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Borderline personality disorder: a spurious condition?

journals.sagepub.com

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Re: Borderline personality disorder: a spurious condition?

#41

Post by Tao3300 »

100721 wrote: post #18
DougN7 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a close friend whose daughter has it. From what I understand she can’t weigh consequences out beyond about 2 minutes. Current emotional discomfort (like being slightly bored) is over the top painful. She can’t deal with “no” sometimes, like she goes so crazy the police have to be called sometimes. I read that it’s kind of like if you had no skin and thus all your nerve endings were exposed. Sitting would hurt,…

[flagged]

> Respectfully

Saying that doesn't make it so.

Re: Borderline personality disorder: a spurious condition?

#42

Post by mahesh_rm »

willcipriano wrote: post #33
zadler wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say a bit more about the headspace

My wife has it, mainly she is unable to conceptualize that she is wrong and thus never learns from experience. For example she started a lawsuit against the neighbors, that she funnels tens of thousands of dollars toward because she thought the property line was further into their yard than it actually is. She recently told me we own the entire town and made some nonsensical statements to justify that belief. I'm goi…

If you ever feel hopeless and want to catch up in a call to let it out, let me know. Been there, and was luckily able to get out because of no kids. The idea of being stuck with that person would have likely killed me, without a social net that could help in the most difficult moments.

Re: Borderline personality disorder: a spurious condition?

#43

Post by smt88 »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #4
uoaei wrote: post #3

My pet theory is that all personality disorders are essentially ingrained responses to conditioning which could adequately be described as CPTSD, roughly categorized into the different types based on the types of trauma complexes experienced and the learned responses to them.

The issue with personality disorders is whether something is a positive or negative is a subjective evaluation. Homosexuality was once considered a personality disorder. We consider narcissism a personality disorder, but we also reward narcissistic tendencies when one's extreme ego matches reality. Is there a single "correct" personality that we should all strive towards?

> The issue with personality disorders is whether something is a positive or negative is a subjective evaluation. Homosexuality was once considered a personality disorder.

It is (and was) easy to see that homosexuality is not a personality disorder because it doesn't harm anyone.

On the other hand, narcissism and BPD are harmful to both the person exhibiting the associated behaviors and to the people around them.

Narcissists may be incredibly successful in some cases, but they also self-report feelings of emptiness, loneliness, and compulsion.

Re: Borderline personality disorder: a spurious condition?

#44

Post by ganbatekudasai »

I have close experience with not one but two people with BPD, over a long time, and before and after treatment (no medication involved). You wouldn't know they have (or "had"?) BPD.

One thing I noticed is that the popular stereotypes about people with BPD (which is unpleasant stuff) appears to not be true. Or rather, I bet it is true quite often, but not a direct result of BPD.

Rather, it seems to be what happens when people with BPD don't know how to deal with it. The underlying condition seems to be "emotions are really strong" and especially "internal emotional feedback loops", and if you don't know what's happening, I totally get how someone might confusingly react accordingly to what they are feeling in a bad way: Lashing out, paranoia, accusations, oscillating between thinking someone is a saint versus someone is terrible...

The two people I know both have been in talk therapy (not anymore), and they are generally very introspective. Knowing what they know, they seem to be perfectly able to separate their internal tumult from reality, and appear generally pleasant at least to me. A big part seems to be to recognize the feedback loops early and breaking out of them. That was different in the now distant past, but again, I totally get how their confusion back then led to that past behavior...

Re: Borderline personality disorder: a spurious condition?

#45

Post by bandyaboot »

Tao3300 wrote: post #37
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is there a single "correct" personality that we should all strive towards? Functional

Yeah, but sometimes imperative is just easier.

Having a purely functional personality works just fine until you have to interact with the outside world.

Re: Borderline personality disorder: a spurious condition?

#46

Post by coldtea »

meepmorp wrote: post #34
pessimizer wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i.e. showing up to work, doing well at school, dressing properly, keeping the correct company, filial piety...

> filial piety Interesting addition, and not one that a lot of people who had shitty childhoods would say is appropriate to include.

>Interesting addition

Only interesting in ~ 2023. Was a standard addition for millenia...

Re: Borderline personality disorder: a spurious condition?

#47

Post by golemotron »

smt88 wrote: post #40
golemotron wrote: post #36

I can't find it but Scott Alexander had an essay where he laid out the hypothesis that some of the personality disorders (narcissism and BPD in particular) came about through evolutionary selection. It's notable that the prevalence varies among the sexes.

My ex is a geneticist and used to talk about how evolution rewards rape in many situations, including early homo sapiens. My point is: it doesn't matter whether narcissism or BPD are useful mating strategies. It's slightly interesting in an anthropological sense, but it has no bearing on whether they should be considered disorders and treated as best we can.

It can inform treatment options. NPD, unlike trauma initiated disorders, is not something that changes over one's life.

Re: Borderline personality disorder: a spurious condition?

#48

Post by ganbatekudasai »

ews wrote: post #24

My mom is BPD, she is a text book case. And I have been in therapy for almost a decade because of her emotional abuse. As many others have said, this paper is definitely beyond absurd.

Too bad, because from my (close) experience with people with BPD that I talked about elsewhere in this thread, good therapy can totally fix that. However, that probably also needs a great deal of introspection, and from my experience with people in general, it sadly seems like far from everyone is really introspective.

So if your mother is on top of the BPD someone who generally does not inspect and question her feelings, might not have helped...

Re: Borderline personality disorder: a spurious condition?

#49

Post by GauntletWizard »

meepmorp wrote: post #34
pessimizer wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i.e. showing up to work, doing well at school, dressing properly, keeping the correct company, filial piety...

> filial piety Interesting addition, and not one that a lot of people who had shitty childhoods would say is appropriate to include.

They only said that it was worth striving for, and not what needed to be corrected to make it happen.

Re: Borderline personality disorder: a spurious condition?

#50

Post by ganbatekudasai »

willcipriano wrote: post #28
ews wrote: post #24

My mom is BPD, she is a text book case. And I have been in therapy for almost a decade because of her emotional abuse. As many others have said, this paper is definitely beyond absurd.

My wife has it. You can go on BPD support message boards and read my experience over and over again written by other people. The stories they tell are all nearly identical to one's I've experienced personally. It's shocking how similar the behaviors are between people who have BPD.

It can be fixed, if the person is willing to.
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