How To Compensate For Borderline Personality

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

The first and most important step for the borderline person is to study himself very deeply. You can use absolutely any method available to you - books, audio, video. One of the biggest failures of border guards is not having a good knowledge of life. Often this situation is associated with childhood - little talked with the child. That is why compensating for knowledge from life is a rather important criterion. However, here you need to take into account an important point - the borderline personality needs to first of all get to know himself, sort out his deepest feelings and feelings.

This is the case when you cannot do without a psychotherapist. Why? It is quite difficult to understand oneself when there is no mirroring (some experiences and feelings of the borderline personality are simply repressed, and an outside person is needed who will explain what is really happening). In addition, much in the structure of the psyche of such people is tied to human relationships (something that can be compensated only through others - trust, security, unconditional acceptance, love). In fact, psychotherapy is a kind of artificial substitute for love, but nevertheless, feelings in psychotherapy are real, real and sincere! Sometimes there are exceptions, but such situations are very rare.

It is difficult to work in the real world with real people who owe nothing to anyone, over their fear of being abandoned, over the fear of being absorbed by a partner. In this case, the therapist is a safer figure (from an ethical point of view, he is obliged to provide psychological protection for the client, to protect the boundaries of therapy). Accordingly, you can rely on a psychotherapist, work with him your fear of rapprochement, distance, etc. However, the choice of a therapist should be taken very seriously.

So why is the therapist so important directly to the borderline? Without this, people with a borderline type of psyche will perceive others as not good enough, not loving enough, not sincere enough, dangerous (in other words, most often there is rejection ahead of the curve - I will leave you before you leave me). At the same time, the feeling “I’m going to be abandoned now” comes from within the consciousness of the borderline personality. How does it look in practice? They won't necessarily leave me, but if I am a borderline person, then I perceive certain signals in a person's behavior as threatening our contact, so just in case I will take the first step so that in the end I will not be so painful.

What can you do yourself?

1. "Shake yourself up" and try to look at your relationship with your partner in a less emotional, sober and smart way. Ask yourself a question - what feelings affect you too much in another person or, conversely, make you reject him? It is important here to understand your real feelings, because of which you break off the relationship with your partner. Note that the borderline does not have an internal representation of a good object, therefore, this projection will be transferred to other people as well.

2. Work with your emotions. This is not a case where feeling is more important. In a borderline personality, all feelings are mixed, and the prism of perception through childhood memories is too strong (often people with a borderline type of psyche impose all their contacts and life events on situations from childhood). Constantly falling into the funnel of trauma is not a realistic enough attitude to what is really happening, so it is important to work with your emotions and be able to restrain them when the affect overwhelms.

3. Work through your anxiety - it is rooted in guilt, shame, fear, and many other complex feelings. It is important to understand when your anxiety builds up, what arises, why the tension becomes too much. Try to prevent things like this.

4. Aggression in a borderline personality is significant, and here it is important to understand your state, from the moment of irritation to anger and rage. Learn not to show your aggression. The borderline tends to do well in this matter - I'll be silent for 3 days or a week, and then I'll substitute him too! Learn to talk to people instead of turning your emotions out. Another significant nuance - you need to understand why it is difficult for you to talk about your feelings (fear of punishment, rejection, destruction of your object of attachment, etc.).

5. Work through your fears. Find a safe person (the best option is a psychotherapist, but sometimes people find a safe in all respects an object of affection in the person of a husband / wife) and a safe place where you feel at home - cozy and comfortable, nothing annoys you.

6. Develop your empathy for other people. The borderline has a low level of empathy for the emotional state of others. Train your selfishness at the same time. You need to learn to understand your desires, demand, take, ask for it from other people, but at the same time figure out what happens to them in response to your request. Learn to understand reality, don't live in your fantasies. Empathy develops only when you are interested in the opinions of others, their perception of reality, thoughts, and in general you get feedback. Otherwise, empathy is based on one's own projections and some wrong prism of perception.

Understanding your desires is very important, perhaps this is the most essential criterion. If you master this skill, it is almost half the victory. By understanding your true needs, you will be able to express them verbally (I need to talk to you now, support me, give me advice, etc.). Try to divide your acquaintances and friends into categories - you can ask someone for advice, another cry and complain, with a third it is enough just to talk, and the fourth can be asked for real help (bring, bring, help, etc.). If you learn to ask for help and support in a healthy way, without rejection, take and be grateful, not feel humiliated, this will help you become more successful in life and bring peace of mind to your psyche. However, we are often not good at asking for help, and this does not only apply to the borderline!

For people with a borderline type of psyche, due to insufficient representation of a good internal object of attachment, it is especially important to have in their circle of friends, relatives and acquaintances a person from whom you can ask and take, on whom you can rely. The skill to ask for and accept help is to learn, learn, and learn. You should not be afraid of refusals, react to them more easily, analyze and consider the situation from different angles, explain to your inner child the reason for the refusal (“You were refused because you are bad, and not because of hatred! You are not rejected! can I help you!"). Be sure to clarify for yourself all the circumstances: "Why can't you?", "Why are you refusing me now?" Do not be afraid to break off relations with those people who do not really appreciate you, do not want to help, do not want to be useful. Such people will only re-traumatize your psyche. However, you should not stop communicating with a person the first time - try to find an approach, ask in different ways and different things from the same person. If you see its uselessness in your life, and the relationship causes more pain than positive, it is better to break it off immediately and not suffer. In such cases, do not dwell on the negative experience you have received and keep looking further for people who will help and support you.

Another important point is that the borderline personality is characterized by frequent breakdowns from relationships that occur precisely on the basis of a deep trauma of attachment, emptiness, lack of a feeling of some kind of good connection with the inner object of attachment. Do not scold yourself for this, this behavior is due to upbringing, childhood and the mother's object. Be sure to analyze why you broke down at that moment, what became too tense in the relationship, and you could not get through this situation. Sometimes a certain person can give you advice, but cannot wipe away the tears and console, and you are not able to survive such treatment and reject it completely, although you could use the first resource. In addition, it is important to develop an observing ego that will allow you to detach from affective feelings at the moment of falling into the trauma funnel.

All these tips are quite universal and can help not only the borderline personality, but also people with a deep level of neurotic organization of the psyche, which periodically breaks down into the borderline. At some point, we all can break into border guards, we all have affects - life is difficult, and it is not always possible to withstand the stress.