I've shared it with the people that are important in my life on what to do if they start to see my, you know, escalating behaviors, if I'm starting to fidget, if I'm starting to show signs of anxiety or what to do once I'm in a crisis and that I find has really helped them to support me while I'm in a state where I can't help myself, but also to increase the communication surrounding what I need when I need it. Because when you're in that kind of state, you can't ask for the help you need. You'll often push people away, you'll, you know, scream at them, yell at them or run away and that's really not what you need. So having those conversations when you're calm is really, really important.

Validate our feelings. Please don't dismiss them because that will make it a hundred times worse especially if we're in an episode. Listen to us and just literally just validate and tell us you know how hard it is and you know that oh that's really sad and I understand that you're having a very strong reaction to that and that's not your fault and this is what I think we and then you can suggest things that might help. Not oh let's go out and do this unless they're that type of person but just little things, little things to just boost the person up and show them that you know you're okay, you're okay.

Please be patient, my friends weren't really patient, but now my friend is really patient, and I love him, but relationships aren't perfect, and if a person has BPD, it's even harder, but be patient, because we're not going to change overnight, but you can deal with us, and it's not like living hell, when you show that you care. Yeah, we need lots of saying that you actually love us, and you're not going to leave us, please do that, it's never too much, you can say that even every hour, it's better to say that more than needed, than less than needed.

A couple of weeks ago I was having a day, it got really bad and I didn't know how to explain to someone that I wasn't my normal self and I got so anxious about it that when they came over and couldn't explain it I freaked out and I self-harmed and I went on a walk and I was bleeding in a forest and I didn't know what to do, ended up coming home and that person saw and they shouted at me and got so angry at me because I had been so selfish. Never ever do that to anyone, anyone you are living with suffering with BPD, if you are yourself living with BPD or know anyone that even self-harms, do not use guilt. It's not a good option.