Surviving Your Favorite Person Relationship

hi it's Dr Fox and in this video we're going to talk about getting over or dealing with getting over your favorite person so strap in hang on like share and subscribe and let's get into it now a favorite person for those of you who may not know this is an identified external object usually an individual that you attribute in immense sense of self-importance it is more than just a simple relationship in many ways that people along the BPD Spectrum or people with BPD traits they over connect in a hurry and when they over connect to this individual they build or see their life built around this person it's almost as if this person becomes their third long right so now you've got three lungs and you need at least one of those lungs the favorite person loan to breathe the other two can come and go doesn't matter matter but that favorite person loan is critical and what happens is that many individuals they build up their life around this individual to please this individual even if that favorite person is toxic even if that favored person is disrespectful unkind manipulated also in some situations and people write me about this quite often that they recognize that they're the favorite person of the individual with BPD that it is an over attachment it is an over connection and that the individual with BPD is trying to enmesh with the favorite person and the favorite person feels a lot of guilt about what can I do about this how do I manage this what do I do and in this video first what we're going to do is we're going to talk about the favorite person from the perspective of the individual with BPD then we're going to talk about the favorite person from the perspective of the external object the object of other the favorite person so first let's talk about it from the person with BPD so person with BPD just as I mentioned right so they build their life around this they idealize this individual now they may periodically devalue them and they split their perception this is something that we often see in individuals with bpds that idealization devaluation and it's the splitting and what that does is it creates these unstable relationships now these unstable relationships over time when you have idealization devaluation that fluctuation causes the unstable relationship so it's harder to stay in those relationships but for whatever reason the individual stays connected to that person and it can go on for a very long time and the longer that it goes on and has nothing to do with the Adaptive or maladaptive Behavior but the longer that it goes on the deeper or more intense the fixation is and becomes so the individual with BPD feels like this person becomes my everything and the fact that they're there today and tomorrow or two years five years or since 1995 that they've been with me for so long they're validating the fact of existence that becomes the scary part that if we were to separate break up whatever it may be that I will then become invisible and go away that I will become a ghost it's like the scariest thing it's like the BPD ghost right the BPD ghost is that ghost that floats around you know and no one can see it or hear it no matter how loud that goes to screaming no one sees it or hear it it becomes almost irrelevant to the rest of the world and that's just a mild conceptualization of what it can be like for an individual BPD having a favorite person and the consequence of that relationship ending and that can be really really dangerous and detrimental to the individual with BPD because then once that relationship chip is severed then what happens that gives that family in the head right that I talk about in my other videos from Lauren Smith Benjamin and she talks about that family had that chorus that perpetuates these maladaptive beliefs behaviors and patterns that strengthen your BPD and all that goes with it so then that breakup that loss of that favorite person man that volume gets turned it's like spinal tap I hope you know what that is it's a great movie if you haven't seen it but it gets turned up all the way up to 11 and it's so loud and it echoes and and what it says is that you're worthless right there's nothing you can do about it everyone knows that you're this invisible ghost you have no value or relevance in the world now that your favorite person is gone even your favorite person has left you and that adds to abandonment fears emptiness and rejection sensitivity which are tend to be three classic components of BPD they're not always classic core components and I talk about core content and surface content in in my books I got something right back there but in my books as well as many other videos as well because that's what we got to tap into but that's what happens that favorite person that relationship leads and you're like oh man what do I do and sometimes what happens is your brain will try to process that loss try to process the the separation of such an important object or figure or individual in your life and you may even dream about it you may dream about that favorite person and this could be years later and a lot of things that are important to know is that the dream is not based on an external individual's interpretation it is based on the individual's interpretation who had the dream how do they see it it's important to realize without going really really deep into into dream analysis and so on so forth but how they see it and sometimes individuals BPD because there's such a strong connection and need for that favorite person that the dream they can feel like oh this tells me to contact this person this tells me that I need to see them again or have experience with them again or you know what that I should have accepted the toxicity the abuse the you know the abandonment the inconsistency whatever it may be and it doesn't mean it's all the favorite person right sometimes it's those maladaptive beliefs behaviors and patterns that go along with BPD that add to the dissolution of the relationship but we're talking about that favorite person right so what do we do so now you've had the dream and you feel like that's a signal for you to reach out to that person you have to go and try to reconnect well no you don't what that is is your brain trying to process that perhaps you're moving on from that individual perhaps it's okay to move on it's okay to challenge that belief and it is a false belief that the dissolution of a relationship even one is important as a favorite person relationship it does not mean that you become that ghost that your value has evaporated operated that is absolutely positively a million percent not true that that relationship with your favorite person even though at times you've had this sense of safety and that's that's that's one of the biggest biggest components is that you have this relationship where you feel safe you feel connected even if it's unhealthy and toxic you still feel safe and you still feel connected and you might think that doesn't make any sense because the person isn't nice right or if they are nice you may over attribute that or if you don't believe that you you deserve to be treated nicely then when they're nice to you you don't feel like you deserve it so you engage in more maladaptive police behaviors and patterns which is destructive of the relationship which adds to the tumultuous relationship so we have to challenge those things we have to challenge that core belief I'm gonna tell you how you doing here's what I like to do with my clients I like to tell them to remember that if you've had one relationship you'll have another and that the relationship you're in now whether it's favorite person partner whoever it is this is not the last relationship that you'll have in your life unless you want it to be and you don't have to sell yourself out you don't have to degrade your relationship and sacrifice your sense of self and well-being to be in that relationship to be present with the rest of us to not be that ghost that you might be so afraid of now let's talk about the other perspective from the favorite person perspective now the favorite person perspective a lot of times what happens is they have that individual who is along the BPD spectrum and they get very fixated on them it's that idealization devaluation that it becomes this intense and a lot of times it's really fast it's like you've met right you've had sex you've had these connection experiences where it's so intense and it's this passion and all this other stuff and then this person is overly attached to you they want to enmesh with you which means that they often individuals with BPD have an unstable self-image so they don't know who they are if they don't know who they are and they have or identify a favorite person then they want to connect with them so that they feel whole and that separation if you watch the first half of the video you know that that fear of being a ghost but that also if they connect to someone else and they can build their life around that person and that becomes the pressure and fear of that individual who is a favorite person you feel this intensity and because it becomes so intense and you may see that individual along the BPD Spectrum flare up they may get really frustrated and they may act out they may yell and scream and have issues and other types of things or they may pout they may be very quiet they may be what's called a quiet type of BPD and I can put a link here if you're not sure what the quiet subtype of BPD is I'll put the link here if you want to check out that but what happens is is that as that favorite person becomes too much becomes too intensive so what do you do because a lot of time when people that are identified as favorite people favorite person they will reach out to me and say what do I do I don't want to hurt him or her but I don't want to be in the relationship anymore I'm afraid that he or she is going to hurt themselves and I think what's important is to certainly be honest but it's also if you feel that person may hurt themselves it's also as best you can develop strategies for safety for that person as best you can right do it in in a way that is compassionate and it doesn't mean that it's going to be that singular conversation it may be something you have to talk about over time it may be something that you have to address if you've seen the first part of the video that if this doesn't mean you're going to go away it means you're going to find somebody else but for whatever reason it's just not working out and I want to encourage you that if you are the favorite person don't unload on them don't think that you're going to teach them something by making them feel more broken or by chewing them out that they're going to have a Eureka moment hey wait a minute you're right I shouldn't do this anymore let me tell you because any disorder is not a choice and you got to understand that is that there are beliefs behaviors and patterns that become maladaptive that the person has learned over time that they fall into doesn't mean they can't unlearn it it just takes time and it's really hard and then if you add in those relationships particularly favorite personal relationships that it can be even more complex so the level of complexity that's associated with that favorite person relationship is immense I'm not trying to put more pressure on you I'm trying to tell you that you have to connect with the person you have to as the favorite person have good boundaries don't do things you're uncomfortable with you have every right to speak your mind to be clear but be sure that you're clear and allow time for that person to process it and then discuss it you don't deserve to be yelled at you don't deserve to be mistreated you don't deserve to have things thrown at you or anything like that you have to have self-respect that goes to those boundaries and that individual needs to learn that and the way they learn that is by exhibiting boundaries in in a calm inappropriate Manner and I know it's tough I know it's tough as I mentioned I have talked to and had many many you know interactions with folks that are favorite people and they don't know what to do because they're very afraid about someone whom they care about even if the relationship isn't continuing and it's important to help them process that as best they can and it can be very very scary and the two of you going to a mental health provider a qualified mental health provider who might be able to help either restore the relationship that would be great or if it becomes the dissolution of the relationship that's okay too but it's working through it it's processing it with that person and it can be really scary for an individual who is that favorite person to feel like they're all alone out here it's just me and this person who I'm becoming afraid of or who I'm concerned with or concerned about and I think that always approaching it in a compassionate manner in a manner that you put that concern first for that individual right don't think that making them feel worse they're not going to learn anything and that is a complete fallacy please don't do that and that being upfront having the discussion about the concern and what to do going forward is critical as well so I hope you found this helpful and I'll see you next time bye bye

Channel: Dr. Daniel Fox

Views: 19,651

Keywords: favorite person relationship, dependency, fear, codependency, BPD, perspective of relationship, dr fox borderline personality disorder, dr fox narcissism, dr fox splitting, dr fox bpd relationship, dr fox favorite person, dr fox narcissistic parents, relationship challenges, difficult relationships, relationships, bpd favorite person, bpd favorite person obsession, bpd favorite person explained, bpd favorite person how to stop, bpd favorite person break up, favorite person dynamics

Id: rNUBbjUTAbM

Length: 13min 33sec (813 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 19 2023