Borderline or Marginal Personality Disorder, BPD

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Most BPD person aren't diagnosed as such. Most don't show what are considered classic symptoms. BPD persons want to appear normal and may enjoy covertly causing emotional stress and chaos for others, especially in social settings. They will appear as the calm one, there to solve the problems they themselves created. Having a family member, child, or significant other that is a BPD sufferer can cause, or enhance all forms of PTSD, family estrangement, stress, medical problems, or even contribute to suicide in an otherwise normal person. It is also a question of the patient's empathy. Classic thought is that they have more, in my opinion, far less. What are your thoughts?

This is this blogger's opinion, and lifetime observation from having grown up under a marginal personality person.

stevengerickson@yahoo.com

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How to deal with people with borderline personality disorder

by Tab Julius

It has taken me longer to write this than I had expected. I was in a relationship with a BPD for nearly ten years. Although I loved this person, I hated the relationship. It was a psychological hell. Once I understood what was going on (and you should know it took nearly eight years to figure it out), I still loved her, and didn't "blame" her. I didn't hate her, but I had to decide whether or not I could stay in that relationship both for the sake of my own mental health and that of our child. Ultimately I chose to get out and that, although difficult, was best for both our child and myself.

There are many expressions of BPD. I know I can only speak to the one I experienced. I thought I could write about it easily, but it brings up many memories and conflicts I had hoped I had successfully suppressed by now.

Borderline Personality Disorder, or BPD as it is often called, is a complex disorder. Disorders are diagnosed according to the DSM IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, version 4). They are not just arbitrarily done. DSM IV lays out nine criteria for BPD, of which a patient must meet at least 5 to be diagnosed with BPD.

My former partner easily met seven, and was marginal on the remaining two. In other words, she was a full-blown BPD.

Most people connote BPD with "cutting" (e.g.: slashing forearms with razor blades or knives as a sign of distress, or private relief), as "popularized" in the movie "Girl, Interrupted".

Although cutting happens, it is not universal. Not everyone does it. Cutting, if it does occur, is the least of it. It is a very obvious indicator, but just a small aspect of the disorder. My partner did not cut, but she did nearly everything else. One of the nine criteria is "Self-destructive behavior". Yes, that can be cutting, but it can be any number of other things, from financially-destructive, to emotionally-destructive, to health-destructive. Invariably, relationship destructive.

For a variety of reasons, naivety being part of it, and not recognizing it was a disorder, I didn't get out of the relationship when I should have. In the beginning, I argued back, taking her word that I was the problem, and it being the first really long-term relationship I had been in (she had been in others) I assumed it was me. What did I know?

Eventually I realized I could never match the depth of her anger, or ever fill her emotional needs.

It was many years before I had confided with someone who also had experienced a BPD in her life. [more from source]

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http://thesrv.blogspot.com/2007/07/narcissistic-personality-disorder.html

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National PTSD Syndrome

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Parental Alienation: Shame, Blame and Marginal Parenting Skills. Target Parents you get what you deserve? by Monika Logan

I recently came across an article by Victoria Clayton titled, Divorce does not Have to Destroy the Kids. Clayton makes some vital points. Still, while the advice is sound, many parents are keenly aware that post-divorce conflict is not good. Divorce is often destructive and life-alerting even when the divorce is amicable. Still, studies show that good post-divorce relations are less devastating to children. Consequently, experts offer guidance on how to keep post-divorce relations peaceful and minimize placing children in the middle of adult conflicts.

Some of the best-interest-of- the children suggestions Clayton (2007) noted are: to minimize transitions, do not berate your ex in front of the children and do not use the child as messengers. I agree with Clayton; children of divorce would be happy, healthy, and hopeful if parents’ would follow these simple rules. There are numerous articles and studies regarding the importance of good-post divorce relations. However, what most articles fail to address, is when one parent gives it all they got. They voluntarily enroll in every parenting class, attend all parent teacher conferences, remain involved and love with all their might. They go to great extremes to shield the child from damaging comments from an ex-spouse.

Some ex-spouses, unfortunately, refuse to participate in harmonious shared parenting. This is where experts become divided, debates crop up and advice dwindles. Many experts snub the notion that bad-parenting can be one-sided. As an example, in one joint custody situation, a parent was court- ordered to a class, titled, “be a parent not a friend.” One would hope that the parent would incorporate class lessons into their daily life. One would also hope and pray that proper boundaries were established. Regrettably, they were not. The parent still believes the child is a sounding board and a friend. In turn, the child displays various behaviors that cause fret in the target parent. Classes can be court-ordered but they cannot be enforced.

If ones ex-spouse refuses to stop denigrating, what is the trying to do it right parent to do? Despair sets in as parents watch their child slowly turns against them. The child displays a form of disrespect that intact families could not envision. The “trying to do the right thing parent” attempts counseling for the child– only to meet opposition. The trying parent is told that maybe some parenting classes might help. The parent leaves the counseling session never to return, as they have already been there and done that.

As adolescents these kids skip school, become cutters and believe that the sole existence of the other (target) parent is for monetary purposes. In some cases, the kid stops speaking to the other parent. The experts’ well-intended but misconstrued recommendation is to “take the high road” and that one day “the kid will figure it out.” The reality? Some kids figure it out when it is too late. Not all children are resilience to bad-mouthing, brainwashing, and bashing. Resilience is most likely if the child has a good support system and a strong sense of self. However ”bouncing back” diminishes if the child has been in the middle of a hate campaign from a young age. Fortunately, there are some experts that have figured it out.

One known expert is Dr. Richard Warshak. I and many others, deem his book, Divorce Poison, as offering specific, real-world, no-nonsense advice. One cannot stop the other parent from badmouthing in the presence of innocent ears. But one can education him or herself on what not to do, what not to say, and how not to act. “Target parents generally have had no prior experience dealing with this degree of disrespect and rejection from their children” (Warshak, 2010). Astonishingly a few findings indicate that not only are alienating parents guilty of poor- parenting, but target (rejected) parents are also incompetent. While it is cautionary that more systemic research is needed, some pose “… these rejected parents fall within the broad range of marginal to good enough to sometimes better parents, who do not have a history of physical or emotional abuse” (Johnston, 2001). What about the class of “good” parents, or even “trying to be good” parents? Target parents, what range are you in? Hopefully, a categorical class of “better.”

One can then conclude that a rejected parent possess “marginal” parenting skills. They sort of get what they deserve. I wonder then, if parents in intact families are rated as exemplified parents solely because they are not target parents? That is, they are not the target of a hate campaign by an ex-spouse; an ex-spouse that cannot move on with life. As noted by Warshak (2010)”most parents can benefit from specific coaching on how to respond effectively to divorce poison.” It seems reasonable that some experts too could benefit from specific instruction. “Some parent’s and professionals resist the notion that one parent can be primarily responsible for a child’s alienation” (Warshak, 2010). Yes, it is true; rage, resentment and revenge can be in the heart and mind of one parent. The outcome, is a child that is taught to hate a once loved parent.

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• Parental Alienation: Refined, Reformulated & Rationalized: You Might Be An …
• Alienation, Affinity, and / or Aversion? Poor Parenting and Child Preferen…
• Parental Alienation- A Christian View: Thorn of My Flesh or A Prodigal Child?
• I ignore my kids when my computer’s in the room

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A Patient with Dissociative Identity Disorder 'Switches' in the Emergency Room
By Rený J. Muller, Ph.D. | November 1, 1998

Dr. Muller works for the Crisis Intervention Service at Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore, Md. His books include The Marginal Self: An Existential Inquiry into Narcissism (1987), Alembics: Baltimore Sketches, Etc. (1992) and Anatomy of a Splitting Borderline: Description and Analysis of a Case History (1994). His most recent book, Beyond Marginality: Constructing a Self in the Twilight of Western Culture, has just been published by Praeger.

Dissociative identity disorder (DID), known as multiple personality disorder until renamed in the DSM-IV (American Psychiatric Association, 1994), is a controversial diagnosis. Many highly regarded clinicians (Putnam, 1989; Ross, 1989) have built careers working with patients they believe to have DID. Other distinguished practitioners consider DID to be a bogus diagnostic tag.

McHugh (1992) argues vigorously that hysteria-what he sees as the DID patient's "more or less unconscious effort to appear more significant to others and to be more entitled to their interest and support"-along with the current social canonization of the victim, accounts for the fanciful behavior of those who claim to have multiple identities and personalities.

Merskey (1992) believes that the rise in DID diagnosis can be traced to the influence of the 1957 book The Three Faces of Eve and other books and films about DID, as well as the uncritical embracing of the DID diagnosis by a large number of mental health care professionals. He claims he could not identify a single uncontaminated DID case originating in a defensive response to trauma, the mechanism classically thought to underlie DID.

McHugh, Merskey and other critics of DID all essentially agree that the behavior named by this diagnosis is socially learned behavior. Highlighting the interaction of patient and culture, Merskey sees DID behavior as the "manufacture of madness." Focusing on the role of the mental health care profession in this mislearning, McHugh calls the diagnosis a "psychiatric misadventure" (McHugh, 1992, 1995; McHugh and Putnam, 1995).

Perhaps some patients-but probably not most given this diagnosis-experience a trauma-induced, psychodynamically based dissociation and fragmentation of feeling, thinking and behavior sufficient to allow coalescence around two or more distinct identities. (DSM-IV bases diagnosis on behavior; the meaning of this behavior often remains unclear and unspecified.) Whatever the origin of their dissociated behavior, those who meet criteria for DID have frequent exacerbations of their symptoms, and they often come to the emergency room in crisis.

Nadine, age 23, acted in a way consistent with the supposition of dissociated identities to a greater degree than any other patient with whom I have worked. (How Nadine came to act this way and what her actions meant is ultimately unknown.) This was the third time I had been asked to see her in the ER. She was sitting on a royal blue mattress in the seclusion room, watched and comforted by a female technician who had a particularly gentle way with patients.

Nadine seemed to be holding court, alternately speaking English and Russian, a language she later told me she had studied seriously. Her speech was rapid and pressured, loud and emphatic. Much of what she said was intelligible, some was not. She wrote in a notebook as she spoke, making bold strokes that produced lines and, occasionally, a few words. Nadine was childlike in appearance and manner-short, slightly built, with short brown hair and thick glasses that seemed too big for her sharp-featured, feral face.

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Do many Connecticut State Officials have BPD and Narcissistic Personality Disorder, NPD?

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Is Connecticut Organized Crime and Street Gang friendly?