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It's Not Your Fault

Living with someone who has borderline personality disorder.
Let's deal with the name Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) first. The name is incorrect. In the 70s psychologists believed people with BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) were on the border of psychosis and neurosis. This was later found to be incorrect, but the name stuck. It does not describe the condition accurately. 

BPD is more prevalent in women. One in fifty men compared with one in fifteen women. This is easily explained when you consider that women have been physically and mentally oppressed for tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years.

In a nutshell BPD is a genetically inherited and/or environmentally caused mental health condition where you lack self confidence, assume the role of victim, potentially or actually self harm and fear real or imagined abandonment; and then you spin stories, idolise/demonise loved ones and use anger/violence in an attempt to achieve equilibrium/security.

If you live with a BPD Sufferer (BPDS) it feels like your treading on eggshells the whole time and you may well blame yourself for the BPDS's (BPD Sufferer's) erratic behaviour. 

The main thing to remember is it's not your fault! 

The second thing to remember is that you must protect yourself first. You must remain calm when discussing (even if the BPDS wants to argue, scream and shout) and you must establish very clear boundaries as to what is acceptable to you and what is not acceptable to you (e.g. you will not accept being shouted at, insulted, abused or violent behaviour). 

Mindfulness can help both the person living with a BPDS and the BPDS. Getting the BPDS to admit they have a problem can be a very long road and it may only be when you can literally show them their own behaviour and discuss it rationally in comparison with an emotionally stable 'normal' person's behaviour that the BPDS starts to realise they are not like other people. 

Mindfulness treatment for BPD is proven to be effective. It uses the idea of the 'wise mind' being the perfect balance of the 'rational mind' and the 'emotional mind'. Regular readers will know, mindfulness allows you to differentiate keenly and in-the-moment what type of thinking you are experiencing and to manage your process and your actions in response to your process.

If the BPDS is a regular mindfulness practitioner, if they seek therapeutic help (for free on the NHS in the UK), if they have the support of a loved one, if they are strong and brave, they can more or less walk out of most of the behaviours associated with BPD by the time they are forty.

We thoroughly recommend the following book and it's associated workbook:
 
MBSR™

Secret Solutions VII

Our secret events encourage participants to put their past or present challenges* in a hat. For the lucky few that get drawn we discuss mindful solutions. Here are two that missed out.

Challenge I of II

 

“How to make people do their jobs properly? I ask somebody to do something (within their job description) and they sometimes ask me to ask somebody else, or say they would do the task, and they don't."

 

– Secret Event Participant

 

Solution


First of all make a record of every single time this happens. Make this record without emotion. Make it highly accurate and utterly without judgement. Any consequences of their actions should be totally and utterly verifiable. Record three instances and then setup up a meeting.

During the meeting ask the employee if they are happy with their work and if they have any suggestions as to how their work and work/life balance could be better. Accept all suggestions without comment and carefully note them. The main thing to remember is not to react emotionally to anything the employee says. 

Start to frame the common goals that the company, yourself and the employee share. Be clear about how efficient and easy it can be for everyone to pull together in the same direction and how difficult this can be to achieve. Again, ask the employee for suggestions on how to achieve this.

Using actual recorded facts and specific times and dates communicate the employee's behaviour, always posing the question to them, "Do you feel you and I could have handled this better?"

As much as possible, never use the word 'you' and always stick to the word 'I'. That is to say communicate your perception from your perspective framed as your perspective. Always be open to suggestions of how you can better communicate and/or be clearer about what you want and when you want it. 

The ultimate aim of the meeting is for you to listen and understand the thought process of your employee so you can better manage them.

If this approach repeatedly fails to work do the usual stuff that ultimately leads to dismissal: issue warnings, performance targets and eventually penalties. Finally - if absolutely necessary - show them the door. 
MEQ® Leadership

Challenge II of II

 

“Every time I try to learn coding, programming, I need to clearly imagine the usefulness of doing that but since I can't clearly visualise how useful it will be in an exact situation in the future I get stuck in this attempt to imagine and I can't focus on what I want even though part of me knows that I really want to do it and it will be useful for me. Can't do any work because this attempt to visualise distracts me."

 

– Secret Event Participant

 

Solution


This question almost answers itself, but let's make sure we all hear what the questioner/answerer has said. 

Firstly she/he does not enjoy coding. There is a goal, though it is devalued (i.e. hard to picture). What seems to be missing - however - is the joy of learning. All humans are creative and learning leads to creation. What we learn is only limited by our time on this earth. We can learn all sorts of stuff and not worry about 'filling up' our brains. 

Let's not lose track of the fact that coding must surely be one of the most useful skills of our time but if you don't enjoy it, or see the point, then perhaps it simply isn't for you. 

The problem setter is asking us directly about the 'monkey mind'. The constant babble that drags us along all day. Or - if you prefer - your ventral and dorsal medial pre-frontal cortexes. 

One of the very first things mindfulness does is allow you to quieten your monkey mind. Have a look at our What is MEQ? page for a very quick proof of the neurosynaptic changes that occur in your brain after practising mindfulness for eight weeks or more. Focus on the first pair of fMRI scans in the picture. 

So...

...ultimately...

...sit...

...sit...

...and sit again.
MEQ® Taster
* All challenges are presented exactly as written.
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