3 Ways the Family Affects Borderline Personality Disorder (& Vice Versa)

I'm Kyle Kittleson from the medical circle, this is Callie from the lab and today I'm here with clinical psychologist dr. Romany, thanks for being back, we're talking about

borderline

personality

disorder

, both how the

family

system

affects

BPD and how BPD

affects

the

family

, but stay tuned to the end of this video because dr. Romney is going to share what he thinks

borderline

personality

disorder

should actually be called to better represent what it entails, so let's get started, how is BP transmitted? How does the family system affect the number one BPD individual through the communication that families and communication often use? shortcuts, families that you know can be passive-aggressive, those small breakdowns in communication can be quite catastrophic for a person with borderline personality disorder, who can misinterpret that and that can escalate to arguments, anger, hostility and volatility that in certain This leaves the entire family system exhausted.

The second is tone and while we could put that in communication, I really think it deserves its own place or the borderline personality is worried. Many people say I didn't say anything wrong. I said: go ahead. I support your decision and they will say. but that's how you said it, it's like, oh my god, no, I have to know, but the tone actually does matter because if someone was like, you know what I think, you should definitely take that class, it's a great idea, it's very different from going, taking the class. I know, delivery of tone is important, we know that we are all affected by that, that means that often there can be a little more monitoring, you know, in terms of how the family has to monitor how they communicate, but not I know. that that is ever a bad thing that if we all watched our tone we would probably be better parents greeting let our partners we would be better friends we would be better family members Sarg things like sarcastic tone our classic example of something that can be misinterpreted by someone with borderline traits or a borderline personality disorder that can then escalate into a much broader discussion, well, and then number three, I would say, is your awareness and especially awareness around the key issue of abandonment, abandonment is a key issue. and borderline personality and When we think of abandonment, we actually think of literally abandoning someone, like leaving them and disappearing and never coming into contact with them again, obviously that's an extreme example, but for a person with borderline personality it could be someone who abruptly leaves a room during an argument experiences abandonment a person says I've had it, I'm out of here that experiences abandonment even psychological distance in the room is experienced as abandonment by many people with borderline personality disorder and sometimes Sometimes this can be an after-effect of having been exposed to trauma or abuse they become very aware of the temperature of the room at all times they monitor their surroundings, they monitor what everyone does, says and feels, and when you feel like someone has moved away a little bit, experience that as abandonment, so I tell families whatever you do, make sure that even if you feel like you need to leave the room to protect yourself, which is totally fine, Make sure you set it up as if you let the person say it.

I know I'm having a little problem right now. I'm just going to go into another room to think about this for a moment. I'm there, don't worry about it, but I just need a moment to myself. I kind of have the right to ask for that, so what did you call that distance? Psychological distance. I collage a cold distance, yes, yes, and you and the other educators in the medical circle are so good at setting that example of the right tone, guys. watch the series dr. Dr. Romani. judy dr. dom when you give those examples I al

ways

feel much calmer, I think you do too, that you deliver this in such a way that I can see why it resonates with the person receiving it, but that takes practice, yes, and that's where people miss it they see you do it and you do it so perfectly they say oh that's easy I'll do it next time not in my life I don't know I mean there's a day when I come home after a 14 hour work day you I can tell you that I'm not at all elegant and my tone is off, that's right, so even when I say these are things at work, I'm not saying they al

ways

come out easily, yes, yes, of course, yes, it's okay, now let's talk about three. ways that BPD can affect family system number one, we will call it hypersensing, hypersensitization of a family system, what we call walking on eggshells, the family starts to get very nervous with the hypercontrol and if I say this wrong way and if I don't do this, even the monitoring, the tone that they feel, if I'm wrong about something, there's going to be an explosion and that kind of hyper-monitoring starts to strain the family system.

The second is the anxiety of people on the edge. Family systems are worried: When will a great explosion occur? What will it be like next time? What if they are not safe? I'm so afraid of them hurting themselves. I never know what to say. I know I feel like a failure because I can't help my own family member. There is a real anxiety that emanates from that and that anxiety can last even outside the home, which means that the person can actually affect work, it could affect school because living under that condition of having a family with borderline disorder. personality there is a lot of anxiety, the third is that I would say that the other impact would be confusion, it is just that we do not know what we do, what we say, the families feel incredibly helpless. maybe even the third way I would say helplessness what do we do we no longer know what to do we no longer know what to say we can sit here we could try this we could try a different tone we could try a different approach sometimes people worry that they are allowing the person who says that we are not doing that we are not making any adults ask them more than not, that we feel helpless, one of the most important things that contributes to that feeling of helplessness that Kyle has. the fact that at least in the United States and certainly in the United States you cannot force a person to undergo treatment, so the family feels that we need to take our family member to therapy, they may have the means and everything to do it, but if a person does not agree with the treatment, you can't just drag them away and deposit them in a waiting room.

In fact, I remember the office making a trope about this, like with some they're trying to force someone to go to rehab, Shelley remembers, yeah and me. I was almost saying yes, I was, yes, exactly, I was on and yes, they were being a farce at the time, but they nailed it like the people at the clinic, so that's really what it is that I get endless emails. weekly. I'm making an appointment for my mom, sister, dad, brother, friend, not just under 18, only if they're under 18 and a lot of families don't realize I'm 17, I'm just like you. about to fall into a crisis, you can still demand treatment after age 18, you can't do it anymore and many families don't know what to do now, there are techniques like motivational interviewing, which is basically what you are trying to improve. the person's motivation to get help, you are not saying that they need help, but almost mentally changing them so that they realize that treatments are a good thing and that good things will come from it, it is not a familiar manipulation because many times we will . say oh I'm the problem, I'm the one who needs to go treat me, maybe all you need is to be in treatment, you know you'll get it versus number one, let's lift the stigma around therapy, yeah, it's not a punishment gang right, no, it's a privilege, I think it is, but I think a lot of people are terrified, sometimes I look around my therapy room like I don't like what's happening, do you think I'm going to take it like that? giant eyeballs or not and they split their heads open, you know, so I think there is a sense that the family system is manipulating or doing something like that, but for it to really be good for you, it's about you, but there are many The Families feel that they help us deeply or that we have tried everything.

Communication tone. Boundaries. We are exhausted. We are tired and cannot undergo treatment. I get it, I get it all the time and in some cases it really burns down a family system. So much so that people and the family system start to get sick. What you just said, I know is resonating with people. I mean, this is very, very common because I know the amount of emails that I get, so I can only imagine the amount of emails that you get if it resonates with you if you have a family member who lives with borderline disorder. personality and you feel like you are on edge and you feel like you don't know what to do or you feel like you don't know Know how to handle these situations.

Go see Dr. Romney's series on living in a family when someone has borderline personality disorder provides you with these practical step-by-step tools and techniques that you can use to mitigate the situation and then, if you are in a position to go to, you know what. this this is a lot I need to get away how to take care of yourself we're not just saying well now you have to adapt your whole life to someone else's preferences, you know, they teach us and we also give you the tools to take care of yourself and I think which is why it's so powerful, no yeah, just a selfless act, there's also some self-care in it, self-care, self-compassion is absolutely critical for families of people living with borderline personality disorder, I mean I think with anyone you know. with any mental health issue, but it is a reciprocal two-way street in which there has to be attempts on both sides to understand the other's experience.

Yeah, that gets really critical and sometimes it can be hard to remember that families are complicated because it's not just someone you've known for five or ten years, it could be 30 40 50 years, that's right, you know, or they They shaped you or your children, who shaped your parents' adult lives, so these are very complicated, deep, profound relationships in In an ideal world, people with borderline personality might have the opportunity to go to therapy with their family system and keep in mind for Kyle that when people reach adulthood, the way we talk about it, you would almost think they were like you.

We're talking about mother, father and siblings, maybe in some cases, but in others it's a person who may have a husband or a wife and they have children, so these types of patterns may either be affecting the children in a home and that raises a whole host of other issues because I pay a person with borderline personality disorder absolutely can be a parent and a very effective parent, does not require treatment, yes, and if there are concerns on behalf of the other parent that this father is unpredictable, it's really interesting. I have worked with more than a few clients who had good parents, particularly borderline personality mothers.

There were times when it was like you had the magic mom, it's like she did everything except blow pixie dust out of her ear and then there were times that were scary, yeah, you know, and if that's the case in that family system, it would be addressed because really the only person who can talk to the borderline adult and to the household is probably the other spouse, especially if the children are young, yeah, so it gets pretty complicated and you know we can't impose a treatment and, in the absence of being able to do so, many people feel deeply helpless about what to do right.

I want to give it to our YouTube. viewers a sneak peek of his series, so check this out, but when we come back we'll hear from dr. Romney's take on what BPD should actually be called, but right now there's really an inside look for viewers. I get a lot of emails from people who say they have BPD and they email me and I can absolutely feel the frustration that they have because when their therapist or even if they just do their own research, which is even more dangerous online and self-diagnose them with BPD, There's a lot of stigma online, oh yeah, about those who are absolutely deep, so if you support some with BPD, chances are they've felt that. stigma, yes, even outside of the family and I can't imagine what it would be like to read about how everyone has a stigma against you and then enter a family where you feel like there is more of that stigma, or even because I don't understand it or you don't like it.

They understand, yes, it is, if you actually talk to the person who had a borderline personality, they will say, I don't want to be like that, but you know what we've all been through there. Kyle, there's a moment when we're feeling irrationally about a stressor in our life, literally, and we're like, okay, there's a different way I can think about this. I can't go there like five times a day, yeah, I can, and so when we think about we all struggle with this really almost like you can there's a multiplier there and that's how the person with it feels.borderline personality is that in fact they don't even set out to wreak havoc on their family system but there is a psychological storm and that a family sometimes steps aside and says: you know what it's not about me, she's fighting.

The people who often have the most difficulty with this are parents, because the parents who are going to take responsibility say that something I did must have caused this. and unfortunately they may not be entirely wrong so they have their own form of pain that they are fighting through. but right now that person can only take responsibility for their feelings and even if you let them attack you, in It's not really about you. You can watch that entire series on Med Circle calm dr. ramin, in your opinion, what would you call borderline personality disorder? I would probably call it emotional and interpersonal dysregulation disorder.

I think it lists some of the stigma, at least tells us that what's really going on is that it's actually just a dysregulation and an emotion, and that We know we have other regulation disorders, you could argue that substance abuse is a dysregulation disorder, eating disorders are dysregulation disorders, intermittent explosive disorder is a dysregulation disorder, so in that way it could slide into other patterns that we also have a research base for. and the treatment that we have for borderline personality, what I would like to call emotional and interpersonal dysregulation disorder, those treatments could also apply to those other patterns.

Yeah, I think borderline personality has a much bigger stigma than those other patterns, esp. by the doctors, but even as soon as people find out, they say, oh you know, and we don't want people to back away, yeah, if you like dr. Romney's name goes ahead and give us the thumbs up. I'm going to count the votes to see what you prefer, and I'll be sure to head over to Medical Circle Communications to learn more about Borderline Personality Disorder and other mental health topics. I'm Kyle Kittleson, remember. Whatever you're going through, you've got this, thanks for watching.

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