I dated a woman who had described herself as having Borderline Personality Disorder, Bi-Polar, and ADHD. I was already familiar with ADHD and Bi-Polar. But having a relationship with someone with Borderline Personality Disorder was more difficult than reading about the personality disorder in textbooks. The relationship ended horribly. I was at a loss for what I did wrong. I started to read about BPD. I found that our relationship was somewhat typical. I decided to study BPD.
Some traits of Borderline Personality Disorder that were shown by her were:
- Emotional dysregulation: Having moods swing emotions that are spontaneous and unpredictable. Commonly noted as a comment coming out of nowhere. ex. I love you but now go to prison as an emotional response to a new issue.
- Absolute Thinking: Dating someone with this black and white thinking. They go to the extremes to make a point.
- Self Harm: They regularly inflicted harm on themselves to feeling something. Dating someone with self harm can be hard because they are suicide, cutting themselves and have a hard time with conflict. They get relief from the emotional pain through the self harm.
A therapy that can work for these symptoms:
Dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) is an evidence-based model of therapy that helps people learn and use new skills and strategies so that they build lives they feel are worth living.
Three things that we do in DBT therapy that can help with Borderline Personality disorder to help your partner:
- Mindfulness
- Interpersonal Skills
- Emotional Regulation
- Destress Tolerance
This therapy works for borderline personality disorders because it allows the person to work through their emotions in a safe space and creates a new behavior around emotions and daily basis so that they can cope with their disorder in the day to day routine so everyone in their life can be benefit.