BPD Can Make Your Love Life Stressful
With Internal family Systems, IFS, we do not look at a person as having a diagnosis, or mental illness. We see “criteria” for diagnoses as a part of a person and we get to know that part with our true Self [with a capital S]. Everyone has a Self, which is the aspect of our being that knows how to heal our emotions naturally. Just as when our physical body gets a scratch from a rose, it begins to heal all on it’s own. Our Self knows how to heal our emotions, or the parts of ourselves that are hurting. As with a large wound or broken bone, we need help from someone to heal, so it is with a large emotional wound. With the help from a counselor, a person with great emotional wounds, can also heal.
In the medical world, for insurance purposes, the American Psychiatric Association came up with definitions of disorders based on criteria, what we would think of as symptoms. This gives the mental health world a common language and agreement on what a condition is. This is a good thing. It means if someone fits all the criteria for say, depression, anxiety or Borderline Personality Disorder [BPD], then the insurance company deems it medically necessary for the client to receive counseling services to help them function better and have a healthy productive life. From the perspective of the DSM, one of the criteria of BPD is that the person takes extreme measure to avoid real of imagined abandonment. This person also has little skill at emotional regulation. Imagine loving someone deeply, who constantly fears you will abandon them, how that distrust must feel, when hopefully the relationship is built on trust. Imagine how confusing this would be when you clearly adore your partner. Also imagine the object of your love is quick to anger. It may makes it difficult to communicate with this person when they are furious with you. It becomes a challenge to resolve some of these misunderstandings.
From your perspective if you are the one with the diagnosis of BPD, you may feel anxious and worried most of the time imagining the one you love deeply is about to leave you, because you don’t deserve their love, and fear they are cheating on you. That frantic feeling can cause you to feel a great amount of anger. Anger can make it difficult to think straight. When in emotion mind, it is difficult to think clearly. When you are wanting to feel connected and loved you may be feeling just the opposite.
There is hope. You can begin to explore all these feelings, from a place of compassion and curiosity as if these feelings are merely one part of yourself. From your true Self, you can understand this part that is confused and angry. You can discover where this angry part, this one that feels terrified of abandonment came from. From this place of understanding and validation, the angry part will be able to begin to release the burden of anger, which it has carried for so long. This is how Internal Family Systems [IFS] begins to uncover the reasons for emotional distress and from that place of understanding heals this one who suffers.
At Surf Ridge Counseling, Amoret Phillips can help connect the real you, the Self of you, meet and communicate with all your parts. Working with all your parts, this system, this Internal Family, begins to communicate and work in harmony. From a place of loving kindness as you heal your own wounds, you begin to witness your partner from loving kindness and compassion. It is possible to become so skillful that you no longer meet the criteria of BPD.
For more information see BPD Treatment
