Professional Documents
Culture Documents
1 de 9
Home
Find a Therapist
Topic Streams
Get Help
Magazine
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/resolution-not-conflict/201210/...
Tests
Psych Basics
Experts
Published on October 31, 2012 by Susan Heitler, Ph.D. in Resolution, Not Conflict
266
Like
38
StumbleUpon
4
Tweet
Share
What is borderline personality disorder? It's a pattern of intensely hyperemotional responses, especially to situations that trigger abandonment
fears. It's a pattern of demanding, critical and chaotic relationships
instead of cooperative communicating. It's a pattern also of
misinterpreting situations as hurtful that are in fact benign, with the
misinterpretations ocuring either while the situation is happening, or in
retelling the events later. It also may be a pattern of attractive and highly
competent-appearing social functioning at times alternating with periods of
intense and inappropriate anger, narcissism, and explicitly hurtful behavior
(to themselves or to others).
What would you expect to see in a mother (or a dad) with borderline
personality features? Alas, you would see widespread domestic violence
of the verbal variety. That's because one hallmark of a borderline
personality is unpredictable raging.
In addition, you would see narcissism, that is, inability to attune to others'
needs, including her child's. Instead of attunement to the child's needs,
whatever happens would be experienced as 'all about her.'
You might alas also see abusive behavior. In fact if it's the man with
borderline tendencies, that is, if it's the dad who is difficult, his bpd pattern
is likely to be labeled abusive personality.
Here's a classic example of a borderline parent in a situation that most
dads or moms would react to with an easy hug. Mom and child are walking
on the sidewalk. Child falls. Mom erupts in fury. "How could you fall like
that here where everyone can see you? You are making me look bad!"
The child's concerns would be irrelevant. The mother's reaction to the
incident would be all about Mom.
I've written several articles about how children do and do not develop
borderline personality disorder: The Sleepover: How a Cute Little Girl
Develops Borderline Personality Disorder and How an Often-Angry Little
Girl Does Not Develop a Borderline Personality Disorder.
Find a Therapist
Search for a mental
health professional
near you.
Find Local:
Please note: When I use the word Mother in this article I intend it to refer
Acupuncturists
12/11/2014 4:40
2 de 9
Chiropractors
Massage Therapists
Dentists
and more!
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/resolution-not-conflict/201210/...
(c) Fotosearch.com
It takes a great deal of sheer courage for a person who has been
domineered his or her whole life by a parent who tantrums and rages,
blames, and lashes out when angry, to even attempt to leave their
presence when they begin raging at you. It took me until my mid-forties to
even think about trying it. The first time that I just left the room when my
bpd/npd mother started in having a rage-and-criticism fit at me, I felt scared
but very empowered.
And it does work! I really does. Sometimes it takes a long time and many
repetitions, and sometimes the behavior gets worse, even, before it gets
better, but it does work. Its the same technique you've described for
handling a toddler who is having a tantrum, its just exponentially more
difficult to actually have the guts to DO it when the person having the
rage-tantrum is one's parent.
RESPONSE FROM DR. HEITLER
Yes, I whole-heartedly agree, both with the applicability of exits to
interactions with adults of all types, and to how extremely difficult for a
child, even an adult child, to feel internally strong enough to implement the
strategy.
One person in her 40's that I worked with recently said she still couldn't
envision herself using the technique of exiting, of removing herself from the
situation, in response to her mother's rages. Even as a grown adult, her
fear of her mother's reprisals was still too potent. She still felt tiny and still
eperienced her mother as all-powerful. Reprisals in her case were now via
manipulation by guilt rather than physical or verbal abuse as they'd been in
her childhood, but the impact was the same.
COMMENT
I Have used your exit strategy intervention in my own life as well as
in my work!
I have discovered that the bathroom plays a very important role in a home
[with a borderline mother] as children are taught early on that it is a no
disturb zone, They are also experienced in knowing that it is a place
visited numerous times a day by all people so there is no sense of
abandonment when that door closes, unlike he front door of a home.
So, if during an interaction that is heating up, when a child [young or adult]
or a teen who is suffering from a raging or domineering parent, needs time
out and does not have the ability to Exit, a visit to the bathroom can
work wonders.
The exit-tothe-bathroom can be repeated as often as necessary.
In one case [in my clinical practice] the Mom actually got the message!!
She said in her tirade and now you are going to go into the bathroom,
RIGHT? And her daughter didnt respond. Later in the day when mom was
calmer, the daughter, age 11, said simply I go there when I am scared!
Mom was actually surprised when she thought back just how often her
daughter had been going to the bathroom. It was a signal to her to get help.
12/11/2014 4:40
3 de 9
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/resolution-not-conflict/201210/...
12/11/2014 4:40
4 de 9
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/resolution-not-conflict/201210/...
12/11/2014 4:40
5 de 9
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/resolution-not-conflict/201210/...
I will give you my attention only in response to quiet talking, not to whining,
yelling, or anger explosions."
Thanks for highlighting this point!
COMMENT
that i am today.
RESPONSE FROM DR. HEITLER
A very important question: What does bring on adult-onset raging?
Heres several possibilities. One, several or all may pertain to your
situation.
You are partnering with people who only listen to you when you
rage.
You are partnering with people who act as if your raging is
acceptable behavior.
Something upsetting happened at some point that continues to boil
within you, so any small thing in the present can tip your energies
into boiling over. i.e., the trauma reset your amygdala to hyperactive
responsivity.
You had a parent or other caretaker who modeled bpd behavior.
An allergic or other physical reaction keeps your emotions on
easy-overload (allergies can impact any part of our bodies, not just
skin or runny noses)
You are misdiagnosed. Maybe your raging is from a bipolar rather
than a bpd phenomenon.
COMMENT
I have a spouse with BPD. When we first met, she would rage frequently.
Fortunately, and after many years of therapy, her rages have calmed down
considerably and now rarely even occur.
But I don't believe that "walking away" is always the right approach in
these situations, especially with my spouse. When I did that, it would just
serve to infuriate her further and often led to suicidal ideation or other
reckless behavior.
Instead, using the PUVAS skill provided much better results: Pay attention,
Understand what is being said, Validate the feelings (right or wrong), Assert
your position, Shift responsibility where it belongs. The validation is key.
Her rages were often a result of not feeling like she'd been heard or
understood (and validated). Maybe this approach should be different for a
child, but I can say for sure that it works well with adults.
RESPONSE FROM DR. HEITLER
You highlight another key point. For walking away to work between two
adults, the adults need to discuss it ahead of time and mutually agree on
choreography that feels good to them both. You are so right that if one
partner "walks out on" the other, that is going to worsen the situation. By
contrast, when spouses agree that if either of them begins heating up, they
both will turn in opposite directions, separate, cool down, and then
re-engage more constructively...that is a strategy that both partners can
participate in together.
COMMENT
I think that the most crucial and relevant factor in dealing effectively with
someone who has a problem with emotional regulation is the power
dynamic: the way to manage the situation and have it turn out well is highly
12/11/2014 4:40
6 de 9
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/resolution-not-conflict/201210/...
12/11/2014 4:40
7 de 9
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/resolution-not-conflict/201210/...
Only my grandmother knew what was really happening. She was my friend
and ally.
RESPONSE FROM DR. HEITLER
Thanks for sharing your story, and especially for your last sentence.
"Only my grandmother knew what was really happening. She was my friend
and ally."
Research suggests that if a child has at least one person who validates
that the bpd parent is out of line, validating that the raging is not the child's
fault, the child's odds of growing into a normal and emotionally healthy
adulthood zoom up.
The moral of the story: grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors, and
teachers--your role is vitally important. If you see a child with a borderline
parent, your friendship to that child is hugely leveraged, a potentially great
blessing.
The
following Comment addresses the impacts of family members beyond
parents on kids. In this writer's case, alas, the interventions were primarily
negative rather than helpful.
COMMENT
So first, I'll caveat my comments by mentioning that I am not a parent. My
husband and I enjoy the company of our friends' children, and like being
aunt and uncle to my brother's step-daughter, but I have little direct
experience raising children. Bear that in mind when you read my comment,
because it is aimed primarily at teens and adults who are being emotionally
and verbally abused by people with BPD. That said, I will touch on my
experiences as a child being surrounded by BPD people by the end, which
may be helpful to some of the parents posting on here who have young
children.
Growing up, my extended family flew into rages and were unstable and
unpredictable from one moment to the next. Their tongue-lashings could be
cruel, and apparently haven't stopped. My uncle called our youngest
brother "lazy" several years ago for having the audacity to dual-major in
STEM and GIS IT, minor in German, do a bunch of internships and jobs in
his difficult field, and graduate later than he should have, in the "screwed"
Class of '09, which left him strictly with offers from employers in the
food-service sector.
Whether on the phone, or in-person, I told them that if they insisted on
raging at me, I would not speak to them until they could calm down. I would
sometimes phrase this as "I understand you are upset, but I have a right
not to be yelled at. I'm going to leave [hang up] until we can have a
conversation in a calm and productive manner." 9 times out of 10, this
worked. While I am no longer close with my extended family, on the rare
occasions when I do have to interact with them and one or the other of
them flies into their fits, I use this technique, typically to excellent results.
Anyway, I grew up emotionally abused by certain non-primary family
members, was sexually assaulted my senior year of college as "payback"
for not wanting to date an older male friend whose life consisted of sitting
in his mother's basement and crying about how his life was unfair, have
12/11/2014 4:40
8 de 9
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/resolution-not-conflict/201210/...
been knocked around by an older male bully at nearly every job I've had (at
least one, maybe two, had BPD, and another two had NPD), and, since I
had no idea what a healthy relationship looked like, between my parents'
recent divorce and my relatives' constant bickering and abuse, I dated a
revolving door of abusive losers, both male and female, between the ages
of 15 and 23, until I met my husband and broke the cycle. This is a lot of
abuse and violence for one person to process and deal with, and I have
panic attacks secondary to PTSD as a result.
While the symptoms of PTSD vary from person to person, one symptom
that can dominate for some patients, especially women who've been
sexually assaulted or abused, is sudden outbursts of crying, or other
losses of emotional control that appear to come out of nowhere. This has
happened to me at work, and what I've done is either cry quietly in my
private office, cry in the bathroom, or hold in the tears until I was able to
get at least a quarter-mile away from the office/office park, at which point, I
cried it out until I could cry no more.
However, I usually reserve my crying for home, and when I first moved in
with my husband,just under 2 months after my 24th birthday, he was
confused and bewildered by my sudden emotional outbursts. Some women
have been misdiagnosed as BPD, when they're actually abuse victims with
PTSD, while other abuse victims are diagnosed as bipolar, and the
outbursts of anger/crying are characterized as "mixed-mood states." There
is still a stigma against women showing anger in psychiatry, which remains
a heavily male-dominated profession and continues to feature very genderdelineated DSM-IV/DSM-V diagnoses. So if your little girl is crying or acting
out a lot, but BPD or bipolar doesn't seem to fit, look closer, or "abres los
ojos," ("open your eyes") as we say in Spanish. It may be she's a victim of
abuse.
IN SUM, what are the options for children of raging borderline
mothers, dads or other adults?
When the parent is the raging one, what are the childs options? The child
usually feels helpless vis a vis the power of parents. They quickly learn to
do whatever they need to do to stay safe.
These conciliatory habits may
continue into adult life. Even when
the child has grown into physical
adulthood, the childhood terror of
others, and especially of mothers,
anger may persist.
Adult children of bpd moms do have
options. If s/he can summon up the
courage, the adult child can take a
(c) Fotosearch.com
role of parent to their bpd mom. As
adults they can learn to respond to Moms anger with exits. I.e., "I'm glad
to talk with you. And at the same time I will give you my attention only in
response to quiet talking, not to whining, yelling, or anger explosions."
Still, if mom traumatized her children when they were growing up, laying
down the law like this may feel close to impossible for the adult child of a
bpd.
At the same time, nothing succeeds like success. If the now-adult child of
the still-raging mom decides to try exits once or twice, with each success
the new regime is likely to get easier.
Lastly, I would like to re-emphasize the vital role of 3rd person
on-lookers.
If you see a mom who is raging with a child, do something. Speak up to
the mother with borderline personality patterns of parenting. Intervene.
Talk to her. Say something, anything, about how the raging is bad both for
her and for her her child. Explain that professional help could ease the
situation. Call authorities. Talk with the child and explain that Mom rages
because of her problems; her anger is not the childs fault. Do something.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Articles on this blog on the subject of borderline personality disorder:
12/11/2014 4:40
9 de 9
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/resolution-not-conflict/201210/...
Copyright 1991-2014
Sussex Publishers, LLC
Google+
About/Contact
Privacy Policy
Site Help/Customer
Service
Terms of Use
12/11/2014 4:40