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0 By Jody Elford
I was recently diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD or EUPD). So, I decided to begin a series of babbles about how the diagnostic criteria have manifested in my experiences. My hope is to plant seeds of introspection that will facilitate reflection on my experiences, and to begin compartmentalizing my symptoms and more fully understanding myself for what I am.
I’ve written about the first of the diagnostic criteria, fear of abandonment, and this is the second:
‘A pattern of intense & unstable interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.’
Possibly the most important aspect of living with Borderline Personality Disorder is the havoc it wreaks on your interpersonal relationships and your perception of not only the people around you, but the world in general.
BPD is prolific in its tendency to impede on a sufferer’s ability to carve out and maintain healthy, stable and meaningful connections with people. ‘Borderlines’ are known to struggle with their relationships so much that turbulence and instability in this area of their life is actually one of the nine diagnostic criteria.
Let’s explore the ways in which this disorder interferes with interpersonal relationships. I’ll also look at how the loved ones of sufferers can help.
1: Splitting
You will find plenty of discussion in the BPD online community about ‘splitting’. This is also known as ‘split thinking’, ‘all or nothing thinking’, or ‘black and white thinking’.
Borderline individuals shift between polarized perceptions of themselves, their loved ones, their idols, colleagues and society. For some this simply manifests as interpersonal turbulence that doesn’t seem to obviously impact on them too much. For many of us, the effect can be considerably more challenging to live with.
Simply put, splitting (or split thinking) is a disruptive cognitive process whereby the BPD sufferer struggles to reconcile black and white concepts with grey areas. Specifically, it refers to the way an individual might find it challenging to reach internal compromise and therefore achieve rationality in their approach to various situations and people.
Fear and distress
A split can occur in any situation or relationship. But it sadly tends to impact on those of the ‘highest value’ most severely. Borderline people tend to perceive situations (or individuals) as ‘all good’ or ‘all bad’. Splitting tends to occur when a grey area causes cognitive dissonance in their perceptions. That is to say, someone with BPD tends to perceive things as all one way. When anything threatens to contradict that view, they struggle to reconcile their perceptions with the evidence in front of them.
The Borderline individual lives in constant fear of abandonment or rejection. They are incredibly sensitive to the slightest change in any relationship. So it’s unsurprising that they find it challenging to peacefully accept that the people they idolise are only human. Miscommunications, dynamic changes, attitude shifts, routine changes and the disappointments or conflicts that come with every relationship are likely to cause the Borderline intense distress.
Real or imagined
It’s important to also bear in mind that a Borderline’s intense fear of abandonment can make even the smallest rejection or misdeed (whether real or imagined), a much greater cause for upset than for someone without the disorder.
The worst of it is that often we know we are splitting. We are acutely aware that we are being unreasonable or unfair, but we literally cannot help it. The internal responses we have are unavoidable and unpleasant. The petulant, often selfish, sometimes spiteful responses we have to seemingly small and innocuous things, agitate us as much as they hurt our loved ones. This awareness only serves to compound the problem. We become cloying, clingy or positively slave-like, in our attempts to compensate for the capricious or impetuous nature we know we can have.
Bobbi and her boss
Bobbi has great admiration for her boss, Charlie, and they have become quite friendly, frequently socialising outside of work. It is a good companionship that Bobbi values very much. A mistake Bobbi made at work caused a problem that Charlie had to resolve. Bobbi obsessed over her mistake and felt terrible. Charlie called Bobbi to her office to talk to her about the problem and reminded her of how to avoid the same mistake in the future.
Bobbi, feeling criticised and hating herself for not being the ‘perfect employee’, feels that Charlie must respect her so much less for being so rubbish at her job. She is convinced that their relationship outside of work might be in jeopardy because of Charlie’s diminished respect for her. Bobbi feels intense fear about the relationship falling apart. She perceives Charlie going out for a drink with another colleague the next weekend as evidence for this.
Struggling for a healthy balance
Rationally, Bobbi knows she is being silly, and tries to remind herself that Charlie was not angry and was simply being a good manager. She tries to remind herself that there is plenty of evidence to support the idea that Charlie remains her friend, including an invitation to get lunch with her that very afternoon, but she finds it extremely difficult.
Bobbi is experiencing a split, and struggles to strike a healthy balance between over-compensating for the incredible guilt and self-loathing she feels for ‘spoiling’ the relationship she has with Charlie, and distancing herself from Charlie all together through fear of seeming too needy. Bobbi tends to anticipate rejection and abandonment anyway. So she feels compelled to decline Charlie’s invite to lunch, despite desperately wanting to accept. She tries to shut off emotionally from Charlie.
Charlie is left bemused by Bobbi’s apparent change in attitude. She wonders why Bobbi is behaving in such a chilly way. Before too long, though, Bobbi finds a way to stop splitting about this situation. She is able to move past her mistake. She accepts that Charlie can be her friend and a constructively critical boss, simultaneously.
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2: Idealization and Devaluation
Being close to someone with BPD can be bewildering. Sometimes it can be exhaustingly confusing, and you may not know where you stand all the time. It really is down to you to decide whether the person with BPD, and your relationship with them, is truly worth your effort. If you receive as much as you give with the person, you’re likely to have a life-long devoted friend with them, if you’re able to accept the way they are and support them in dealing with it. If, however, the relationship becomes more toxic than turbulent, more their way or the highway – quite simply – more stress than it’s worth, it is okay to distance yourself from the person.
The Borderline’s tendency to put their loved ones onto very high pedestals is one of the ways that relationships can be challenging to navigate for them. We tend to form few truly meaningful attachments, but the ones we do have tend to be incredibly intense. Perhaps due to our difficulties with them, we value our connections very highly. The aforementioned splitting mechanism, however, and our sensitivity to rejection, criticism and change make us liable to abrupt shifts in attitude towards people we love.
Burning bridges
We can switch from, ‘I adore this person and they are just perfect for me’, to, ‘How could they do this to me? Maybe it’s all over and we’ll never be close again’, in a moment. The Borderline can make an inflammatory lover, frustrating partner or bewildering friend. We might experience splits that force us to arrive at irrational conclusions about people and their motives. We even experience entire changes of attitude. So we burn bridges with seemingly next to no effort. Of course, the internal turmoil this sort of behaviour causes for the sufferer is too much to explain. To the subject of their adoration and subsequent devaluation, they can seem quite cold and unaffected by the breakdown of a relationship.
An important take-home message here is that, in being close to someone with BPD, you are going to find yourself on a pedestal whether you want to or not. We pin such an incredible amount of value on our relationships. We idolise our dear ones so deeply that we break our own hearts. The Borderline, by idolising you, is setting you up to fail.
Push or pull
You quite simply could be the sweetest, most accommodating and loving person in the history of the human race. You would still disappoint, eventually. None of us are perfect; we all have flaws and make mistakes. We all manage to hurt, worry or upset the ones we love, whether that was our intention, or not. And BPD sufferers, in their rational mind, know this to be true.
This doesn’t, however, change the nature of the disorder. The Borderline simply (and literally) cannot help but experience an internal tug-of-war. Should they push you away or cling closer to you? Are you the best and most important person they’ve ever met? Or is it safer and more self-preserving to cut you off? It takes years of practice (and, sadly, usually a few relationship breakdowns) for someone with Borderline Personality Disorder to upskill, as it were, and learn to mediate between the BPD rhetoric they can’t avoid and the connections they wish to pursue or maintain.
3. Favourite People
We all have our favourite people, right? Our besties. Relatives we’re especially close to. It’s relatively normal. Even if you’re someone who seldom gets very attached to people, you’re likely to be able to think of at least one or two people you especially enjoy having around.
While you’re perusing material about BPD, you’ll probably find the term ‘favourite person’, or ‘FP’, cropping up frequently. When specifically used in the context of this particular disorder, this is not referring to the favourite people that people without BPD might have. That is, an FP is not simply a best mate or family member.
Borderline people commonly (although, not always) develop intense relationships with people they are close to. Even platonic relationships can be passionate and emotive. We become very ‘involved’ with our friends. This is common in childhood and adolescence but, with borderline individuals, is never grown out of. There are some specific defining aspects of a ‘Favourite Person’ that differentiate it from simply a ‘best’ friendship or attachment. The relationship someone with BPD has with a Favourite Person (henceforth referred to as an FP) is an attachment fundamentally underpinned by fearful adoration, deep and obsessive emotions and incredibly intense value.
Relationship anxiety
An FP can make or break the day for the Borderline, with the most minute details being of great importance. It might be deeply worrying and fear-inducing for the Borderline, for example, if their FP fails to respond to their texts. They may suffer an extremely stressful internal conflict about whether they should leave them alone, text them again, call them, feel angry, worry about their FP’s welfare or throw themselves into a depression because their FP doesn’t need or care about them anymore. As I mentioned earlier with splitting, this is not generally a process that is experienced totally without insight. A BPD sufferer tends to know they’re being irrational. However, even if they find themselves able to stem actual over-reactions, they will still experience the anguish on the inside.
An FP can be anybody, but generally they are borne out of attachments of great meaning to the Borderline. These are usually with people for whom they have a great deal of respect and admiration.
To someone without BPD, the whole notion of having an ‘FP’ might seem ludicrous and juvenile. Rest assured, however that the interactions we have with our FPs hold a massive amount of sway over our general sense of self and wellbeing.
Deep infatuation
We’ve already covered how terribly sensitive the Borderline is to the slightest changes or relationship shifts. Someone with BPD can be pushed into a total panic or self-damaging relapse simply because their FP is away or they have a disagreement. Imagine how mortifying it must be, then, to have your FP talk about moving to another part of the country, or get engaged. Imagine how you’d feel if, for no apparent reason, your most important person in the whole world began talking to you less often. Multiply that tenfold, and that’s close to how the Borderline frets over their FP almost all the time.
This attachment that exists between the Borderline and their FP can be short-lived, or it can last a lifetime. The relationship, in the Borderline’s mind, can feel like a deep infatuation or romance, with or without sexual attraction or involvement. Sometimes their sheer intensity and obsessive nature leads to the subject of their adoration becoming irritated or even unsettled. This often leads to the breakdown of the relationship. Conversely, some people are left feeling devalued and abandoned when they no longer find themselves the subject of the Borderline’s adoration. This causes resentment and even outright jealousy, especially when the sufferer’s FP changes.
My own favourite person
I had never encountered the term ‘favourite person’ in this context until after I was diagnosed. It swiftly brought a few things into an important context for me. I had, previously and frequently, found myself in confusion and agony over a relationship that felt akin to total infatuation. After my diagnosis, I immediately began work on my detective skills. I began to examine my disproportionately emotional responses to relatively small or unimportant things and to begin communicating this with my FP.
My FP just so happens to be my best friend. I am incredibly fortunate in that she seems to totally accept that I sometimes find our connection painful, difficult or confusing to navigate. The connection with an FP can be a source of immense strain. It’s an ambiguous sort of attachment, with deep, deep roots that delve into the soul of the BPD sufferer,
When the FP in question is, however, someone who can withstand the combustible nature of the intensely emotional and possessive Borderline, the companionship they share can be invaluable. The Borderline tends to communicate with their FP in a way that is exclusively unique to their relationship. The FP is possibly the Borderline’s most important resource and access to support. Should a BPD sufferer form any sort of healthy relationship with an FP, and together they manage to navigate the relationship so that it serves them both well, they will have found in one another a soulmate of immense importance.
A wonderful connection
My FP and I have been mistaken for sisters, even a couple before. We are capable of almost totally non-verbal communication and are more ‘in-tune’ than I ever thought possible with another person. It is a silly, precious, unique and wonderful connection that defies any sort of definition I can think of.
My soul has known Bumble forever. I feel so lucky to have someone who can help me navigate through the dark and turbulent waters of BPD when I lose my way. She understands my need for almost constant reassurance of her love and care. In turn I try to believe her when she tells me she gets as much in return out of our friendship.
When the diseased rhetoric of BPD threatens to throw my perception of our connection into question, I know I can – with some effort, of course, it isn’t easy – ‘check in’, as it were, and explore how I feel without having to fear her recoiling in disgust or laughing at me.
Reproduced with permission, originally posted here: mentalbabble
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