Different

An article that was sent to me by X, after a discussion we had about her smashing up the apartment she shared with her ex-boyfriend. I have no idea where it's from.

QUESTION:

Does a person who can be considered BPD have another type of reality? In other words, my future ex-wife would constantly say that I did not love her enough, but in the end she left. There was no explanation outside of a note on the door - she sold the house within a month. My question is how do you break the mental wall that now makes her view me as a stranger?

ANSWER:
The short answer to your question is, you don't. The way that you put it, that a BP exists in a sort of alternative reality, is actually pretty accurate. Despite usually being very observative, they have a very difficult time recognizing and interpreting people's behaviour towards themselves, particularly positive behaviours, due to their inability to accept themselves as worthy or deserving of love and vaildation. This generally presents a problem for the rest of us because their perceptions, responses, and behaviors very often go against our expectations. The BP sees the world as black-and-white. That your wife would sell the house within one month of your separation is very typical. An aspect of the borderline's social construction of reality is the inability to distinguish between an object (meaning a complex that represents something to them psychosocially) and the person, thing or situation which they are confronting. So, black-and-white translates for them into good and evil or good and bad. When something is good, they are attached to it relentlessly and when something is bad, they reject it mercilessly (such as, selling the house or throwing out your clothes.)

They tend to see the world through a distorted lens that is much different than the one the rest of us peer through. Although we may be able to appreciate and understand their perceptions, we cannot shift their gaze.

We talk about these articles a lot, because it's so weird to hear the things you do and the way you think discussed as abnormal behaviour.

We all (X, Y and I) only discovered recently that anything we did was different, because that's all you know until someone tells you otherwise. Y sees shadow people, faceless black shapes in his peripheral vision, always has. Never thought much of it, never mentioned it specifically. We both hear voices and/or music emanating from household appliances, washing machines etc. That looks really weird written down, but I never really thought about whether other people did or not.

In the same way it never occurred to any of us that the way we think or feel was any different to anyone else. The wife's behavior, in the article, does not seem the slightest bit strange to me.

The group therapy X goes to often includes people who are not BPD, but who have BPD friends or partners. They are SO CONFUSED by the behaviour of their friends - X always tells me their stories and they make PERFECT SENSE to us.

No comments:

Post a Comment