Pt. 1. The Impossible Connection: Loving Someone w/ Borderline Personality Disorder. See Warning

[Music] borderline personality disorder as I as I talk about in my book the human magnet syndrome why we love people who hurt us it comes from being brought up by parents who are unable to nurture and care for their child almost universally when we look at a borderline adult we find out that they had a very abusive neglectful or traumatic childhood during those critical years in which a parent is supposed to bond nurture and help a child Thrive emotionally physically these children um were were brought up in a hostile sometimes dangerous um environment so when a borderline client starts to look back and try to piece together why and how did they become um or develop this disorder we tried to show that they are victims themselves that they were brought up in an environment where they were perpetually abandoned they were perpetually neglected they were perpetually hurt and early in their early development of their psychological coping skills were [Music] stunted B Border Lines start their relationships extremely quickly and intensely borderlines have an an undescribable urge to feel loved and to love their whole life going back to those critical years early in early in their development they never felt worthy of love and affection and were always experiencing abandonment so there's this deep hole this deep Chasm of emptiness that um um that b Border Lines all feel and when they meet someone that they find attractive Charming beautiful something happens something a switch clicks on and they experience this love that they've always dreamt of um so intensely it's magnified it is it is I would estimate five times the intensity of what normal regular typical people feel when they fall in love and we know that's pretty intense it all gets traced back to this feeling of emptiness this feeling of lack of self-worth and when they meet someone that they feel loves them and they um and they love and they love them they get to live in this fantasy world that they've always dreamt of have to be loved completely and they lose themselves and it happens quickly another another um explanation to that is Border Lines usually find Partners as I described in my book the human magnet syndrome who fit their personality quite well and typically they're codependents and these two individuals find comfort in moving fast especially in a sexual Manner and relationship and they lose their identities they lose themselves in the sexual act and mistake that for the normal developmental path that most people have to take to build a relationship and that happens quickly and sex becomes the action of connection and [Music] love [Music] borderline personality disordered individuals can be very seductive they can be very exciting people in fact it is it is difficult if you don't know that person to spot this disorder because they seem so wonderfully happy so wonderfully upbeat so wonderfully um positive they connect so deeply and intensely it's very alluring um it brings in um the type of people that themselves are empty are sad are lonely or who have um poor self-esteem like I say um and I've said in my trainings in my book it is two people that fit together perfectly like a dance couple the borderline and the their partner find a sense of comfort and release of sadness pain and and anxiety in the relationship and if you are that partner who finds the borderline beautiful attractive and charming and you are also um suffering from loneliness and uh poor self-esteem it is a very quick and compelling um experience and that is why the relationships with the borderline and their partner often happen so quickly and explosively but if we're looking at a what I would call a healthy or developed individual and they meet a borderline they're going to sense that something's wrong because healthy individuals or balanced individuals take their time and don't jump deep into a relationship and don't lose themselves they have what I call emotional and physical boundaries that are up there that are up until they get to know that person and little by little progressively they move forward and they let go but the borderline and and their partner it happens explosively sometimes in an instant and to that partner it's [Music] compelling when a borderline and a codependent meet it is a potent connection it is a connection that feeds that which is missing in both people they share this deep sense of loneliness this existential void this feeling of emptiness although they're very different clinically and diagnostically both suffer from a sense of of of deeply embedded shame and when when two people who are suffering and needing someone to take that pain away and they meet it's an explosive event um in an article that I wrote uh for the Huffington Post I called which is called relationship math I explained that codependence and Border Lines are really underdeveloped people so I use the term half individuals because a full individual um a person who has good self-esteem has a well-developed self-concept was loved and nurtured as a child is um a fully autonomous and independent person and when they meet someone there's an interdependency in the relationship but the borderline and the codependent who are half developed find each other and finally for the first time feel good about themselves and that is part of the euphoria that I talked about earlier that draws them into the relationship in this dance of explosive almost um druglike uh feelings of euphoria and that is and until the borderline and the codependent address that parts of their life whether in the present or in the past that makes them feel empty and alone they are going to be um they are going to be highly susceptible to this Behavior Uh to this personality [Music] type borderline personality disorders categorize as a personality disorder and although all the personality disorders and I believe there's nine um are very very different they all share a few Central traits and one of those traits is a lack of insight into the problem or the disorder um it's not that they're in denial they just can't see it so a a borderline often will refuse Psychotherapy will not uh believe they need Psychotherapy or psychiatric um help because they don't recognize the problem in themselves they tend to project um onto others um what they can't accept in their own selves for example um if if they feel if they feel um someone hurt them they will they will blame them for being mean and judgmental when in fact that's a part of themselves that they're too fragile to actually admit or understand so when we're looking at trying to get borderlines help which is which and there is help there's really good therapy out there good treatment the challenge is is getting them into therapy because the borderline whose central theme is abandonment if you suggest to a borderline in a loving way you know sweetie honey I really think you need help you should um why don't you go get therapy the borderline who is so filled with Dread of the possibility of being abandoned hears you're broken and I don't you're not worth my love and they react with a rage and anger they don't hear the empathetic um altruistic nature they respond to it as someone is abandoning them or judging them as such they don't see it as an invitation and will not go into therapy and shame and denial is is a central element of why they do not seek therapy because the shame that is embedded deeply in the unconscious or the center of the psyche like most of the personal disorders is too painful to feel so it's relegated to the unconscious and as such they cannot recognize it they can't acknowledge it so they um blame other people and and don't see it in themselves without a recognition of the deeper elements of their Psychopathology or their psychological problems getting them into therapy is often very [Music] difficult [Music]

Channel: Ross Rosenberg

Views: 865,676

Keywords: bpd, bpd relationships, borderline relationships, bpd codependency, borderline codependency, borderline love, borderline intensity, The cause of bpd, the cause of borderline personality, the etiology of BPD, The eitology of borderline personality disorder, ross rosenberg, signs of borderline personality disorder, treatment for bpd, causes of borderline personality disorder, causes of bpd, bpd symptoms, how to treat bpd, treating bpd, treating borderline, curing borderline, npd

Id: diEhdbGC-mg

Length: 10min 44sec (644 seconds)

Published: Fri May 09 2014