(graphics beeping)
(graphics clicking) - Hey, everybody, my name is Kati Morton and I'm a licensed marriage
and family therapist. And today I'm gonna walk
you through the 10 signs of quiet borderline personality disorder, otherwise known as BPD, and six ways that we can better manage it. And if you like videos like this, make sure you like and subscribe. It really does help. But let's jump into today's topic. When people talk about BPD, they often talk about the
outward expressions of it. Things like us being impulsive or difficulties in relationships. We can get really upset easily. We can lash out. We can pick fights. We can also self-injure,
just do a lot of things that people can see in
outward expressions. When people talk about BPD, they often talk about the
outward expressions of it. These can be things like
us being really impulsive, splitting behavior, which means that we can see people
as all good or all bad. We can also lash out and be
really emotionally volatile. That's what a lot of
people will reference. However, what most people don't talk about are the quiet symptoms of BPD. These can be things like
self-injurious behavior deep depression, struggle with self-worth. And that is what we're
gonna talk about today, the more quiet signs of BPD. And before we get started today, just know that we are building a
studio outside of our house. And so if you hear some nail
gunning and compressors going, that's because the building is happening. It's very exciting, but
it's also incredibly noisy. Okay, with that, let's jump into the 10 signs of quiet borderline. And the first, I'm referencing my notes, is feeling empty, alone,
or numb a lot of the time. And that kind of disconnection between what I call like our
brain and body, that numbness means that even if we are
experiencing things in life, we're completely cut off. And in my experience
with patients with BPD, this cutoff happens because
we feel so much so intensely. One of my favorite ways to describe BPD is as us being emotional burn victims, meaning like if you think of a burn, any slight touch, ugh, it hurts, right, and it sends through all our nerves. And think of that when
it comes to emotions, that any slight, any upset, any pain that someone could cause us emotionally or that we experience is felt maybe 10 times what a normal person feels. And so we numb out, we
disconnect because, frankly, it feels better and a lot safer, okay. Number two. And sign number two is we
can feel like we don't exist or like we don't really know who we are. And I think a lot of that can
come from this disconnection or this numb out. But if we think about it, when we struggle with
borderline personality disorder, we fear abandonment so intensely that we can people-please, we can do a lot of other things to ensure people are around us and that they're there all the time. And that kind of behavior can mean that we're looking
outward for a lot of our needs and not looking inward. So we might not really know who we are. We might not have taken the
time to get to know ourselves or to connect with what's really going on. And also you can see this
connection with dissociation. I know a lot of my patients
with BPD also dissociate. And if we are removed from our reality, at least a little bit, right, to protect us from what's happening, we can struggle to feel like we exist because frankly we're
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Fabulous subscription. The third sign of quiet borderline is passive aggressive behavior. If you're wondering
what this can look like, this can be like me running late so that then you're running
late to get to that appointment or to get to the airport
or something like that. Maybe it's a subtle dig. What I call like a complisault, which is like a compliment
that wraps over an insult. That's saying like, "Oh,
you look so nice today. "Way better than yesterday." And you're like, "I'm complimented, "but I'm also offended simultaneously." Or I can say, "I'm
fine," like when I'm not. That could be passive aggressive behavior. We could also, referencing
my notes, be sarcastic. Ooh, purposeful ignorance. This is one that I think is
really important to remember is when someone pretends that they don't know how to do something or that they don't remember as a way of kind of making you feel,
it's almost like gaslighting, like, "Oh, I don't think
that's how it happened. "I just don't remember.' And that's kind of done as a way to invalidate your experience. Or "I don't know how to
run the vacuum," let's say, so then you do all the housekeeping. There can be a lot of these
passive aggressive ways that we interact when we
struggle with quiet borderline. Okay. Sign number four is
turning our anger inward. So it's like, I'm trying
to tell you that I'm upset without actually telling you. And all of these subtle
signs that I give off aren't actual clear communication. And this is just another passive
way that we can tell people that we're upset without
really telling them. Sign number five, impulsive behaviors. And this is very common, honestly, with all of my patients with BPD, but these are things like
shopping, like overspending. We can engage in risky sexual
behaviors, use illicit drugs. We can self injure. We can binge eat. There can be a lot of different things that we can do impulsively. And impulsive really just means that we're not giving it any thought or really time to make a decision. We're just acting quickly. I think all of my patients
who've had BPD over the years would agree that they have
engaged at one time or another in these impulsive acts. Sign number six is that we have an intense fear of rejection. And when we have this intense of a fear, we can act out like a
people pleaser, right? We can fawn all over people,
doing things to ensure that they're happy, really so that they don't leave us. And I've talked about this before, but often we think of people-pleasing as a way of being really
nice to everybody else. And there is that component to it. However, it's actually
a manipulation tactic. We please others as a way
to soothe our own system. And that goes for those with
quiet borderline, right? We are so worried that
people are gonna reject us or abandon us, that we do
everything in our power to make sure that they stay
around and that they're happy and we don't have any conflict. Sign number seven is we can
struggle with isolation. Often when we are so worried
that people are gonna leave us, reject us, abandon us, we can feel that it's safer to just be alone. Also if we have a lot of
emotional reactivity, right, and being around other people
just makes our self worth, you know, go farther down. Or we can feel like maybe
I don't even really exist on a deeper level. It can kind of like
exacerbate our BPD symptoms. We're not gonna wanna be around people. We're not going to want to
put ourselves in situations that will only make us feel worse. And so we can think being
isolated is the only way to be safe and to feel okay. Sign number eight is splitting behavior. And I've talked about this a little bit, but splitting is when people
are all good or all bad. And because those of us with
BPD are emotional burn victims, that's the way I like to describe it. meaning that any small
slight that can happen to us, we feel it very intensely. And then we can react out of it, right, in those other symptoms
I was talking about, like impulsive behavior. So what splitting is is
when someone in our life we think is amazing, perfect, and good and they're like our bestest best friend. And then maybe they just
don't show up for us one time or don't return our calls
'cause they're busy, but we feel that deeply
and it's very painful. And so instead of acknowledging that hey, maybe that person just isn't as perfect or doesn't love us
unconditionally, I don't know. Instead of doing that, we
say, "They're just bad. "We can't trust them. They
might abandon us or reject us." And we think they're all
bad and they're cut off. Or we can pick a fight
with them and cut them off. And so my patients with quiet borderline don't lash out at people so much, but they are very good at ghosting and just completely
disappearing from people's lives and disconnecting without
any communication. So if you find yourself doing that, where something small might happen, like they didn't text back
after a couple of days or they didn't get back
to you about that thing or they had to change plans last minute and you wanna completely cut them off, just take notice of that and think, "Is this helpful for me, "or could this be part
of my quiet borderline?" Okay. Even if things are going good for us and we feel like we're
moving forward in our career or with our relationships, we can start to second
guess ourselves and think, "You know, I'm not really worth it." And that like not feeling like we, we don't have a good sense of self, we can feel like we don't exist, right. We can kind of spiral out and think, "This isn't even working "and I'm not even good enough for this "and I'm not deserving of this." And instead of allowing
ourselves to be happy and have things move
forward, we can act in ways that can be detrimental
to us down the line. These could be things like, you know, dragging our feet in a project at work, or maybe picking a fight with
our supervisor at the office, or doing things in our relationships that will hurt us later. Or maybe not showing up for someone. There can be a lot of
different ways we can sabotage. But the thing that's important
to remember about this is that we may or may not
know that we're doing this. Sometimes we don't have an awareness of the sabotaging behavior. So when you start to
maybe feel not so bad, not great, but not so bad, maybe just pay a little extra attention to the ways that you're
acting in your relationships or things that are working
you towards your goals to ensure that we don't
engage in any of this. Just take notice of that and
think, "Is this helpful for me "or could this be part
of my quiet borderline?" Okay. And finally sign number 10 is hypervigilance. Since BPD is most often
caused from trauma and PTSD, we can feel very cued up and on edge and any loud noise can send us, it can trigger a panic attack or send us into a dissociative episode. We can just always feel
very overwhelmed and on edge and any small thing can just set us off. So pay attention to how reactive
you are to your environment and how cued up you feel. And one little tip I'll give you is if you feel this way often,
doing a full body shake, whoo, when we start to feel it build can give our nervous system the release that it so desperately needs. I hope those signs and
symptoms were helpful because quiet BPD is
really often misdiagnosed or missed altogether. I've had many of you tell
me you're misdiagnosed as having bipolar disorder
or major depressive disorder and they've completely
missed the other signs and symptoms that you
experienced because, like I said, they're more internal
instead of outward based. And so our therapists, our
psychiatrist, psychologist might have missed them. And so I think it's really important that we share in this information. And share in the comments
if you have any other signs and symptoms you think that I missed because it's really important
that we all learn together. And with that, let's jump into six ways that we can better manage it. (graphic clicks) My first tip, cognitive
behavioral therapy, or CBT. And essentially the goal of this is to notice those thoughts. If you're having self-sabotaging thoughts or thoughts about your self
worth that aren't positive, pay attention, stop the shit talking. Sometimes we just have to
recognize that it's happening. And instead of thinking that
we have to make it positive, that's like that toxic positivity thing that's been going around online, like, "Just think it's
good and it will be." No, no that's not how it works. But we can pay attention
to these negative thoughts and work to make them more neutral. It sounds silly and it
doesn't sound as positive. Like let's say this negative thought is, "No one's ever gonna love
me, I'm not good enough." Instead of trying to think, "Everybody loves me and I'm amazing," a neutral thought would be, you know, "I'm open to the belief "that I could feel better about myself." Now I know that that doesn't
feel a huge, you know, it's not hugely positive. It might not feel like a huge shift. But trust me when I tell you that paying attention to our thoughts and working them into a more neutral place will completely change your life and help out with a lot of
that negative self image and talk that happens
with quiet borderline. My second tip is dialectical
behavior therapy, otherwise known as DBT. And I took some notes because I broke down the modules of DBT. For those of you who aren't familiar, DBT runs along and you
move through modules as you work on your mindfulness, then into distress tolerance, like how can I manage upsets in my life? Then we work on some
emotion regulation skills. And then finally
interpersonal effectiveness, which means working on my relationship so I can better communicate
and feel more understood. So those are the modules of DBT, but I broke them into the first two, the mindfulness and distress tolerance are more acceptance modules. So if you find some of the things you're struggling with most
is acceptance of yourself or acknowledgement of what you're feeling, those are gonna be the modules
you're gonna wanna focus on. And then the second component,
the emotion regulation and the interpersonal effectiveness are more change-based modules. Meaning now I wanna go out into my life and improve my relationships, right, or find ways to better regulate
my emotions in the moment. So overall DBT is
incredibly helpful for BPD. It was actually created by Marsha Linehan who herself has BPD and just found that there was no real
therapy that was helpful for people who felt so
dysregulated and always feared, you know, had this intense
fear of abandonment. And so I cannot encourage you to look into a DBT-based
therapist in your area. It's truly life changing. My third tip, be more mindful of your
emotions and how you feel. I often personally will struggle
to identify my emotions, but I can tell you what
my body's telling me because I can experience it that way. That's easier for me. It might not be for you, but getting to know yourself, right? If I'm feeling super stressed
out, I might be more spacey. I don't sleep as well. My hunger fullness is off, right? There's certain things
that I know personally I'm going to feel, and I
can recognize it earlier so that I can intervene with
some helpful things earlier. And so take some time
to get to know yourself and how you experience life so that you can take care of yourself before we maybe lash out at a loved one. And a great acronym
from DBT is called HALT. And it stands for hungry,
angry, lonely, tired. Check in on those things, because if we're not taking
care of our basic needs, we are much more vulnerable to our emotional outbursts and upsets. Tip number four is to build
a healthy support team. This could be friends
and family, therapists, psychiatrists, whoever
is helpful around you. It can be really beneficial
to have other people to fact check with. When we feel things so intensely, it can be helpful to
talk to someone and say, "Hey, did you think that
person was being extra rude?" And they can say yes or no. And that can give us a
little bit of a breather before we maybe act impulsively. And having people to check in on us and make sure we're not isolating, overall having a support system
is incredibly beneficial. My fifth tip, use impulse logs. I have impulse logs. I think they're on page 190
of my "Traumatized" book. I might be wrong, but they're in there. And what a impulse log is,
is it has you write down what it is you're wanting to do. What's that impulse that you feel? Then it has you express what's going on, what's happening around me. Then the next is kind of like, these are like columns
I'm working through. So the third thing would
be what are some emotions that I'm experiencing? Or what is it that I
actually want to express? Then we have to come up
with some other things that we could do alternatively. And then we usually wait, like I have my patients after
they've done the impulse log, I want them to wait 30 minutes. And then I give them permission
to do whatever they want. Because the thing about impulses is if we don't act on
them within, honestly, for most people within
30 minutes to an hour, the impulse is gone. Not always, this isn't a
hundred percent of the time, but most often that's the case. So if we can just build
something into that time, an impulse log, and we wait and we use some distraction
techniques and things, we can prevent ourselves from acting in ways that we really don't want to. So I cannot recommend impulse logs enough. And my final tip, tip number six is what's called playing it out. Now this is a CBT tool. And playing it out means run me through, or run yourself through, what the worst-case scenario would be. That's usually easy, 'cause
we've already gone there. So tell me about it.
What would it look like? What would be that worst case that could play out in this situation? Then what would be the best-case scenario? Tell me if the, you
know, the world, always, everything always went in your favor and everything just happened
just in the right time, what would that look like? And then, finally, what is
the most likely scenario? And I find doing this practice
of best-case, worst-case, most likely calms us down, helps us see pretty much all the options out there and forces us at the end to focus on what's most likely to happen. And that can sometimes
assuage any of those, you know, impulses, urges,
or self-deprecating thoughts. I hope that was helpful. Like I said earlier, do you
have any other signs or symptoms of quiet BPD that you wish I had included? Leave those in the comments. Or are there any other ways that you best manage your symptoms? Please share because
it's with my expertise and your experience that we work together towards a healthy mind and a healthy body. And I'll see you next time. (graphics clicking) (metallic upbeat music)
