Friendship & BPD

I have a strong network of friends. In fact I have a network of strong friendships. It is the first time in my life that I have felt secure in such a network. Many of my friendships have been allowed to develop because the turbulence in my life has slowly stopped over the past twelve years when I have stopped the crash and burn pattern of my relationships, jobs and life. Before I was aware of my diagnosis I was a nightmare friend. I confused people. I was intense in my expectations of time, feelings and shared experiences. I burned many friends out because they found it exhausting keeping up with my constant needs and demands for time.

It was frustrating to be my friend, because on the one hand I constantly presented as being in need, but would refuse to explain my upset. I frequently disrupted social events by storming out or quietly disappearing. I went missing for weeks on end, then would return with obvious injuries but refuse to explain where I had been or what had happened to me. You see, I felt that if they were 'really my friends' they would just accept me and they would actually know what was going on without me having to explain - after all that was what my 'real friends' would be able to do.

I had no boundaries, it took a long time for me to trust people on one hand, but on the other, you could find me disclosing distressing details about my abusive past within minutes of meeting. One of my friends used to describe this as an 'Alma Grenade'. It was not uncommon for me to launch these highly explosive grenades into conversations at parties, then move quickly on to crazy comedy riffs, as if I had not launched an emotionally explosive nuclear bomb. My behaviour would swing from extremely distressed and tearful to what can only be described as 'dancing on the ceiling'. When I was feeling 'hyper' I would insist on reckless behaviour. Walking in risky areas at night, ignoring any risks to myself or any others around me. Frequent reckless driving particularly at speed along twisting country roads, frequently driving at high speed on motorways. If you were my friend you may have to be a passenger on one of these 'trips'.

I expected my friends to be there 24 hours a day 7 days a week, while at the same time, fully expecting them to 'let me down' - usually when they imposed reasonable time limits and or gave me limits on when I could call. Imposing such boundaries would inevitably result in the friendships ending. My reaction to endings was extreme, I could not tolerate even being on the same side of the street as former friends, and often, forced myself to relocate entirely (usually to the other side of the country or even abroad) following the ending of a friendship.

So, at the age of 48 I find that I have one friend (and her husband) who have lasted the course since university. I have no childhood friends left, having burnt my school bridges long ago. My journey is littered with friendships and relationships. At the time of my diagnosis at the age of 42 I was in the process of repeating patterns of friendship 'implosion', having lived here nearly five years. Up until that point, apart from my childhood home, that had been the longest I had managed to live anywhere, ever.

Six years on, I have completed nearly two years of DBT (Dialectical Behaviour Therapy) and five years of care under Mental Health services. During that time I have made and KEPT a number of friends and feel I've reached a point where I can be a good friend back. I no longer push friendships to breaking point, in some kind of perverse self fulfilling prophecy that 'I am unloved and unlovable', which is the best way to describe the emotional impulses behind my self destruct approach to friendship in the past.

I have found it helpful to use the DBT Inter Personal Skills particularly when I have been tempted to return to my old patterns of relating in friendship. This has meant that over the last three or four years, I have managed to weather typical friendship hurdles and misunderstandings, without entirely having to give up on my ability to make and keep friends:

The DEAR MAN skills aim to help me achieve objective goals - often feeling that I have a right to ask for fairness in service as a customer meant that I never questioned businesses, or was able to make clear, what were my preferences. After all, my needs have never mattered. Sometimes in friendships it is important to be honest about the practicalities which may mean that I can't do this or that. To tell my friends that I would prefer not to do something does not mean that the friendship has to end. If I'm honest this ability to express my needs as valid is something I continue to struggle with:

D Describe
E Express
A Assert
R Reinforce
M Mindful
A Appear Confident
N Negotiate

For the person with BPD the idea that I can negotiate disagreements and problems in friendships without being rejected is one of the most difficult to come to terms with. I have had occasions on which the following GIVE skills have helped me to explain any issues without feeling that I am risking the friendship. They have helped me to negotiate issues without them becoming 'do or die' moments for the friendships:

G Gentle
I Interested
V Validate
E Easy Manner

Feeling secure in myself and my value to friends has been vital in keeping balance in my friendships. It is hardly surprising that if I have no idea who I am, or that who I am has any value in any of my relationships, it is hardly surprising that I have experienced and persevered with damaging relationships and friendships, whilst rejecting those which valued me. This is a paradox for those who care for those of us with BPD. Sometimes we are so suspicious of genuine love and care, abusive relationships somehow feel more familiar. I regret the number of caring relationships and friendships that have foundered on the rocks of my lack of self esteem. The FAST skills are designed to help me to deal with issues and relationships which may be harmful to me, or continue to reinforce my lack of validation. One symptom of my lack of self esteem is a continual feeling that I must apologise for everything, just in case I am to blame for all that is wrong in the world!

F Fair
A Apologies (no Apologies)
S Stick to values
T Truthful

Learning what these skills are is only the beginning for me. Along with the basic DBT skills I have made some discoveries of my own, which are still working their way out in my day to day friendships.

1. Friendship is different from Intimate Relationship. One of the main problems I faced in friendships was the confusion between close friendship and sexual relationships. Given the experiences of confused sexuality born of the experience of childhood sexual abuse, it is hardly surprising that I have at times confused care and concern, for sexual interest. Inevitably this has led to mistrust and confusion in the boundaries within friendships and unfortunately opened me up to further sexual abuse in relationships as an adult. Boundaries are important for me as someone suffering the symptoms of BPD. I am not a hugger. It is important for me that physical intimacy is not a part of friendship. If you find me physically attractive and you want me to respond in kind, it is vital that you are clear about your expectations of me, this may seem a bit childish, but I am easily confused by 'signals' and need clarity. This is important because physical attraction adds problematic dimensions to relationships, that I may not be equipped to manage, particularly if I remain unaware of 'agendas'. For me, relationships cannot become games of flirting, my emotional responses are too erratic and my ability to read other people continues to be impaired. Clarity prevents unintended hurt feelings on both sides.

2.Ground Rules are Vital For the person with BPD all relationships and friendships are akin to trying to negotiate a minefield without any map or GPS. I have learned to be honest with people about the things I find difficult. I am a good actress and one of the coping mechanisms I have used in the past is to mimic more successful behaviour around me. The problem for me in relationships was that often I was only aware that my grasp of friendship dynamics was faulty after the fact. 'Learning from your mistakes' became a matter of 'that didn't work, let's see if this works'. The problem is that any models of 'acceptable behaviour' I followed were not necessarily right for me, because they took into account the personalities, values and beliefs of another person. In all my current friendships I have learned to listen to myself - it is easier as I have been using DBT skills which mean that I am no longer lost in a fog of indefinable feelings, which are swinging wildly out of control. So now, if I need some time to myself, I am able to say so. If I feel I need some company and have nothing planned I know who and when I can call as friends. I also have learned that unplanned calls or visits where friends are not available is not a rejection of me. I can therefore cope when friends tell me, No. This means that they in return don't feel they have to 'walk on egg shells'. They know I will not spiral out of control emotionally just because they have other plans. It has been important for me to be clear about this and to keep checking it out, instead of going into a corner and brooding until I believe I have been utterly rejected. It also means that I have a responsibility not just to disappear and blame friends for not knowing a) where I am or b) what I am feeling.

3. I take my Friends at Face Value. I no longer suspect motives or 'read minds'. If my friends say to me 'I missed you' or 'It's really good to see you', I do not assume either a judgement of my absence or that there is a suspicious motive in 'buttering me up'. I am learning to listen to them 'non-judgementally' and I am learning to accept that if they are spending time with me, it is just because they actually enjoy my company, or that I have to buy them things to 'reward' them for doing so. As a result I have found that my close friendships are no longer fraught, nor do I feel that I need to buy expensive (and embarrassing for the recipients) gifts to 'buy' their friendships. Learning to do this is validating in itself.

4. No Friend or Person can Undo the Pain of the Past. One of the impossible expectations I have put on all my relationships has been to

expect my friends to fill the emotional void within me. It has been a hard learned lesson that No One can every undo the traumas of the past. So many of my friendships foundered on the rocks of my need and expectation that their unconditional love for me could and would undo the distress I felt as a result of an invalidating childhood. No relationship however intense could withstand such an expectation. My friendships today have to be taken as they are in the here and now. In a strange way accepting them for what they are in the present, is managing to undo the damage of failed friendships in the past. They are gone, the pain from them failing is an echo of the past, it does not have to the reality of my present.

5. Friendships Aren't Bound by Vows. Unlike marriage, my friends and I are not bound together by legal or religious vows. It is not a contract as such. In the past I have tried to impose conditions that were unfair and binding on my friends. Conversations with friends which begin 'Promise me you'll never...' are deeply unfair. They are born of the desperation not to be abandoned and the fear of rejection. True friendship is given and received freely. Sometimes there is a natural ebb and flow to them, as people move in and out of our lives. Such flow of relationships is so difficult for me as a BPD sufferer, because, after all you're getting a job on the other side of the world is because I am such a hateful person - isn't it? If I were able to open up to my friends about the depth of my belief that I am so utterly unlovable that I must the cause of all separation and abandonment in my life and the lives of others, they would be shocked. But that is the reality behind my desperate pleas for you to promise, never to move away, never to change, never to get married etc... Accepting that I cannot do so has been freeing and has allowed me to grieve for the loss of friends who have had to move away or who have moved out of my life simply because we both have moved into different phases in our lives. Every now and then I need to be reminded that my life is a journey and not everyone I meet on the road will stay with me for the duration of the whole journey. In fact the only relationship in which I can expect a promise of a life together, is one which has been formalised in marriage, and even then, for many this relationship too can end.

As I have moved forward with my Interpersonal Effectiveness Skills and my basic friendship rules I have found that I am able to develop honest, stable friendships and I am willing to move outside a very narrow circle of one or two close and trusted friends. As a result my social life is developing faster than I expected.

Here are a series of Interpersonal Effectiveness Handouts which give excellent examples of when to use the different skills: http://www.dbtselfhelp.com/html/interpersonal_effectiveness_ha.html

Measuring Progress in Recovery

I'm at a strange stage in my recovery. It's not a 'crossroads', I'm not in 'limbo', I'm not even 'stagnating', but I am living with a sense of tension and unease. My problem is the future - or the fact that I cannot see what's going to happen in the future. Now, in reality I have never been able to see ahead in time, but I have always had plans, ambitions, career paths to follow, so it created the illusion that I had some control over how my life was progressing.

I don't think I'm any different or less able to read the future than anyone else, I have just become more acutely aware of how quickly my plans can go awry, just like Rabbie Burns' 'mice and men'. Having had an unremitting cycle of work and retraining, relocation and travel over the years, it is an alien experience to have lived in one place for more than a decade. Up until the last three years I have also had the stability of a career with a definite career progression. Surely that is what stability is built on? Yet, I don't think I have been as peaceful and untroubled by emotional storms as I have in the past year.

Nonetheless I am troubled by the short term nature of my ability to provide for myself. Going by the patterns of the past I SHOULD be relaunching myself in a new direction, be completely absorbed by a new job and praised for my external progression. My problem at the moment is that any opportunities to help out or volunteer are short term and sporadic. I feel the pressure to go back to work, but the idea of applying for full time work is so troubling that few people venture to ask and I daren't even consider the possibility, even though, on the surface, that would provide the greatest stability - financially.

As I write this, I realise I am in a process of adjusting my life to new priorities. My greatest needs are to manage my emotional life so that I don't regress to the inexorable daily cycles of damaging emotions and behaviours that have marked most of my life. That means that looking ahead is not helpful.

I am only able to plan up to a month in advance. I have a monthly meeting as part of the Experts by Experience group of my local NHS Trust. I am still meeting with people one to one to help them with Mental Health needs as part of my involvement in the church. Over the past three months, having had some disruption to my emotions caused by the pressures of managing the needs of elderly parents who live at a distance, I have learned to set the running of a five week course to one side - and learned that the sky didn't fall in because I put my own health first. Overall, it means that I have managed my mental health well and managed not to slip back into emotional dysfunction.

I need time to be able to reflect on these changes as realities which indicate that my progress in recovery and managing the symptoms of my BPD continues, but is not at an end, or, indeed an end in itself.

One of my biggest challenges is creating my own patterns without the regular hours of paid work. This includes valuing what I am able to do as helpful and contributing to those around me as I am able, without having the external validation of a pay packet at the end of the month. After over 35 years working in various jobs and careers this continues to be a battle. If I am able to turn up to events at church that means I am part of a community and I am valuable simply as myself. When I am asked to help out in developing a website and writing the odd article that means I can enjoy using skills and experience I have developed over the years. I need to change my internal validation compass to accept that I am contributing in a positive way without having a salary point to indicate my 'progress'.

Of course there is a daily reality of bills to pay. I know that it would be good if my progress could result in rejoining the ranks of those who are paid to work. At the moment I am learning to accept that whilst I am capable of working, my emotional resilience casts a question over how far I would be able to sustain a full time role. So, again I come back to looking ahead and seeing only bends in the road. Acceptance means that I settle my ambitious, career driven self to the here and now. Recognising the need some days to give myself a break means that I would not be the ideal employee at the moment, particularly in a nine to five, five days a week environment. Some structure would be nice, though.

Meet George - My Shaggy DBT Coach

During the past week I met some animals who helped me remember how to use 'opposite emotion', 'Distraction' and 'self soothe' skills. They also reminded me of the key principles of mindfulness: notice, describe, participate, non-judgemental, one mindful, in the present moment.

George, is the runt of his litter of ten pups, he is a true 'shaggy dog', but when I met him during a difficult week at home with the family he greeted me with unadulterated delight and affection. Somehow, he managed to help me feel accepted and validated. And yet he's considered to be a not very bright dog.

George doesn't care what anyone thinks of him. He launches himself with enthusiasm and overwhelming fondness, at all visitors to my uncle's farm and most people consider him a nuisance. I loved him at first sight. He was a bundle of unconditional acceptance and affection, just when I needed it most.

We became immediate friends and he followed me all over the farm yard, even pressing himself between me and the miniature horses as I petted them behind their gate. He helped me manage my emotions and reminded me of the importance of not missing out on the simple joys in the present moment, which I often miss when flooded by pain from the past or anxiety about the future. If I could have managed it, I would have smuggled him back home with me, so that he could join my own shaggy mindfulness coach, Smilla. I will remember the lessons he taught me and I will remember him with affection.






And his friends the miniature horses:

My DBT Validation Treasure Box

This is my 'treasure box' full of positive things to remind me that when I am having a bad day, the whole of my life has not been bad. The box is full of little things and big things, achievements sometimes, but mostly little notes of thank you and appreciation. It has been said before and will be said again, why is it that the most appreciation we give to people is reserved for when we lose them? A few years ago a friend challenged me about this and since then I have tried to remember to say that I appreciate what other people have done, or mean to me, when I can. I used to think it was cheesy, but I know it means so much to me, when I receive little notes of cheer and encouragement and hope it can be an encouragement in turn to others.

In my box, I have:

1. A programme from the first school play that I was stage manager in.

2. A 'Certificate of Adoption' as an honorary Auntie to my friends' children. This was lovely at a time when my own nephews and niece have grown out of childhood, so I'm able to extend my role as 'fun aunty' for a good ten years more! This was all the more meaningful as both boys are themselves adopted and so they know the value of the 'Adoption Certificate'.

3. Emails, letters, cards saying thank you for little things I've done - reminds me that I'm not as selfish as my depression tells me I am.

4. Photos of different groups and clubs I have belonged to - reminds me that I do belong, especially when I'm feeling isolated.

5. Ticket stubs, maps and information from special days out with special people who lift me up. I can read through them and remind myself that I can be good company and people enjoy spending time with me.

6. Some of my first published blogs - someone else was interested in reading my story!

7. Leaving Cards from previous employers - often full of specifics about what my managers were going to miss about me - again why wait until I'm leaving to tell me I'm good at my job? Still very much appreciated since my redundancy to remind me that I was once useful and can be useful again.

8. Letters from important people like my uncle and aunt who really helped me to survive my childhood - much of their wisdom was written down when they were able to, I still read their letters to remind myself of important truths that counteract my negative experiences in life.

9. During my time on DBT I started writing down little positive comments, that usually I would ignore or discount. I have a little rainbow post-it note pad which I use for this and add to my treasure box. This was a form of 'exposure' to counteract my internal negative running commentary of invalidation and is taking time to filter through. It works in much the same way as the jar of coloured beads, two for each positive experience, comment, event etc, one for any negatives. Often with BPD it is easier to discount the positive and it is important therefore to keep an objective tally of positive versus negative.

10. Tickets for my first Graduation Ceremony - this was so precious because I had suffered my first breakdown in my final year and had to repeat the year to graduate.

Above all, this box is amazingly uplifting. It is so easy to focus on the people who have hurt us and the times when we have failed in relationships or work situations. How often do I pore over photos of lost loves and memories that are painful, why not instead focus on the relationships I still have and memories that will build me up? So often I'm my own worst enemy - anyway,another reason why my Treasure Box is so important to me.

So seldom, especially when struggling against the invalidation of childhood, do we appreciate ourselves as members of teams, groups, friendship groups or even just as we are. As much as we are touched by the lives of others, we bring something to the lives of those around us. If we can learn to listen to the positives we can begin to balance the negatives of our memories with the positives. Life is, after all, light and shade. No life is all good, or all bad. Often our emotional struggles strand us in waves of negative thoughts about ourselves, but little tools like this can help us bring balance back to our perspective.

Do you have something similar? What sort of things are you able to put in? How much weight do you give to positive comments about you? Try something new, just saying thank you and accepting it at face value - it's starting to make me feel better.

Learning to Manage the Calm

I have found myself in a strange place recently. More often than not, my life has taken on the tone of routine, almost humdrum and certainly lacking in anything approaching crisis mode. Suddenly the corkscrew roller-coaster that has been my emotional life since childhood has untwisted. I no longer start my day with a spasm of gagging and/or vomiting due to overwhelming feelings of panic and anxiety. The dramatic swing of moods from one hour to the next has slowed down and I find myself better able to recognise and manage both the up and the downswing of moods to which I was once a martyr.

So far, so good. Over two years of DBT skill building and therapy have brought me to a point where I am no longer confused by the overwhelming clouds of emotion that used to swamp and overwhelm me. I find myself better able to reflect on difficult emotions, I no longer run from them, but accept them as evidence of my humanity in the face of significant trauma throughout my life. I still have moments, usually when I have tired of my new structured life. I have caught myself being tempted to familiar path of self destruction, perhaps in a different way than in the past, but nonetheless, I have found myself short circuiting good things in my life.

I know that now, rather than being plagued by capricious emotional storms completely outside of my control, I can learn to recognise the signs earlier. The storms still come, but I am better equipped to survive them.

Except, that I sometimes petulantly, deliberately choose to ignore my emotion regulation skills. In my last 1:1 DBT therapy session the admission that I am regularly staying up through the night, brought an almost exasperated response from my therapist - I mean she's right, just 'what am I playing at?' It's bothered me as I reaped the whirlwind this week and found myself tossed about on the kind of emotional storm I haven't really experienced for at least a good few months. I've realised I haven't been practising my skills when things are good, so that they are second nature when I really need them. I didn't need to go through the exhausting emotional maelstrom and the exhausted aftermath, (still feeling it three days later). Or at any rate, I could have used my new skills to limit the damage from my negative emotions quicker.

Instead, I revisited some familiar old feelings and reassured myself that I could indeed consider myself a total failure, as my internal monologue has convinced me of since my childhood. So, what does this tell me? It tells me that we are indeed products of our past. It tells me that when we have had the mirror of our minds distorted by our childhoods of invalidation then it is all but impossible to recognise a fair reflection of ourselves in it. It tells me that I am not finished healing and recovering from my BPD symptoms. Just because the untwisted mirror image of my 'good life' seems shocking to my invalidated mind, does not mean that I cannot become accustomed to it.


There is something else that this has taught me about certain emotions. Having spent so long learning to manage and 'sit with' negative emotions, I am having to learn to use the same skills to manage positive emotions. One of the reasons for my disturbed sleep has been a propensity to allow the lightness of emotion lead to 'hyper' behaviour, the energetic surges from feeling 'happy' have resulted in really productive moments, but I have not controlled these moments and channelled them, but allowed myself to be carried away into the wee small hours of the morning.

As a result it's back to the basics of distress tolerance and emotion regulation for me. Looking after myself and my lifestyle in order to provide a stable foundation to keep going on a day to day basis. In a sense I am fighting the same enemy, but at a different end of the spectrum. Positive emotions are equally difficult for me to manage, mainly because I find them uncomfortable as they are a dissonant voice challenging my self critical inner monologues. As much as I need to use my Mindfulness skills to 'sit with' my grief and sadness, I need them to 'sit with' and become comfortable with feeling good about myself and what I can achieve in life.

In a sense I am fighting a battle that is familiar to me. I am using my skills to keep me and my emotions in the here and now. Where my negative emotions tethered me to the past, my positive emotions risk catapulting me into anxiety and the future. So, when I started to feel nauseous and was throwing up at the end of last week, I maybe could have been more aware that all was not well.

What is most encouraging for me is that I am no longer unable to articulate an amorphous emotional cloud, but I am naming the emotions and how they are affecting me at the moment. I know what I have to do to regain my equilibrium, it will take more time and effort on my part. I have the skills I need I just need to use them. I don't need to beat myself up for this latest storm. As Scarlett O'Hara memorably said 'After all, tomorrow is another day.'

Can Success replace Parental Validation?

I was six when I won my first competitive swimming medals. Two golds and one silver. Although very young, this event had a profound impact on my life. What it did for me was let me know that here was a world in which I could be noticed - not only that but it dawned on me that I might be considered valuable, certainly by the coaches and club which 'head-hunted' me, along with my brother, after this auspicious start in schools swimming. So began a determination to work hard at being the best - always in the hopes of my parents noticing - however, unusually for parents of competitive swimmers, they rarely attended our appearances at galas and Championships. We were always the kids who were picked up from training etc by the waiting car.

By the time I had left home aged 18, leaving behind my parents and their casual indifference to any part of me as a person, the only validation I registered was from over-achieving. Ironically, I was so numb to encouragement and praise that I have always considered myself to be a failure - despite being a county level swimmer, despite completing three successful degree courses in my life, despite holding down very responsible jobs for over 25 years.

I didn't notice that my periods of 'instability' had a regular pattern to them, or that there was a link between the emptiness I felt inside and the childhood traumas I had survived. (It has taken three years of hard work and therapy to accept that much of my childhood was indeed traumatic). It was only at the age of 42, when an amazingly compassionate GP (now, alas retired) persevered with a sustained period of emotional instability and considerable time off work, that I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. For the first time people started to make sense of what I thought of as my worst faults: 'och, she's highly strung', or 'she's just oversensitive'. Not to mention my white hot temper and inability to live with myself, let alone, anyone else!

I found giving up work almost impossible because that was where I was most comfortable, where I felt confident, where I had a professional persona which had defined boundaries and rules for dealing with people. I didn't have to divine people's motives about me personally. Although emotionally demanding, my caseload allowed me to ignore my own problems and focus on helping others manage theirs. Problem was that I had shut myself off from all relationships outside work - not that I had no friends, it was just that I had learned it was easier to skate along on the surface of relationships.

In the end, though, I had to acknowledge that I had run out of 'emotional steam' and stopped 'functioning' as my GP so nicely put it. Now, just over a year since I gave up paid employment to focus on attending DBT therapy and recovering, I've realised that feeling successful was the only means of validation I had built into my life. And that obviously didn't work.

Now I'm facing a major shift in my attitude regarding what it means to lead a successful life. Do I return to similar demanding roles as the past? Or do I acknowledge that even Christmas was too much for me to handle, let alone contemplate returning full time? For me it has been a struggle to accept that even without a defined, paid, role I am worth something. If the message from your parents was that you didn't matter, then no amount of achievement (as defined by external values) can help fill the emptiness inside.

What has helped me is to accept that there is a purpose to my life, as it is, regardless of certificates, salary scales or other measures. My belief in God is a starting point - I am taught that He loves me as I am. As with my basic practise of Mindfulness, focusing on truths about myself takes so much time and practice. I am only at the beginning, but I know that reversing the lack of validation in my childhood requires that I dedicate myself to focusing on and accepting myself. Not that I'm advocating self obsessed introspection - no I mean focus on what is enjoyable right now, including what I am able to contribute towards helping others. When I can feel that I have a purpose and root in this world, then I can accept my experience of each moment.

Success for me now is not about replacing something that can never be replaced or changed, because that is in the past, but it has become the ability to knit my experiences from the past into my life as it is now, accepting the strengths and gifts it has given me that have brought me to this moment. In this moment I can accept that success is still being here after everything I have been through, beginning to be able to love and be loved by others. In this context, I don't need to seek a successful career - I just need to be content with my life as it is - right now! That I think is the essence of Radical Acceptance.