BPD: Basic Information, Providing Compassion, and Determining Boundaries with Borderline Personality Disorder (Part 2)
Providing Compassion for Yourself or a Loved One with BPD
It can be difficult to feel compassion for yourself or a loved one with a BPD diagnosis, especially if you experience its ups and downs or its social impact. However, holding compassion for the diagnosis and the person living with it can be a powerful way of reclaiming the power of one’s emotions, thoughts, behaviors, relationships, and sense of self.
To show self-compassion, try remembering these key points:
BPD causes emotions to occur in a large way, at a fast rate, and at the same time, which can be overwhelming, overstimulating, and disorienting for individuals without emotional regulation skills. If you are struggling with large emotions, you are alive and human. You are valid in your emotions and a BPD diagnosis does not change the validity of your emotions.
Misconceptions have created a biased narrative about BPD. A BPD diagnosis does not dictate your personality. You are you, not your diagnosis. You are so much more.
You experience so many intense emotions, thoughts, and sensations in a day, which can also cause you to be passionate, loving, loyal, and a deeply caring person. You are not solely the darker side of BPD. There is a lot of light too.
You deserve to be here, loved, and seen. You deserve to feel safe, have your boundaries honored, and your needs met.
To show compassion to loved ones, try remembering these key points:
It is important to remember that individuals with BPD can engage in behaviors that are considered hurtful or manipulative, but underneath those behaviors, is a need that is not being met. If an individual has never learned how to effectively ask for a need to be met, they will use any means necessary to meet that need. They might be asking for something, without knowing how to ask in a different way.
If you are struggling to hold compassion, perhaps try looking at hurtful behavior as a result of living in a persistent survival mode.
BPD does not always appear as it does in the media. The way that the media depicts the severity of BPD is found in a small percentage of individuals with the diagnosis.
Lashing out can be an expression of fear that they will lose you, not an expression of a desire to hurt you.
Threats of suicide and self-harm are not always intended as threats. In the moment, they may seem like the only option, especially when emotional pain is felt so intensely.
Setting Boundaries With Yourself or a Loved One with BPD
While compassion is crucial for understanding and loving either yourself or someone diagnosed with BPD, boundaries are as well.
If you find yourself questioning or with a BPD diagnosis, you can begin boundary-setting with these points:
Acknowledge that you are experiencing an intense thought or emotion. Acknowledgement can help redirect your neural pathways to bring more awareness and logic to your current experience.
Communicate what you need from others in a way that is also mindful of their emotions, needs, and humanness.
Communicate your triggers to trusted loved ones. Others cannot know your triggers unless you communicate them. It is up to you and your loved one to determine a way to manage and navigate triggers and episodes together to validate both of your experiences.
You and your favorite person cannot be together all of the time, and that is okay. Open a discussion with them so that you can discuss ways to feel close to them without their individuality feeling like abandonment.
You are allowed to ask for your needs and you are allowed to prioritize your safety.
Ask yourself why you are using a behavior that may be less effective in reaching your goals. If you are needing something that is not being provided, identify alternative methods that align more with the type of person you want to be in the relationship.
If someone you love has been diagnosed or could qualify for a BPD diagnosis, boundaries are essential to maintain a healthy and supportive relationship. You can begin setting and maintaining boundaries with these points:
Just because they are experiencing a large emotion, does not mean you need to take it on yourself as your own. You are allowed to coexist with their discomfort without it consuming your inner world.
Your needs are equally important and you must express your needs in order to cultivate a healthy relationship.
Your peace and space is in your right. Communication of both your need for space and the importance of your relationship with this loved one is key.
Your trauma and experiences are equally important and your emotions are just as valid, even if they are not felt as intensely.
You are allowed to set boundaries without fear of hurting your loved one. Putting aside your boundaries, emotions, and needs for the sake of your loved one can create your role as an emotional caregiver.
Living with an Emotional Superpower
As previously mentioned, a BPD diagnosis comes with power and pain. In times when this power and pain create more discomfort for clients, I find it essential to remember the famous line:
“With great power comes great responsibility.”
It may seem strange, but stay with me.
If you or a loved one suspect you may meet the criteria for a BPD diagnosis or have received one, you experience this great power every day. It may not feel like one now, but that’s okay. Every superpower has felt like a burden at one time or another, but perhaps we look at its heaviness as a responsibility rather than a burden.
With this tremendous emotional superpower comes a great responsibility to manage it and find ways to channel your power so that you can do so meaningfully and comfortably. That is why it is okay to seek help, ask for new coping skills, and find ways to communicate with loved ones.
With knowledge of this power, compassion for what it can do, and boundaries to shape it according to what matters, someone with a BPD diagnosis can be unstoppable and unapologetically human.
Search Our Other Blogs!
Interested in Online & In-Person Counseling for Mood Regulation, Depression, or Borderline Personality Disorder?
If you’re a Marylander who knows that counseling is the direction you need to take, the therapists at LifeSpring Counseling Services are here to help. We offer online counseling services for mindfulness, depression, anxiety, trauma, and grief and loss. We also offer Brainspotting as a specialized service, and Brainspotting can be done online, too!
Here’s how you can get started! Online and in-person counseling for mood regulation, depression, and borderline personality disorder aren’t the only services offered at our Monkton, MD office.
The counselors and social workers at our Maryland office also offer counseling services for trauma, grief and loss, boundary setting, communication skills, and difficult life transitions. We also offer specialized counseling services including Brainspotting and spiritually-integrated counseling. Because we are located next to several local universities, we also work with college students and international students.
Written by: Sophie Koch, LGPC
Sophie is a LifeSpring therapist who offers online and in-person counseling services to adolescents and adults (15 and up) to offer help with depression, anxiety, borderline personality disorder, trauma, and mood disorders.
