Borderline Thinking | 10 Borderline Behaviors and the Thoughts that Cause Them

welcome to my scientifically informed insider look at mental health topics if you find this video to be interesting or helpful please like it and subscribe to my channel closes dr. Grande today's question asks if I can identify some of the beliefs and thoughts that drive over are associated with borderline personality disorder so answer this question by looking at ten borderline behaviors and the thoughts that cause them this question about borderline personality behaviors I think is really getting at this idea that when people behave in a certain way to some extent that's driven by or associated with beliefs and thoughts and that's actually want to be core principles that we see in cognitive behavioral therapy CBT beliefs combined with stress and this leads to thoughts and then thoughts lead to behaviors so one technique we see in CBT is to try to identify those beliefs and thoughts this helps us to change the thoughts so that we can change the behavior so this exercise of decoding behaviors is actually part of CBT now borderline personality disorder which I'll call BPD has some similarities and differences when compared to narcissistic personality disorder which I'll call NPD I recorded a few videos on the thoughts behind NPD so I thought it'd be good to kind of give a comparison here so with both disorders we really see a lack of insight so that'll be evident when looking at these thoughts and behaviors NPD has an association with deception borderline personality disorder really doesn't now anybody regardless of their personality can tell a lie but again deception is not considered to be a characteristic of BPD now the thoughts of somebody would be PD are going to be congruent with the behaviors the behavior makes sense in light of the thoughts but the thoughts are going to be distorted just as the behaviors are often counterproductive distorted thinking translates into disorder behavior this conversion from thoughts to behavior can occur both intentionally and unintentionally but either way this has terrible consequences for the person who has the disorder and potentially for people who are exposed to some of the more extreme behaviors sometimes different personality pathology can lead to the same behavior but for different reasons we see their different purposes for engaging in behavior therefore to provide a little bit of perspective across personality pathology when I go through each of the behaviors and talk about the borderline personality sort of thoughts that are associated with them I'm also going to look at another thought from another personality disorder that could lead to the same behavior a couple important things before I get into this list when I use the word thought in this context it could also be a belief attitude or expectation it's just easier to say thought and just to keep this presentation orderly my examples will presume that the individual with BPD and the romantic partner are married this way I can use the term wife or husband to mean the person with the disorder instead of saying a person with borderline personality sorter each time right so again just for expediency for the first five examples the wife will have BPD and for the last five the husband will have BPD so starting with behavior number one this is ID lysing a romantic partner so the wife thinks that the husband is the greatest person ever of course this is very common with BPD so it could be the thoughts here well the first one you are my one true love right so there really kind of focusing on that person the wife is focusing on the husband as her one true love next thought you are the one that's going to save me from myself right that's fairly popular thought and the last one I can now finally have true happiness and not feel empty and we know a chronic feeling of emptiness of course is part of borderline personality disorder so now looking at dependent personality disorder a thought that might lead to the same behavior from this person disorder if I idealize you you will be more likely to support me right so basically this is just a mechanism to not lose support from the perspective of dependent personality disorder moving to behavior number two this is devaluing the romantic partner right so the first one was idealizing and we see devaluing so the wife believes that the husband is the worst person in the world so again this cycle the love-hate cycle fairly common with BPD now looking at the thoughts I knew you were bad news from the start because nobody could be that perfect right so there's some irony here because the wife is the one that believed the husband was perfect in the first place right so the lack of insight here is evident next thought I'm unlovable so I find it highly suspicious that you really love me right I think this is pretty common with BPD there's this disbelief that somebody could really love the individual from that individuals perspective right there just don't understand how somebody could love and connect with them and want to be with them the last thought I have a lot of rage that needs to be directed somewhere other than just toward myself right so this just kind of spreads out the suffering a bit now looking at a thought from narcissistic person is order again devaluing is the behavior how dare he believed that he's worthy of being with me so we see a bit of a different tone they're moving to NPT now looking at behavior number three after a breakup with her husband that definitely seems permanent the wife declines an offer from a new love interest like to go on a date even though she's attracted to the new love interest she indicates that the husband will be coming back someday so again we see this idea that the original husband was really the one they were destined to be together and even though they're not together and they won't ever be together again the wife holds out hope and will not move forward romantically even though she really does want to be a no Mantic relationship so the thoughts here you could never be as good as him right so this is her talking to the person asking her out a date the next thought my husband understood me like no one else can't and then the last thought he must come back and accepting an offer of a date means I'm admitting he's not going to come back so this is really about what people want to believe versus what they need to believe and this is one of those areas where the wife needs to believe it and that's always the type of belief that's associated with a more profound lack of insight so now looking at this from the perspective of avoidant personality I can't risk the pain of rejection from this new love interest so I'd rather hold on to the fantasy that my husband is coming back moving to behavior number four the wife attacks a romantic rival so like maybe a love triangle that forms and the wife attacks that other person now this isn't an everyday thing we see with BPD but I have seen this many times right this does happen when things get really heated and complicated in these relationships so the thoughts here this romantic rival is the reason why my husband left me she is the problem right so even though the husband of course owns some of that behavior the wife is gonna blame that romantic rival next thought this attack proves that our love is real right so in a way the wife being violent the wife attacking in her mind is proving that her love is real not just her love for the husband but her husband's love for her there's an intensity about relationships that involve borderline personality disorder and that's really typify in this particular thought the last thought this is what she gets for messing with true love right so this is again kind of holding that relationship is really special and everyone else is just in the way and they need to get out of the way or they're going to get injured so now moving to antisocial person I thought this love triangle and the subsequent attack is a good pretext for me to steal money from the romantic rival right so sometimes with antisocial it's not so much about strong feelings of connectedness but more trying to get something out of the actions right so instrumentality wanting to gain something material from the actions now moving to behavior number five this one's kind of wrapped up with the frantic efforts to avoid abandonment we see this is one of the symptom criteria for BPD and specifically here I'm looking at excessive communication through texting that's actually fairly common it's a common manifestation of this symptom criterion so the thoughts here if I keep communicating with him constantly he will know that I care right so this is an effort to make sure he understands how much he's loved second thought if I don't keep communicating he will believe that I have lost interest so this is kinda like the opposite side of the coin I have to keep communicating so he knows that I love him and if I don't he'll think that I don't love him third thought I'm so scared of being rejected I just don't know what else to do so sometimes this type of communication just really comes out of anxiety just not knowing how to sit sure the relationship we see a profound sense of insecurity with BPD moving over to paranoid I think he's having an affair and if I keep communicating he will know that I'm watching him right so again kind of a different tone there from a paranoid perspective now moving item number six this is impulsive self-harm this is moving over to the husband though so the husband has BPD and the wife does not and specifically here I'm talking about behavior after a breakup so the first thought when she sees that I hurt myself she will understand that she caused this and she'll come back right so again we see lack of insight next thought this will teach her and everybody else to take my demands seriously so sometimes the behavior is simply to prove a point the last thought this will prove to her that I love her more than anyone else in the world right so again we see kind of a love communication style that is not appropriate or helpful now looking at this from the point of view of histrionic Personality I'm going to be the center of attention right so a little more straightforward with that particular personality disorder in terms of this behavior so now looking at the 7th behavior this one is related to effective instability and this is how somebody makes sense and interprets their own emotional instability so that's one really getting out here with the 7th behavior it's not the affective instability itself it's how somebody makes sense of it so the thoughts here my feelings always point toward the truth right so this is something we see often with BPD the husband believes that the feelings point to the truth they are totally congruent with what's actually happening in the world the next thought my feelings are 100% justified this is kind of similar to that first thought again the feelings must have wisdom they must speak about something that's true so therefore they would be justified last thought I wish I didn't feel anything at all so sometimes numbness is more desirable in these situations for the husband and sometimes it's not and we see people kind of go back and forth with BPD on that issue of feeling not so not feeling anything at all looking at this interpretation from the point of view of antisocial personality this display of unstable emotions will make people fear me so in a way they look at the back-and-forth between extreme emotional states as being potentially helpful to be feared and respected behavior number eight is anger and we see this quite a bit with BPD the first thought I hurt so much and somebody else must be to blame right so the anger is a way of involving other people in one suffering the second thought my anger will make other people suffer and make them understand how much I'm hurting so pretty similar here a little bit more deliberate like I want other people to suffer in order to comprehend my suffering so not just the blame component but the understanding component and the third thought others have always hated me and this is my revenge right so this one even more targeted so somebody is lashing out and anger because they need to set the record straight people are out to get them people hate them and they're simply reciprocating so about looking at anger from the perspective of obsessive-compulsive personality sort of OCPD maybe if people see that I'm angry they'll do a better job with their work right so this kind of speaks to the productive nature we see with OCPD a focus on efficiency productivity getting all the work done sometimes anger can be useful at least in the mind of somebody with that disorder now looking at behavior number nine this is counter-attacking after being criticized so this could include a display of anger but it's really due to a specific criticism the thoughts here we are destined to be together so it makes no sense to criticize me so this is just by not understanding why criticism would happen when there's true love next thought her criticism makes me feel ashamed and that's too painful let go without striking back so we see here a clear overlap with vulnerable narcissism the last thought even though we were arguing at least we were still communicating right so this is really getting at the idea that the communication sometimes these relationships is not good and the husband doesn't know how to get a conversation started that's productive so sometimes responding to criticism at least starts the talking right not a helpful way to think about it but one is actually fairly common looking at the same response to criticism from the perspective of narcissistic personality when she criticized me she doubted my perfection and I cannot let that go unanswered behavior number 10 being rejected by the wife then stalking her right so looking at these thoughts you have no right to leave so kind of a sense of entitlement which we usually associate with NPD but we can see it with BPD sometimes as well next thought I will not exist without you and this we speaks to kind of a core component I think this connects back to the chronic feeling of emptiness we see with BPD relationships kind of define the person's value right the husband and curses value in that relationship so losing it is beyond catastrophic and the last thought my love would not feel so powerful if it wasn't meant to be so kind of a Destiny component here we see wrapped up with the stalking behavior now looking at this one point of view of antisocial personality suitor this relationship is over when I say it's over right so kind of an aggressive and commanding dominant type component we see from anti-social as opposed to BPD so there are some behaviors we see with BPD and some of the thoughts we might see that are behind those behaviors I know whenever I talk about topics like borderline personality there will be a variety of opinions please put in the opinions and thoughts in the comments section they always generate an interesting dialogue as always I hope you found my analysis of this topic to be interesting thanks for watching

Channel: Dr. Todd Grande

Views: 312,149

Keywords: borderline thoughts, borderline personality traits, borderline personality disorder, BPD, Cluster B, personality disorder, antisocial, narcissistic, histrionic, frantic efforts, unstable relationships, identity disturbance, impulsivity, suicidal behavior, affective instability, chronic feelings of emptiness, inappropriate or intense anger or difficulty controlling anger, paranoid ideation or dissociation, CBT, borderline behaviors

Id: j4tiRoPDpdg

Length: 15min 1sec (901 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 28 2020